Hidden in paradise
Paradise, a little place, your place!
Taking a shower whilst looking over the misty mountains and a palm tree in front of your window. Nicely fresh water. A little bird building his nest in the tree. It feels like paradise I realize while standing in my 1 by 1 bathroom, taking a shower amidst moulded walls with the toilet by my side. My bathroom in my dusty hotel room. A little town in the middle of the jungle. Nothing to do really, yet it feels like my piece of paradise. Walking around, looking, smiling, eating noodles and drinking a cup of milk tea. Little children taking a bath in a huge concrete tub, splashing around and jumping as high as possible to wave while we walk along. Wooden shacks outside the 2 roads that form the city centre. I would call them houses, but they are in such disrepair it would give you the wrong idea. Welcome to Belaga! Welcome to paradise! That is at least one way of advertising it. Of course, then the question arises, what is paradise for you? Is it an endless white beach with palm trees? Is it amidst eternal mountains covered by snow? Is it in the middle of a centuries-old jungle? Or is it in the middle of a flamboyant city?
What if the beach is covered by plastic lying around?What if the glaciers are melting on the mountains? What if the jungle is being cut down? And what if the city is being chocked by exhaust gases? Maybe, just maybe, paradise doesn’t exist, rather it is created by the viewer.
Paradise is all around us, we just need to open our eyes.
I have been living in paradise. Maybe I have had sleepless nights suffering from the heat, maybe I have been eaten alive by mosquitoes, maybe I have had scary animals joining me in the bathroom (read: huge spiders!) and maybe I have seen plastic lying all around, but this time I decided to see the beauty instead. I am living a dream. A dream that can be hard at times, a dream that sometimes tears me apart, but yet a dream I will fight for.
Never did I expect to be in Borneo travelling over water and over land, but yet here I am, sweating as a pig while discovering as much as I can. The kindness of people is overwhelming. I have been treated on several free meals, just because, and people approach me with an honest smile filled with curiosity. In this world of paradise, I am discovering myself thanks to the many challenges, experiences and kind words. Let’s hope that one day I can give back to the world what it has given to me.
