“Some people dance in the rain, others just get wet .” Lone Tree

2011 ended in mud and 2012 got off to a soggy start for many through out the country. You could even say, that the old year was washed out and the new year washed in!

An island adventure on two wheels seemed like a fitting conclusion to what has been a rather remarkable year on the travel front and an excellent 41^st birthday celebration.

As an ‘island gal’ I have a compulsion to visit other islands and Jeju seemed liked the perfect contrast to the sprawling modern cities of Seoul, Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya where I have spent the last two weeks. Pitched as the Hawaii of Asia and Korea’s number one honeymoon destination, the selling point for me were a couple of lines I read on the internet about it being a great cycling destination.

Thanks to the online newspaper the ‘Jeju Weekly’ and the assistance of the Korean librarians I spent the previous week with, I was able to organize accommodation in locally owned pensions. One of the ‘pensions’ promised to organize a bike that I could use for the four days. My adventure seemed to be coming together perfectly.

However upon arriving at the pension, the promised bike looked like it might have been dragged out of an ‘inorganic pile’. The tyres were flat, the gears only semi operational and the break handle twisted around at some obscure angle that had me puzzled. I dubbed her ‘trusty green rusty’ and headed off to find the local bike shop. Amazingly I did manage to find the bike shop – the pension owner had loosely indicated a direction on a Korean langaage map. The bike shop looked like the trash compactor out of Star Wars with bike bodies piled high in all directions. It seemed I had found ‘trusty green rusty’s’ ancestral midden! Sadly the door was locked and nobody was at home.

However just around the corner was a drycleaners with a collections of bikes standing in the front window. After an animated exchange (yes all those funny storytelling sounds and faces can have practical uses), the drycleaner wheeled my bike into a side room and pumped up the tyres. This was my first taste of the kindness and generosity of the Jeju people that I was to be repeatedly showered in over the next few days. A few more charades at a nearby garage and the brake handle was operational again – I headed off with the wind in my hair for a ride along the coast.

After a couple of hours of cycling I was feeling peckish and started to look for somewhere to eat. I passed by a rather rough looking restaurant, that consisited of a marquee ,a couple of tanks of live fish sitting outside and a chalkboard signed in Korean. Inside people sat around two tables talking and laughing loudly. I peered in tentively. A man came out, “ You like sashimi?”  I gathered he must be the owner and I was getting a taste of direct marketing. After a series of failed communications I resigned myself to whatever fate had in store and the bill that went with it.

However it turned out I was the invited guest at a celebration of ‘Universe Day’. Exactly what ‘Universe Day’ might officially be about, could well remain a mystery to me for the rest of my life. Here’s what I experienced. Platefuls of delicious food and super fresh sashimi – local fish caught that day; Korean whiskey, the usual enquiries about my marital status, folk songs sung with gusto and incredible warmth from a group of people whom I couldn’t really ‘talk’ to. It seemed I couldn’t eat enough and if for a minute my mouth looked empty I was surrounded by hands pushing food into my mouth. At the conclusions of the meaI,any offer of money was refused and so instead I played a tune on my ‘travel recorder’ and partook happily in a round of photographs.

Universe Day…..seems to me everyone should celebrate it.

I arrived back to the  Sunset Pension to more gifts of food -manderins, kimche (spicy picked cabbage) and fire roasted sweet potato freshly dug. I took these and added them to my small bag that I would take with me the next morning on the bike.

The plan was to rise at the crack of dawn and cycle to the eastern side of the island to a port town called Ojo-ri, where I would stay in another pension, the Sun Rising Pension. It was owned by a local poet and it’s claim to fame was that 2008  Nobel Prize winner for literature had stayed there while making a documentary all about the island. Funnily enough the pension I was staying in was called ‘Sun Setting Pension’ located  on the western side of the island, just out of the town of  Hamlin. It stood marooned in a sea of cabbage fields, next to the local fire station. From my balcony I looked out towards the sea and a little island.It was really quite charming and at $40 a night with ocean views, my own bathroom, kitchen and spacious bedroom with flowery pink wall paper – I had nothing to complain about.

Nothing to complain about that is except the dogs  - the owner had three – and they liked to sing  at night. I didn’t complain but I didn’t get much sleep either. I woke on my birthday feeling pretty jaded. For the first time in three weeks I did not have to jump on a bus, in a taxi on an aeroplane or open my mouth to talk. I was still nursing the dregs of a cold I had picked up in Japan and to boot I twisted by ankle as I jumped up off my yoga mat. Was the universe trying to tell me stay in bed?

After my birthday breakfast – one green tea cup cake found the evening before at a tiny little coffee and cake shop called ‘Leelee Story’, a bottle of alovera juice served in my Kyoto compensation cup (I didn’t make it to my favourite Japanese city on this trip but bought a ceramic mug as 2^nd prize), kimchi, an apple and eight delicious macha chocolates – I climbed onto ‘trusty green rusty’ and headed off.

I should add at this point, the only really useful map I had was in Korean and I really had no idea how far I was going to have to pedal. The island is 74km west to east and 49km north to south – as the crow flies. There is however in the centre of it a very large volcano – Mt Hallasan and the island is dotted with some fifty plus oreums – a bit like Auckland’s volcanic cones. There is no such thing as a straight road on Jeju and wanting to avoid the main routes I set out on what proved to be a very convoluted route that was all up hill!

Does any of this sound to you like a  birthday treat? If I was sane I would have gone back to bed. But I am mad, determined and dressed to pedal. My cycle frock was an extravagant ‘Anna Stretton’  ritual birthday purchase. Frilly dress, stripey socks, red clogs and flowers in my hair I was ready!

My jadedness lifted a little when I saw a large sign pointing in the direction I was going saying ‘Greek Mythology Museum’. Now I have to add here that Jeju is a strange collection of things. Yes it was recently awarded the title of ‘one of the seven new natural wonders of the world’ and there are places on the island that are very beautiful.  But there are places that look like the Costa del  sol and Surfers paradise – so you have to be careful about where you look and what’s more it appears that anyone who ever had an obscure interest in anything has come here and opened a museum. There’s the Teddy Bear Museum, the Chocolate Museum, the Da Vinci Museum, the Sex Museum, the Bike Museum – honestly the list is almost endless. I did not make it to any museums – though I would have quite liked a  reading from the Delphi oracle for my b’day but when I did at last find the said museum – it was still under construction and all I managed to do was to get a photos of me with my Sagitarriun side kick, the cenetaur.

Back roads are really the way to go – one you avoid tourists, two you avoid traffic and thirdly you see real things – like cabbage fields, radish fields, manderin orchids and perfectly symmetrical green burial mounds that mimic the oreums.Einstein said he got his best ideas while riding his bike. I was seized by the thought “ I’m going to bury my parents in my back yard when the time comes!” Followed by a series of entertaining thoughts about where this decision might lead – I’m not sure if  that I idea constitutes as one of my best but it’s certainly interesting observing your internal train of thought. Anyway ,when did we get sold on the idea of putting dead people together in one, huge public place?

After a couple of hours at a speed I can only call puddling, I was confronted by a main road – it was very  busy road with several noisy lanes of traffic. However there did seem to be (according to my map) an ‘option two’ which more of less headed straight across the base of the mountain. I hadn’t seen the legendary Mt Hallasan at this stage – the mythic creator of Jeju, Grandmother Seolmundae apparently veils the mountain when people are too noisy. That main road I just refered to would in my mind constitute a permanemt cloud curtain on the noise front. the truth is had  I seen Mt Halla,  I would have  dropped ‘option two’ instantly, as fool hardy, swallowed humble pie and hit that abnoxious main road…but I hadn’t so I didn’t.

Things to ponder while you pedal – public cemetries and gold courses. Are they in anyway related? Option two seemed to flanked by golf courses, very expensive looking ones that came with country clubs that just seemed to ooze exclusivity. Give me a cabbage field any day. They are, to their credit, quite quiet. The only sounds being the occasional hum of a golf cart and the thwack of clubs contacting balls. That and me panting. I have always held to the belief that there is no shame in getting off and pushing your bike. I got off a lot that day – it was by birthday concession and necessitated to some degree by the increasing tendancy for the brake pads to lock on the back wheel. Eventually I resorted to disconnecting the back breaks, which left me with the prospect of vaulting over the handle bars should I suddenly need to stop.

Much to my disgust my road petered out at a particularly large osentasious country club. After much pointing at the map and crossing of arms, the general consensus was that I would have to turn around, back track and take the main road I had developed an aversion to. There is nothing a determined dog – year, Sagittarian likes to hear less than the words ‘back track’. I was pissed off. Though quite a few of the pissed off bits flew away as a I free wheeled back down the mountain – I’m sure part of the lure of cycling is the pure pleasure of flying down hills.

The main road proved to be flat and had a cycling lane and a fascinating sign started to appear with some regaularity, directing people to the ‘Mysterious Road’. I was intrigued. Was this put up as a carrot for weary cyclists? I later discovered in a guide book, that the ‘Mysterious Road’ is a road that despite its incline, cars roll up the hill instead of down. How I longed for some gravity defying forces to come my way. I was aware that it was getting late and I still had a lot of ground to cover. Perhaps I had cycled 40 -50km but I didn’t seem  to be getting any closer to my destination. Exhausted and knowing that it would promptly get dark at around 5pm, I started to think of a plan ‘B”. All day I had been passed by light trucks, sporting the brand ‘Kia Motors’. Some of them would slow right down to have a good stare at the strange looking foreigner, others wave and shout what sounded like worlds of encouragment. Many of them had empty trays. I decided to try and wave one down. Hitching hiking with a bike – how hard can it be?

It just so happened that I decided to try out my thumb outside a military training camp – I didn’t know this at the time as the camp was obscured by trees. But at regular intervals, men in bright red shirts would jog by and give me a friendly wave, throwing in some English greetings for good measure. I would smile and wave back. After a while I noticed that they were the same men jogging round and around and like wise they must have noticed that I was going no where fast. They came over and very politely enquired if I was OK. I explained I was trying to get to Ojo-ri, that the brakes on my bike were playing up and I had no lights. An older third man in black joined the younger Adonis like men in red and he had a phone. After a phone call and much discussion, one of the men in red announced that they were ‘military men from the Republic of Korea army’ He was a Captain and his friend a 2^nd lutenient and that I had been invited by their commander to join them for dinner after which I would be taken (with bike) to Ojo-Ri.

And that was how I was rescued my the Korean military and spent my 41^st birthday dining in a mess hall. Quite a story, really. I was so overwhelmed by their kindness. (they bundled me off with a bag of fruit for my travels) that I forgot to take any photos and it was only later when  accompanied by the captain to the ‘Sun Rising’ pension that I thought to grab a snap shot of this exceptional young man.

Mr Kang, the poet (the pension’s owner) I think was rather impressed by my military escort ,  a large bus containing me, the bike and the Captain.

So there ends my day, nearly – Mr Kang knocked on my penison door as I was about to climb into bed  with a book of poetry for me as a gift – thus ended one of the most unusual birthdays I have ever had.

My 42^nd year began with a bike ride with a poet but that’s another story.

Craig Denham, (the musician I have collaborated with for the last 10 years) and I have just spent the week in Christchurch as part of the Christchurch Arts Festival Schools programmes. Our visit coincided with a ‘polar blast’ that saw the city snow bound for two days and schools close. We both agreed it was all pretty surreal – being here in Christchurch for the first time since the February quake but not really being here because we were stuck in our motel rooms. The experience kind of summed up how I’ve felt about the whole situation for sometime – a ‘Claytons experience’ – the kind of experience you have when you’re not really having the experience. Perhaps the media is turning are lives into one big ‘claytons experience’.  We see things, we hear about things but we’re all still in our comfy motel rooms with the heater on.

When finally the snow started to melt and the schools re opened, we were able to share stories and I talked with the children about them telling their stories from the last year. One boy summed it up. Life in Christchurch of late had been a ‘freaky’ story. Yep I have to agree – it’s kind of freaky to see the rampart of shipping containers line the road out to Sumner keeping the crumbling cliffs at bay, it’s kind of freaky  for city roads in NZ to be so lumpy and pot holed and to see half -houses clinging to cliffs. Everyone I talk to – in the chemist, in the toy shop,  in the hotel reception, tells me their story. The lady in the chemist shop explains the bright coloured patches on the black carpet were where products smashed to the floor. We agree it looks kind of nice and she says, ” You know you realize now that those sorts of things really don’t matter.” The man in the toy shop salvaging his stock for the second time in six months jokes, ” I would have topped myself had someone told me last year what was ahead.” We agree it’s just as well we don’t know what life has in store. ” Still,” he adds, “we rarely see the bigger picture.”  Others talk about the  humility experienced by the generosity of others and nearly everyone mentions Japan and how the people have suffered there. It appears that all that shaking has produced a city of insightful philosophisers and passing conversation has a new depth. Still there’s ‘broken open’ and just ‘broken’ – not everyone has fared so well.I was talking to a relative on the phone tonight. She lives out near where the first epicentre was in September. Her daughter works in the mental health sector and she says the situation is grim. Apparently the services are straining to cope with the numbers of people who need their help. The billboard on the edge of the road with the sad human form curled into a fetal – like position summed it up ‘Our buildings weren’t the only things broken by the quake.’ And you feel it, your hear it – the city’s lamentation.

You suddenly see how important storytelling is in times like these. It can make people laugh and shake off anxieties for a time, it provides an imaginative resting place from the ‘slog’, it connects people through a shared experience and as people tell their stories, they attempt to make sense of what has happened to them and try to put things back in some semblance of order.

We have Christchurch and the snow to thank for our new story song – its a reggae tune and it goes like this (I hope we get to sing it to you one day!)

Some people think stories belong to an old time, a once upon a time, but

I’m telling you now so you’ll understand, you wake up every morning in story land

Stories on the TV, stories in the paper – they’re going get you sooner or later

Less you realize the story that counts, is story you believe in, so shout it out..

Hey wake up, open your mouth – it’s time to let your stories out

Stories make the world go round, tell your story and lets get down

Once upon a time, it’s rhyme, to keep you connected

The golden thread that binds through time, now don’t you forget it

Stories are for sharing, stories are for making, the magic works when your participating

Tell your story, tell it true, the words you choose will live inside of you

The windmill is one of those rare romantic pieces of machinery in my mind. As a child we spent long car journeys in Australia counting their angular bodies. We fondly called them ‘roundies’. They were familiar friends, their groaning and squeaking part of our everyday sound scape as they pumped the water from the house tank to the water troughs in the paddocks.

The Netherlands is synonymous with windmills. While visiting the Netherlands I was lucky enough to visit the Zaansche Schans in Zaandam, which is just north of Amsterdam. This area of the river Zaan is the oldest industrial area in the world. Windmills were first built in this area in the 1600’s to help drain the water sodden land. However in a matter of years they were being used in the manufacturing and processing of barley, rice, paper, wood, mustard, cooking oil, tobacco and hemp.  At the height of industry, one thousand windmills lined the banks of the Zaan. In 1850 the coal consuming steam engines replaced the windmill and the air was no longer filled with the great turning sails but by gritty grey smog.

By 1920 there were only fifty windmills left.  De Zaansche Molen – the windmill society was formed to preserve the remaining windmills – the pictured windmill ‘The Kat’ being one of these. The Kat is probably the last wind powered dye mill in the world. Dyes are created by crushing plants and minerals using the huge millstones.

It’s a mill that uses the wind to create rainbows – now that’s magic!

The Batt visits the Kat

Some of you might already know that I am a bit of a train nut. Bikes, boats and trains kind of sum up my travel preferences – I’m a slow travel kind of gal. So it is with great delight I share with you some highlights of the Batt Trans Mongolian Rail adventure.

Right lets start with a few Batt facts and figures. The journey from Beijing to St Petersburg is some 7925 km taking nearly seven days of continuous train travel and five nights of kipping in a rock ‘n rolling bed. During this time I ‘shared’ five blocks of chocolate, traveled through the Gobi desert (and caught a glimpse of the lesser known Mongolian Easter Camel – Easter Bunny’s regional contractor), counted approximately one billion birch trees (Day Six, “ I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ‘B’), learnt how to say ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘hello’ in three different languages (I also learnt how to say garyachayavada – which is Russian for hot water bottle – but ended up not needing to use this vocab gem)  and developed expert bladder control due to the toilets being locked ½ hour either side of station stops. You travel through eight time zones though very confusingly once you board the Russian operated trains, they all run on Moscow time and anyway you kind of enter your own little time bubble as the world speeds by endlessly outside your window.

I suspect a lot of people don’t see much out of the window on these trains – this is because they are taking a very close look at the toilet bowl. Some serious drinking goes down during these train journeys. OK, I confess I ate a lot of chocolate but this didn’t see me starting any brawls in the restaurant carriage or running semi naked up and down the corridor. Never a dull minute on this service though several contemplative ones involving Birch trees.

The railway’s construction started in the 19^th Century – a time when the train was considered to be a weapon of mass destruction. For this reason it is impossible to travel on the same train out of Russia and into Mongolia and China. The gauge changes – cunning foreign defense strategy, eh!

Some of the liveliest moments on the train involved border crossings – some how these were nearly always in the middle of the night. They involved filling out forms in ‘mystery English’ (a bewildering variant on English) and hoping you hadn’t accidently ticked any boxes that admitted human trafficking, contraband or mammoth remains. Then came the inspectors and some very sassy looking women decked out in combat uniforms. They smile sweetly and order you out of your cabin while they leap about inside hunting out your chocolate stash. In the meantime your passport is ‘taken away’ and the toilets are locked. It’s minus 3 degrees outside and you’ve got your fingers crossed that this is all going to end happily ever after.

It did.. and we are now a few hours out from Moscow where we will spend the next three 3 days checking out the capital of this wonderfully quirky country and find the answers to tricky questions like – is their any such thing as a vegetarian menu in Moscow? How many gold topped churches can you fit into one city? And will Stalin’s body ever be buried next to his Mum’s (which is apparently what he wanted) …to find out the answers to these and other riveting questions stay tuned to the Batt Blog.

“ All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall…”  – the words of invading Mongol armies, immortalized by Pink Floyd. OK, perhaps not. Still, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first to hum the tune as I scrambled, heaved and puffed my way along this most remarkable creation.

I spent ‘Good Friday’ on the ‘Great Wall’. Imagine a world where those two ‘G’ words were interchanged. Easter would begin with ‘Great Friday’ and the only humanly constructed feature to appear on world maps, would be known as the ‘Good Wall’. It is actually a very good wall but you’d expect that from a nation that have been perfecting the construction of large-scale defensive walls for over 2000 years.

The Chinese name for the great wall actually translates as the ‘unending and indeed the wall does seem to stretch on forever, snaking along the rugged ridge lines of the mountains, like some fancy elasticized frill.

I was fortunate enough to make two trips to the wall during my time in Beijing. One to a relatively remote and ‘wild’ part of the wall on a trip conducted by renowned Wall expert and British author William Lindesay and the other to a ‘restored’ part of the wall, whose make over is tested by thousands of tourists everyday who cable car up onto the grey/white ramparts and toboggan back down – sounds kind of crass but is actually more fun than should be allowed!

However and where ever you end up on the wall I sure the over all effect is quite the same – astounding. I was equally enchanted by the series of restored watchtowers as I was by the beauty of the wall in decay as it dissolved back into the landscape that it was quarried from. The trees festooned in white spring blossom erupting from the crumbling path ways created a sleeping beauty castle like magic, where I imagined slumbering terracotta warriors rather than some spindle pricked princess.

I could wow you with facts and figures – quoting a myriad of measurements and historical detail and the wild claim that the wall can be sighted from the moon…but it’ defiantly one of those equations where the total is so much more than the sum of the parts. It’s one of those ironies, that something created to separate, defend and attack from can be so beautiful….” All in all, it’s a very, very ‘good’ wall.”

Recently I visited the seaside town on Tranquebar (also known as Tarangambadi – the land of the singing waves) on the south east coast of India. The town was a Danish Port from 1620 – 1845 and was the home of India’s first printing press. If you are ever in the South East of India, I’d suggest a visit to this very small but delightful community.

The community is a mix of Christian, Muslim and Hindi families and mosques, temples and churches happily co-exist alongside one another. The buildings are often brightly painted and there are some beautifully restored buildings from the Danish colonial period. Goats wander the streets untethered and the doorways are decorated with intricately chalked mandalas.

 Most people in the town make their living from fishing. Early each morning the long, brightly coloured boats chug out and return with baskets and nets brimming with fish. We went down to the fish market and joined the daily haggle for catch while sipping on green coconut juice.

I was lucky enough to tag along on a visit to the Tranquebar Craft and Resource Centre with Marc Tarmo, of Coffee Ideas who was leading a workshop in making Paella with a group of local women .Tranquebar was very badly affected by the 2004 and since then a number of aid agencies have been with the community to help rebuild the town.  The Tranquebar Craft and Resource Centre has been created to promote the local crafts through developing skills and sales networks.

A fun few hours was spent preparing the ingredients and cooking the paella. The local women looked sceptical when the meal was finally served – there’d been not a hint of a chilly during the preparation. None the less smiles spread across their faces as they ate, and Marc’s home Valencian paella was given the thumbs up.

If paella ever takes off in Tranquebar, I’ll have the privilege of claiming a place at it’s first sitting!

During Febraury 2011, I cycled from Waiheke Island to Wellington on a storytelling and cycling adventure on behalf of the Once Upon An Island Trust. The project was dubbed, ‘”Spoke ‘N Word’ encapsulating the two main themes – the bike and story.

The main aim of the project was to encourage the joy of cycling in primary aged children through the medium of storytelling and story making.

At each of the schools I visited I worked with the children to help create their own bike stories using the kamishibai – a form of traditional Japanese illustrated storytelling. Kamishibai was historically performed off the back of the bicycle on the streets and so was the perfect choice for this project.

The children’s stories were created in response to a series of stories (both historical and fantastical) I shared about cycling and a number of ‘story provications’.

These included:

If there was a bike super hero what would their name be and what would be there super strength?

My best bike adventure was when….

If (character) rode a bike it would look like….

If I could ride my bike anywhere I would cycle to….

Choose any traditional story and add bikes to it.

The stories collected will be included in a bike activity and storybook that the Trust aims to have published for NZ Bike Month 2013.

During January 2011 the Once Upon An Island Trust in con junction with the Auckland Council are ran a week long programme of storytelling workshops under the rakau rangatira – the great chiefly pohutukawa of Whakanewha Regional Park on Waiheke Island New Zealand.

This tree has been the site of many community celebrations – weddings, birthdays, christenings and gatherings of family and friends. Undoubtedly if we understood the language of trees it could tell us many stories. It is a great, great, great grandparent of our island.

I wondered – had this tree witnessed the arrival of Te Ure Karaka – the great Maori Navigator or swayed in the wind as Captain Cook sailed past. Does it remember the sound of axes felling many of the giant trees that once covered Waiheke. Can it smell a picnic or feel a child climbing through its branches?

The pohutukawa is an iconic New Zealand tree and there are many explanations of its name. In one story, pohutukawa descended from Tangaroa, the atua/god of the sea and two of his off spring Hutu and Kawa. The word ‘Po’ is the word for darkness – Hine Nui Te Po is the atua of the ‘under/other world. The legendary roots of the pohutukawa of Cape Reinga, Te Reinga, are thought to travel to the place where the spirits of the dead return. To die is to slide down the roots of Te Reinga. The word hutukawa describes the red headdress of feathers warn by chiefs, and in one story, when the Maori of the Arawa waka first arrived in Aotearoa, so dazzled were they by the blazing red of the pohutukawa that they threw the red feather headdresses into the water exclaiming, “ The sacred colour of this place is redder than Hawaiki! I will throw my red headdress into the water.” Suggesting that the treasure of this new land were so great, that we should be prepared to let go of all the things we have bought with us.

Philip Simpson’s book, “ Pohutukawa & Rata – New Zealand’s Iron –Hearted Trees makes for fascinating reading and I strongly recommend it to anyone who would like to learn more about this beautiful trees.

What I love about story is its universality. Not everyone in the world has high speed broadband, tigers, heated toilet seats or Feddo frogs but no matter where you go in the world, everyone has stories.

The children from the Waiheke Kindergarten helped ‘cash me up’ before I left New Zealand. We looked at a map and I explained I was going to visit friends in East Timor and shared with them the Timorese Creation myth (see previous blog). I asked them if they would like to create/tell some stories for me to take to share with the people I met. Four year olds are the perfect ambassadors when you’re visiting a place where you don’t have a shared language – they think and story tell visually. Amongst the story treasures I was gifted, was a map drawn by Tom showing Waiheke, the airport and East Timor, ensuring my safe return. Others included stories about the weather, crocodiles, the beach, birds and since my friends in Timor Leste were involved with working with the local community developing projects for sustainable living, the Kindy gave me a home made book outlining their own sustainability projects.

Off I set, from Island to Island, to engage in the ancient trade of story.

My exchange and sharing of stories stretched from the capital of Timor, Dili, to the remote enclave of Oe Cusse, which is where I spent most of my time. It was a rather spontaneous and informal affair, which was facilitated by the sharing of a shadow puppet adaptation of ‘The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff.’ I’d learnt my lesson in Indonesia 15 years earlier when I translated the ‘The Three Little Pigs’ into Bahasa. Neither the pigs nor the ‘anjing besar’ (the big dog) proved a hit with Hindi and Muslim listeners.

Oe Cusse, was heaving with goats – they seemed and natural choice and of course the ‘lafeak’, the crocodile would be the perfect villain. Ou Cusse even had a famous bridge ‘ The Bangla Bridge’! The scene was set for ‘Iha bibi nain tiga iha Oe Cusse’ – the three goats of Oe Cusse.

With help from my friends, the story was translated into a mix of Tetun, Bahasa and Portuguese that I stumbled my way through. The shadow puppet theatre and puppets were created using flotsam collected from the beach, a cardboard box divested of its contents (pig poo) and discarded manila folders from the local Caritas office. The transformation did have a Cinderella quality as the whimsical shadow puppets came to life, illuminated by a head torch and two candles.

My audiences were poached from all walks. A local woman who came to help with housework and her young daughter, the night watchman, the children as they passed on the road, the staff at the my friends place of work, the children attending a market day at the Alola Foundation in Dili, the guide at the local arts co operative and various expats in cafes and restaurants. After sharing the story, the audience were offered story pictures from the children at the Waiheke Kindergarten and asked if they would like to create one in exchange. In return for storms, beaches and birds, the children I met drew fish, houses, Christmas Trees, sunrises, gardens and families.

When I return to the island, I’ll take the story pictures back to the Kindy to share with the children and who knows perhaps the exchange will continue – free of currency convertors and fluctuating exchange rates – connecting through the currency of story.

Video of the Three Billy Goats Gruff East Timorese Style