Upstream

Photo by Dan Zokaites.

We left early the next morning. The Porters were excited to be returning to their villages and the Team relished the notion this would be our last day of trekking. We passed the salt pond where we had lunched on our way in, then the landslide crossing. Some hills brought back vivid memories of how miserable I had been. I recalled seeking relief by focusing on positive thoughts during these climbs.  It is a pleasant summer evening on Lopez Island. Lin is sitting by a beach fire. I am walking toward her with two glasses in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other. She looks to me and smiles. I probably ran that film in my head two dozen times during the trek in. But we had all become much better at trekking in our rubber boots since then. We had also become much leaner and mentally tuned to the jungle. On this day it all seemed so much more manageable.  I had enough residual energy to offer up my truly awful Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation. 

We passed Dori's bridge without pausing, then into the series of steep hills we had already climbed three times prior. The Team rested at a river crossing, splashing cool water over our filthy bodies. Soon the village of Sunama was behind us. What had taken a day and a half to cover on the way in consumed just 5 hours on the way out. We were making excellent time so Steven and Dan decided to give the Team a rare 1 hour break, resting in the shade of a tiny wooden schoolhouse. They passed around fruit acquired along the trail; sugar cane, plantains, cooked yams, and a yellow citrus that contained sweet gelatinous globules that resembled tadpoles. 

A few hours more of trekking and we emerged from the jungle, moving easily now on the gravel road that leads to Sugapa. It occurred to me that I had yet to play one of my favorite games to pass time. "Hey Denis," I called ahead. "Yes?" " Jean Chretien and Celine Dion in a knife fight. Who do you like," I asked. "I don't understand," Denis said. "Jean Chretien." "OK." "Celine Dion." "OK." "In a knife fight." "OK." "Who do you think would win," I asked. "Is this joke," Denis queried with a confused tone. "I guess not. No, not really. Never mind," I said, retreating to the rear of the group. 

We took up residence in a tiny wooden shack in Sugapa. I was shown to an attached room with steel pipes for a floor. A 55 gallon drum full of rain water sat in one corner with a ladle hanging from it's rim. This was the shower. I retrieved a tiny bar of soap from my pack and a partially clean change of clothes. I wore the bar to a bare sliver, even washing my hair with it. Then I spooned the cold clean rain water over me. It was the first time in 2 weeks I had been truly clean. It felt marvelous. 

Several Porters milled around the outside of our shack. They knew we would be giving away some of our gear and each had a specific request. One very much wished to have my blue rain shell. He asked to try it on and I consented before realizing he intended to keep it. We had been warned to not make gifts, that this would result in trouble as jealousy bloomed. The Chief would receive our combined offerings then distribute them as he saw fit. I retrieved my coat from the sad-faced Porter. Besides, I liked that coat and had no intention of leaving it behind, though I somehow did anyway. I hope that Porter ended up with it. I also left my sleeping bag, rubber boots, fleece pants and socks. All of these were still very usable and I would normally have taken them home to clean up. But I had come to see where the value of these items to the Porters would be many times that to myself. The rest of the Team likewise gave generously. 

I woke at dawn the next morning as Ivan was going out the front door. Feeling I had taken in enough sleep, I decided to join him. I walked out in my flip flops and the boxer briefs that had proven so popular at the river. Ivan was seated on a wooden chair in the chicken yard, concentrating on the rising sun. I drug a chair out next to him and sat down to enjoy the view. A few moments later a man and woman appeared at the corner of our shack. They had come to watch the strange white people. Ivan was listening to his I-pod while taking photos of the sunrise. The man gestured that he would like Ivan to take a photo of him and his wife, all dressed up for something formal.  I stopped Ivan long enough to position myself next to them in the frame. It was the only time I had worn less clothing than the natives and the contrast was too good to pass up. 

Later, after dressing, I returned to the chicken yard with a hot mug of Starbucks instant coffee. Denis joined me. 

Voting in the Presidential Election was scheduled to begin this day in Sugapa and we did not wish to be around for it. Though it is customary that the Porters throw a traditional feast with music and dance at the end of an expedition we felt it more important to extricate ourselves, and thus caught the second flight out that morning. 

I watched the rugged landscape of western New Guinea pass below us; the tiny streams that fed into increasingly larger rivers which themselves culminate to then disgorge into the Arafura Sea. This is going home, I thought to myself. But then what did it mean to go upstream? As you fork off into smaller and smaller tributaries you give something up at each; the company of loved ones, familiar surroundings, the ability to be comfortable, to be clean, to rest well, to eat as you wish. You keep going, up the trickling creeks surrendering common language, cultural relevance, and whatever  paucity of control to which you still cling. Then, finally, you arrive at a bubbling spring. And whatever you find there is the reason you left home in the first place.  

I have thought a lot about what I found at that spring. It is something different every time I go there. This time it was a reawakening to the joy of others, a realization that standing next to it and saying "yes" only makes that joy larger. Carol's summit, of course, was a watershed moment in this regard. But I enjoyed similar experiences watching Pal interact with the native children, seeing Dan rise up to lead the expedition, seeing Ivan weep as he put away his country's flag atop Carstensz, and watching satisfaction blossom on the face of a quiet man, Denis, who had sacrificed so much. There were moments, too, among the Porters and their families. I watched the look on a father's face as his young son tried to shoulder his load. I heard the women sing as they prepared a meal. A bright-eyed infant smiled at me from atop his mother's shoulders. So much joy. And it was this joy that pushed back against the hardships we endured. When I tell the story of this experience people have a difficult time understanding why I did it.  But they are missing the joy part, and the only way to get it is to go upstream.