Location: Serangen, Bali
Today we went to a Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. Now to me, this brings up a serene mental image of towering banyans, gently trickling streams, lichen-covered statues, and perhaps a glimpse of one of our distant relatives leaping through the canopya snapshot of serenity, a feeling of primordial connection to nature.
Now, as it happened, I was still on the boat while this was going on, re-wiring a controller for one of our windlasses (anchor lifting device). I hadn’t been into this long when reports started to trickle in that would suggest my mental image may have been slightly skewed. While the setting was indeed tranquil, it turns out that the Long Tailed Macaque is an agent of mischief and discord and will literally leap at the chance of dropping from a bough of a nearby tree and onto an unsuspecting head or backpack. Fortunately, most of them are not much bigger than a slightly larger than a usual house cat, so this wasn’t a tremendous concern, but it can still be a little disconcerting. Consequently, this was an inherently immersive experience. Along with hundreds of monkeys, the sanctuary was an incredible display of a massive diversity of tree species, Balinese sculpture, and an opportunity for gelato.
This brings me to the real climax of today. Thanksgiving on Argo is an undertaking. Actually, it has been the only place I’ve ever experienced it, and I believe that Matt also had his first Thanksgiving experience today. For the last 36 hours, people have been rotating through the 2.5 square meters that is the galley in preparing the mind-bending spread we were treated to this evening. With dishes spanning from the traditional turkey to sticky rice, this really put the old adage about there always being room for dessert to the test. However, a tremendous quantity of calories aside, I am struck by the extent to which large meals such as this are largely an exercise in facilitation. Inherently they are, of course, wonderful, but I think there is more to our consistent capacity to push ourselves to eat until movement itself is a challenge. I think this is the function it plays in the facilitation of community. Though we eat together every day, some of these gatherings are more equal than others. They offer an opportunity to take a step back, breathe in and appreciate the people that we gorge ourselves alongside.