I was born in Bukit Lawang 48 years ago.
My grandfather loved traditional plant medicine and helping people in the village. When I was young, we walked to the river and into the jungle two or three times a week. He taught me everything I knew about the plants and animals. He even taught me how to fish. We would sell the fish to the local village and then use the money to buy rice and vegetables. It was simple, but it is how things were done. We were together and we were happy.
We always cooked and ate as a family unless we were in the rainforest. We didn’t bring pots from the village to cook rice for dinner; not the way trekking is done now. Everything we used we found while we were there. We would collect bamboo stalks and carve a hole in the side. Then we would make a funnel with the banana leaf and place the rice on top. Last, we would use sticks to position the bamboo over the fire until the rice cooked. If you stay in the jungle, you have to learn to do these things. Of course, we brought coffee, sugar, tomatoes, and chili paste we made by hand from the village, but dinner always came from fishing at night. The rainforest always provides if you know where to look.
The landscape was so different here back in those days. There were no roads between Bukit Lawang and Bohorok. It was 8 kilometers of pure jungle. The river was pure. There was no rubbish or plastic waste. In the mornings, a thick mist blanketed the mountains. When I close my eyes I can still see the mist from when I was young—how cold it was here. There were less people at that time. There weren’t even guesthouses yet. There was a small office set up by the World Wildlife Fund, but it was small and that was it.
I didn’t take what my grandfather passed on to me seriously because I was still young. I was around seven years when he passed away. I didn’t realize how important his knowledge was until I was much older.
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