Gimmick Monologue
I only hear stories at first.
I think it must all be a gimmick, a joke to get tourist to laugh, maybe something to get them to cough up money, too. It’s probably something in the way they reenact it during their educational tours, caveman style.
“Turtle mother coming tonight.”
It’s alienating.
But then, I meet Wak, and I find out that the white colonialists (aka, the volunteers that I have joined) weren’t lying. Wak is dark skinned, with stylishly matted hair that just touches his shoulders, a ready smile and an infectious laugh to match it. You wouldn’t have known that just a year ago, he couldn’t speak any English at all. I’m almost not sure if I believe him.
He’s one of the people on the island who just know when turtles will be visiting that night, in the early hours of the morning where it is still dark, to lay their nests, and he camps out …show more content…
“They move in a pattern, like circular, you know?” I don’t understand it, but I see for myself that he’s telling the truth when I get a knock on my door, 2.45am in the morning, the same day he predicts an arrival.
Before I had arrived on to the island, I had an unshakable image of the locals in Tioman. I knew that poaching was a big reason for the decline of sea turtle populations, and I blamed them for it. Uncultured, they were, and unscientific, taking turtle eggs to make soups, using them as unproven aphrodisiacs and medicines. If they were going to camp on the beach, waiting for those mothers, it would have been to ungraciously steal their eggs.
As I meet more and more of them, I realize in some ways, the caveman impression I had heard on my first day to the project wasn’t so wrong. They speak broken English and prefer Melayu where they can use it, but they are not alienated, and they are not the environmental monsters that I have created in my head. The impressions are affectionate, and
I think it must all be a gimmick, a joke to get tourist to laugh, maybe something to get them to cough up money, too. It’s probably something in the way they reenact it during their educational tours, caveman style.
“Turtle mother coming tonight.”
It’s alienating.
But then, I meet Wak, and I find out that the white colonialists (aka, the volunteers that I have joined) weren’t lying. Wak is dark skinned, with stylishly matted hair that just touches his shoulders, a ready smile and an infectious laugh to match it. You wouldn’t have known that just a year ago, he couldn’t speak any English at all. I’m almost not sure if I believe him.
He’s one of the people on the island who just know when turtles will be visiting that night, in the early hours of the morning where it is still dark, to lay their nests, and he camps out …show more content…
“They move in a pattern, like circular, you know?” I don’t understand it, but I see for myself that he’s telling the truth when I get a knock on my door, 2.45am in the morning, the same day he predicts an arrival.
Before I had arrived on to the island, I had an unshakable image of the locals in Tioman. I knew that poaching was a big reason for the decline of sea turtle populations, and I blamed them for it. Uncultured, they were, and unscientific, taking turtle eggs to make soups, using them as unproven aphrodisiacs and medicines. If they were going to camp on the beach, waiting for those mothers, it would have been to ungraciously steal their eggs.
As I meet more and more of them, I realize in some ways, the caveman impression I had heard on my first day to the project wasn’t so wrong. They speak broken English and prefer Melayu where they can use it, but they are not alienated, and they are not the environmental monsters that I have created in my head. The impressions are affectionate, and