More than a decade ago, we planted a tree in the rainforest. It was one of those last-minute decisions you make when you’re leaving a beautiful place and wonder how you can leave some sort of mark on it.
We’ve always been free souls who preferred to leave footprints and take only memories. I guess it was a sort of ‘ethical traveller’ decision.
It’s the same reason we never rode an elephant or went on those boat tours to see the propeller-etched whale sharks they feed to keep nearby for tourists.
We don’t buy curios most of the time unless the mementoes on sale are directly helping a local person earn a living.
In this case, planting the tree was the best of both worlds.
We were supporting a local business and, at the same time, contributing to reforesting the badly depleted jungle.
That tree also contributes to the oxygen you and I are breathing at this very moment, 11 years down the line.
Yes, we understand that this little side business of the place we stayed at was to make money.
Isn’t it okay to feed your family off the money tourists are willing to pay for a tree-planting exercise? You’re making a living and helping the jungle ecosystem.
We even got a ‘plaque’ – a little wooden thing painted with ‘Linds’ on it.
They stuck it in the thick mud next to our sapling. I guarantee that plaque is not there today.
It was the kind you might recycle later for another tourist by painting over it. That’s okay. The tree, though? I often think about it.
I’ve planted many, many trees since then, particularly on our farm in Oribi Gorge. Hundreds of trees. But I still wonder what that tree looks like now.
Is it towering over the little wooden huts with the rickety boardwalk?
That boardwalk was really the only way to walk from your hut to the place they served food.
The ground was basically just thick mud up to the knee. Thousands of leeches were also just waiting for you to squelch over there so that they could feast.
I’d still go back to see that tree, but we’re older and wiser now, aren’t we?
Imagine what else we would notice ten years on. Mist-blanketed rivers with crocodiles have tales to tell, I’m sure.
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