I’ve visited this particular village before – a few times actually; it’s the home of the hypothetical Mrs. Maria.  But every other time I’d visited, it was to assess the suitability for a productive garden, the possibility of a hydram installation, monitor the garden – always with a specific task in mind that upon completion, saw us swiftly exit the village and proceed to the next.

This time was different, though I came with the usual task.  My flight didn’t arrive ‘til after lunch, so the sun was disappearing by the time we bounced our way over the final three kilometres of jalan batu – rocky road – to the village below.  I had been told that there was an issue with the hydram that wanted looking at, but by the time the usual pleasantries and expected istirahat (rest) were complete, it was too dark to descend to the river bed below for an appraisal of the hydram.

So we sat there, my co-worker and I, and the two hosts who had welcomed us.  And a strange thing happened as the darkness enveloped us: we sat in the same seats, in the same clothes, with the same faces and voices, barely moving an inch, but somehow – somehow – we shifted (if only a little, but a significant little) from organisational staff to village friends, moved a little down the continuum from professional outsiders to family.

And as the metamorphosis took place, that circle of four in the moonlight slowly grew, and its growth was reflected in the stories and the laughter, ‘til there were eight of us yarning and laughing and sharing strong opinions about politics and gossip and the inner life of a hydram.  And for a moment I almost belonged in a culture that is not my own in a place so far from home.

And so I asked the moon how he did such a thing under the cover of darkness.  But he doesn’t speak much.

__________

I woke early on my mattress in the schoolroom to the sound of dogs and chickens and children outside my window.  I rubbed sleep from my eyes, packed up my mosquito net and wandered down to the hydram below, where, while we worked on the pump and nutted it out…

…a little of last night’s conversion lingered.