Kansas this is not

Waiting to go to the airport

A quiet morning with me waiting for the car, which will be another two hours yet. I've decided to skip breakfast, not really having felt very hungry since the massive lunch which Desnat treated us to as we waiting for the possible demo to be over at the restaurant. My camera is like not working - well its working, but the USB has a virus so i can't upload the best photos which ive taken over the last few days. Tres annoying.

There has been much discussion about next steps, but really bext steps have been taken already. Yesterday Urip told us about the illegal logs which had been liberated by the illegal loggers down stream. They had left the spiked trees. Well, at least we saved some of those, i said. But about 800 logs. It's hard to say how many honestly. Sometimes its 700 sometimes its 800. But whatever the amount, it is a LOT of money.

A lot of money going to lots of shady places.

The rabbit hole runs deep.

There is an amazing piece of investigative journalism to be written about this. It would be dangerous and it would be life threatening. But it would be explosive.

It would also be something which my mother would never allow. I told her about what happened over the last two weeks finally and she freaked out. Of course i could not tell her what had taken place before. I would have been recalled home.

We're not in Kansas anymore. How many times did Fahrul and myself say, i can't believe this is conservation like a million times. I can't believe we are discussing what appears to be military strategy. I can safely tell you i am spectacularly unqualified to discuss military strategy. FFS i'm even crap at chess.

I don't know if i'll get to return. I told people they'd send me back if they think i've done a good job and if they think i can be useful, and of course if i'm allowed to.

However i might have been useless, done a crap job and not allowed to, in which case i don't know when i'll ever see the Batang Hari again.

Sometimes you go to a place and recognise it. That was what it was like with the Batang Hari. As soon as i saw it, i knew i had been here before. Many centuries ago. In another life. It was like i had come home.

My grandmother used to say that we had Minang blood. Blood of matrilineal warriors, which suits me just fine. Perhaps i will be back. If not in this life, then perhaps in another.