This is a very touching story told in letters exchanged between a woman in the U.S. and a man in Borneo. I am dismayed at how many stories really cut through the fortresses we've built around ourselves. I've cried, I've laughed, I've sighed, I've smiled. I'm there. And I'm totally here.
All because of stories.
See Backpack Nation for all 20 stories - and vote for your favorites - or reference my original post for additional context.
A Simple Gift by Lynda Howland
Banjarmasin is a city in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. It was there, in 1993, that I met Nurhadi. He was in his forties, at first glance an unsophisticated man with ragged trousers and flip-flops, whom I had hired as my guide. For the next week he guided me through the markets of Banjarmasin, and across fields and rivers as we made our way by motorcycle, bush taxi, and ferry to Tanjung Puting, the orangutan reserve in eastern Kalimantan. On one beautiful afternoon as we approached Pangkalanbun, our bus spun out of control, flying across the road and turning over into a ditch. I “awoke” to Nurhadi gently lifting me, uninjured, from the wreckage. It was at that point that I felt a strong bond with this man who, with time, would reveal to me his sensitive and expressive soul.
This is a story about the gift of words. And I will let Nurhadi tell it with his own, contained in the numerous letters he sent me in the years following our adventures. To understand him, we must start with what he wrote to me about his junior high school years.
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