my village

The days are beginning to count down, I am (thinking about) packing, preparing to leave, buying and making goodbye presents. But most of all I have been trying to take everything in so as to keep a mental picture of this place as long as possible. So this is a picture of my village. For the past 11 months I have lived in the aboriginal community of Lunpi, Taiwan, and my life has been defined by children and nature. The village has a couple hundred people in it, about half as many random dogs, a church, a convenience store, and a lot of insects and crying babies. When I look out one window of my room I see the street with some half naked child trying to get my attention. When I look out another I see nothing but a dense wall of greenery.

Sights I will remember: the gutters of muddy water flowing through each street, toddlers peeing on the walls of their houses, smashed snakes on the road, the frog I found in my shower, rows of squirrel tails and plastic bags of water hanging from roofs, bamboo sticks hung with drying laundry, all enclosed by beetlenut mountains.

Sounds I will remember: mostly children screaming and babies crying. But also Sundays when the church finishes its service and plays techno remix versions of aboriginal songs and everyone dances, my neighbors fighting as they play mah-jong next door, crickets and cicadas, and the absolute silence of the mountains.

Tastes I will remember: fried chicken from next door, lychees, watermelon eaten at the top of a cliff in a tent, bad ice-cubed beer, instant noodles while sitting on my washing machine outside in the night air.