Adventures of 2 Girls

by Ning Cai

  Bev poked her head through the door at that moment to inform us that she was heading to a friend’s place for dinner, just two houses down the road, and asked if we would like to join her. Her father had come over to babysit her two kids and it was her night off with her husband, who also ran the guesthouse.

  “It’s OK, we’re not hungry. Thanks for the invite though,” I beamed, touched by her warm gesture. Storm River Village was a very small town and everybody knew everybody else. It was like a South African kampong, but a lot more beautiful because the village was set against a breathtaking landscape of mountains, forests and a dramatic rocky coast.

  “Sure sweeties, make yourselves at home. My dad’s downstairs if you need anything!” she called out, before disappearing for her dinner date.

  About an hour later, Ning and I wandered back into the common area where the wood-panelled bookcases were and started browsing for a good book to take back to our room. I was mighty tired by that time, because it took quite a lot out of me to drive a manual stick-shift car after all these years, and a tiny Kia Picanto at that! I was simply dying to crawl under the covers and get a good night’s sleep.

  “Hello,” I heard a man’s deep voice behind me and I spun around.

  “Hey!” The BFF greeted the stranger brightly, an open book in her hand.

  Well, he was a stranger to her but definitely not to me. I immediately recognised him as the tall man I had seen earlier in the lobby, except that he had changed out of his technician’s work pants and was holding a remote control in his hand.

  “Do you know where Bev is?” he asked tentatively. “My TV isn’t working.”

  “Oh! Bev has gone out for dinner at her friend’s!” I exclaimed in dismay because I knew he could do with some TV in his room tonight. “But maybe you can ask her dad, he’s downstairs.”

  “Thanks,” he smiled, a genuinely kind smile. Then in a gesture of friendship, he extended his hand to me. “Hi, I’m Kevin. Kevin Whistler.”

  I shook his hand warmly. “I’m Pam, and this is my best friend Ning.”

  Ning reached over and shook the man’s hand firmly. “Are you here with your family?”

  My heart did a somersault. No, no, no, no, no... don’t ask him that! I flinched. You know why he’s staying here, he just ran over a kid! But Ning had no clue because she hadn’t been in the lobby with me earlier. I had actually been trying to signal to her that this was the man I was telling her about, but there was no way I could do that non-verbally without playing charades under his nose.

  Kevin sighed. “Well... actually... I just got into an accident. A really bad one.”

  Ning’s eyes darted to meet mine, and I nodded, eyes lowered.

  “Are you OK? What... what happened?” Ning and I felt compelled to ask, because it seemed like a logical follow-up question, although we both knew it was the worst question to ask him at this point. Did he want to talk about it? Did he not want to talk about it? I was almost afraid he would break down and sob.

  “I was driving back to Cape Town, and this little boy dashed across the road right in front of me. He just ran, without even turning to look at me,” Kevin related, his eyes clouded with pain. “I was stunned! I couldn’t react in time and I hit him. I could feel his little body roll under my wheels... bump... bump...”

  “Oh no...” I uttered under my breath. “And the boy...” “He died instantly,” Kevin sighed. “There was no way he could have survived. He was so tiny. The hardest part for me was meeting his parents at the police station. They were devastated! And I didn’t know what to say to them...”

  I didn’t expect it but the BFF reached over and put an arm around Kevin’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s not your fault, Kevin.”

  I think he really needed to hear that, and he really needed a reassuring hug, because his tense body relaxed a little. He was a grown man but he was a human being, and he had been through a lot. Ning just has this instinct about doing the right thing at the right time, and I felt proud of her for taking that risk to make a connection.

  “I’m a father too, I have three kids, so I can put myself in their shoes. Children... they are just so full of potential, you know?” he explained, his eyes crinkling and his hands gesturing for emphasis.

  I could feel his sadness and remorse because I, too, am a parent. You bring a child into the world and he’s instantly a part of you. You watch him take his first step, call you “mama” or “papa” and you always dream of him growing up. To suddenly lose that presence, that little voice, that laughter around you, is nothing short of devastating.

  Although I was exhausted, I knew Kevin needed to take his mind off the accident. I knew Ning felt the same way too because we both moved over to the sofa and invited Kevin to join us. He did, and he looked relieved and appreciative of our gesture. I think he just needed company because his TV wasn’t working and he was really hoping to catch the Rugby World Cup ‘live’ matches to take his mind off things.

  He shared with us that he had dinner alone at Marilyn’s, a flashy 1950s American diner down the street, and all he could do was play the scene over and over again in his head, thinking of how he could have avoided the child.

  “There was a group of children lying on the grass by the side of the road. Some of them were older kids, teenagers, and some younger like the little boy. At the police station, they told me that an adult had instructed them to lie there and wait till she returned. But I don’t know why the little boy didn’t listen. Maybe someone called him? If I swerved, I could have hit the other kids,” he replayed that scene in his head again, but this time out loud. His eyes had glazed over. “I really don’t know what I could have done differently...”

  I sighed. “It’s an accident, Kevin. Don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s not your fault.”

  Kevin sighed and changed the subject by telling us a little about himself. He was originally from Johannesburg, or “Joburg” as the South Africans call it. But he and his wife felt it wasn’t a safe city to raise three young children, so they decided to relocate.

  “I almost applied for a job in Singapore, but my wife was against it because she didn’t know anything about Singapore. She’s Jewish and wants to bring the kids up as Jews. She really wasn’t sure if Singapore had a Jewish community because they’re mostly Chinese,” he shared pensively.

  Ning and I sat up at the mention of Singapore. “We’re from Singapore!” Ning exclaimed.

  “And yes, we do have a Jewish community in Singapore! We’re a very cosmopolitan city. I have friends who are Jews!” I chimed in excitedly, thrilled by the unexpected coincidence.

  “Really?” Kevin’s face broke into a smile, the first big smile we had seen from him all evening.

  He explained that his wife Bettina was originally from Uruguay but she had lived in Israel for lived many years, which was how she embraced the Jewish faith. “I really wanted to go to Singapore, and I was disappointed when Bettina said no. It would’ve been a welcome change. We moved to Cape Town instead and so far, we’ve loving it. But tell me about Singapore!”

  While telling Kevin about Singapore, I realised that although I often find it hard to convince people that my country is a great tourist destination, I have less difficulty convincing them that it is a pretty good city to live in!

  “Tell me about Singapore. What does it mean?” he asked, genuinely interested to learn about our history and culture.

  “It comes from the Sanskrit words ‘singa’ which means lion, and ‘pura’ which means city – the Lion City,” The BFF quipped. “It’s believed that a Prince from Palembang called Sang Nila Utama, who first landed on the island, saw a mystical animal while hunting. He asked what it was and someone told him it was a lion. And that’s how Singapore got its name. Except...”

  A cheeky grin touched Ning’s lips, and she urged me to continue the story with a subtle nod of her head.

  “Except that recent studies of Singapore indicate that no lion ever lived on our i
sland, and that what Sang Nila Utama saw was probably a tiger!” I finished with a chuckle.

  “No way!” Kevin burst into a hearty guffaw. We made him laugh!

  “I can’t believe our country is named after a mistake!” Ning chuckled. “But seriously, have you ever heard of a lion roaming in a rainforest?!”

  It was especially funny and ridiculous relating this story while on the African continent because everyone knows that lions roam in the plains of Africa, not tropical islands!

  We forged a special connection with Kevin that night and we made plans to have breakfast together the next morning before we parted. We also agreed that if Kevin and his family ever came to Singapore for a holiday, we would personally take them around.

  Kevin was especially keen for us to meet his wife Bettina. “Convince her!” was his plea.

  When Ning and I completed our Garden Route self-drive and were back in Cape Town, we contacted him to meet us before we left South Africa for good. And Kevin obliged, taking time off work to meet us at the V&A Waterfront just before Ning and I departed for Robben Island to visit Nelson Mandela’s prison – and he came with his whole family!

  So we met Bettina, his sons David and Michael, and his little daughter, Maya. We sat in the sun by the beautiful wharf on the day the power supply was cut off in Cape Town (yes, there was a blackout!) and had drinks together. His boys told jokes to amuse us while Maya threw a tantrum because the four-year-old loves Coke and her brother had drunk hers!

  We shared a little about Singapore with Bettina, and she really warmed up to us. She even candidly revealed, “Kevin has not stopped talking about you – two Singapore girls on a whirlwind adventure. Even our kids know about you!” she laughed. “In fact, we’ve all joined your Facebook page!”

  We were very touched. Connections like this are made with intention, but sometimes the crossing of paths is pure coincidence... or is it?

  I love that line in the final scene of the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, where Forrest stands in front of Jenny’s grave and says to her in private, “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.”

  Whatever it is, our lives were touched by our encounter with Kevin Whistler and his family, and I’d like to believe the same was true for him too. And although I can’t say for sure how things will pan out at this point, I do believe that something will flower from this beautiful crossing of paths.

  20

  call of the wild

  Madagascar . October 2011

  PAM

  A storm was brewing and stirring the gentle ripples of the Tsiribihina River into an agitated frenzy. It didn’t help that we were paddling against the wind. Our long, hollowed-out tree trunk of a boat was heaving and straining against this battering force, and Ning and I were getting royally sprayed by the murky water.

  I licked the sprays of water on my dry lips and it tasted horrible. I seriously don’t know how the Malagasy people who live by the river can bathe, pee, poop, wash their clothes and drink from the Tsiribihina. I’ve seen our two boatmen scooping water with their palms and drinking it straight from there. It’s a miracle that they don’t get sick. The water is a Milo brown. Perhaps Singaporean stomachs are just of a lower grade.

  “Alamak, I’m getting wet!” I groaned to Ning, who was seated just behind me, shielding herself from the waves with a large straw hat that we’d bought at a market in the previous town.

  I was sitting right in front in the boat, which was just wide enough for one person. Our boat was hewn out of an entire tree trunk, and hollowed out till its sides were only as thick as my thumb. I was getting the brunt of the spray up front, so I dug into my backpack (which I was leaning against as a backrest) and pulled out my blue Japanese umbrella. I opened it up to shield us from the relentless spray.

  All six of us were seated in a row – myself, followed by Ning, our two Malagasy guides Lova and Rina, and our two boatmen. Not to mention our luggage, gallons of water enough for four days out in the wild, pots and pans for cooking, cutlery, plates and cups, fresh raw vegetables, fresh Zebu meat, canned food, rolls of toilet paper, two large tents... and two live chickens!

  Our boatmen and guides were paddling furiously and speaking to each other in rapid Malagasy. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I could catch the urgency in their voices. Usually, these guys were either singing or joking while they paddled. Well, I suppose if you’re padding continuously for five hours, there’s not much else you can do...

  And that was pretty much the life out here at the river: no phone reception, no Wi-Fi, no toilets, no bed, no electricity, no running water, no nothing. We woke up at dawn, headed to the bushes with a roll of toilet paper to ease ourselves in ways big and small, had our bread and jam (I bought a large bottle of Nutella at the grocery store and ate that every day!), before setting off at about 7am. We’d paddle down the river for some five hours before breaking for lunch, which was always cooked from scratch by our two boatmen.

  They were such strong, capable and manly men – unlike our Singaporean gym rats who look buff but can’t be depended on for survival in the wild. These Malagasy men were real men. Their bodies were lean, weather-beaten and knotted with muscle. They could kill animals with a knife, cook a meal, paddle a boat, set up a tent and build a fire. And they can make a mean cup of coffee too, which puts them right up there with me.

  But our men were getting a little breathless and frustrated at that moment. We had just rounded a sand bank on the left and the wind had picked up ferociously. It was clear that a storm was imminent because the fluffy white clouds in the blue sky earlier had grown swollen and heavy, like a low-lying canopy of thick gray wool. It felt as if we weren’t even moving forward anymore. Perhaps we were even moving backwards!

  Suddenly, we heard a familiar crunching sound at the base of the boat.

  I didn’t realise how shallow the Tsiribihina River was until our boat got wedged onto the sandy bottom not too long after we paddled off on the first day. I remember thinking that our boatman was Jesus Christ when he stepped out of the boat and walked on water!

  Ning and I sat quietly, huddled behind my tiny umbrella, as the boatman climbed out and started pushing our little “sampan” out from the sand trap towards deeper waters. But we were fighting a losing battle; I could tell from the slump of his shoulders and the tight furrow on his brow. There was a hurried discussion among the men, before Lova addressed us in English.

  “We’ll stop here for the night,” he declared in clipped English. We discovered that this impressive young man had studied English and Japanese at the university. He was around Ning’s age, and had been a guide based in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, for several years.

  “I thought we had an hour more to go?” The BFF asked, peering out from under her straw hat. Lova was now walking alongside us in the shallow water.

  “The wind is too strong!” Lova explained, a ready smile on his boyish sun-beaten face. Nothing seemed to dampen this boy’s spirit. He was always ready with a joke, a grin or a song. “We’ll camp here tonight, and set off earlier tomorrow.”

  I lowered my umbrella and scanned our surroundings for the first time. Where were we? There was a wide stretch of sandy beach to our left, created from centuries of deposition from the river, as the waters slowed down around the inner side of a meander.

  As a former Geography teacher, I was completely awed by the natural formations in Madagascar. I had studied about rivers in my school days, and taught it too, for three years as a Geography teacher. So Ning was really lucky, on our five-hour boat rides, to benefit from my one-on-one Physical Geography lessons and impassioned monologues about the formation of river meanders from erosion and deposition, over time.

  But from where I sat, that stretch of quiet beach looked more like a deserted island under the ominous stormy skies, and I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie C
ast Away. It was a romantic notion, being stranded on a deserted island with four manly men.

  “OK!” I beamed, rather relieved because I was also feeling a little... urgent. My bladder had become weaker since my days in the magazine industry when I would seriously have no time to run to the toilet. I swear half of my bladder muscles have weakened in those two years.

  Ning and I slipped off our flip flops and stepped into the Milo-coloured water, sinking our toes into the cool mud near the bank. My eyes immediately scanned the landscape for a bush. That had become instinctive for me each time we stopped in a new spot.

  I nudged Ning and gestured to a tall clump of shrubs a distance away. The BFF gave me a subtle nod. Roger.

  It was still a little unnerving to have four men lurking around while we did our business. Somehow, even though we were thousands of miles away from Singapore, we’re still proper Chinese girls who were not raised to pull down our pants to excrete in public.

  But when nature calls – in nature – you gotta do what you gotta do! And after three days in the wild, it had become a tad easier. It’s true that the first time is always the hardest.

  While the guys carried our bags off the boat, I grabbed a fresh roll of toilet paper and Ning’s arm, and pulled her towards the bushes about 500 metres away, at the edge of the sandy beach and a small vegetable patch.

  There was a little shed there, made with branches and dried straw, probably constructed by the family we saw earlier – a young couple with four very young children, each barely a year apart from the next sibling. The Singapore government would be very pleased with their reproductivity, since our country has been struggling for decades to encourage couples to have more than 1.5 children. The little kids had emerged from a thatched hut on the beach to see what our boatmen and guides were doing.