Dear friends,
It's been over a month since I last wrote to you - long breaking my intended streak of an email every fortnight. I suppose it's both a good and bad thing, if there are really such polarities in how often one should email one's friends. It's been a busy few weeks (good! bad?) and so email-writing has taken a back seat (bad! good?). Everything is relative, but certainly an update is long overdue.
Every time I write to you seems to herald a change in weather. It could be due to our increasingly erratic climate (abit joking, but not really), or just the fact that I tend to notice these things. I'm sitting in a cool house after a sudden, light but persistent rain - showers have been common this month and will continue to be so for another. Some of these are true summer blitzes - huge heavy monsoons that stir the wind into a frenzy and curl it tight around buildings, the kind that wake you up in the middle of the night and then, beating a steady rhythm, lull you back to sleep. Others are quick, feathery affairs like the one that just passed, a barely-there shower that you might not have noticed if you were indoors or engrossed in work. All that is to say - the rain season is well and truly upon us.
It's interesting to have your life feature the weather and seasons so prominently. It doesn't occupy //so// much of my brainspace, but I do spend more time thinking about how to adjust my habits - waking up, exercise, the kind of clothes and shoes I wear - to the weather. The sun is hotter and quicker to rise in these months, and mosquitoes much more common. It's warmer both in the daytime and at night, and much more humid. In Singapore, I didn't really notice these things because I was insulated from the actual -weather- most of the time. If you think about it, so many of our 'habitats' in Singapore are air-conditioned or the like. Public transport, buildings, offices, schools, and even some of our homes. Being outdoors is the exception, rather than the rule.
Weather aside - I'd like to tell you about some things that happened recently, which is quite uncharacteristic of these emails If you haven't noticed, I usually just sit down and type whatever comes to mind (usually what's happening at the moment). But I feel like this will be a good way for me to process some recent (happy! tiring! amazing!) events, which I would also like for you to know about.
Last week, we organized a tree-planting camp at Uthai Forest, the non-profit afforestation project I've been working on. It's our first-ever tree planting camp, which means with that, the forest planting has really and truly started.
Do you know the feeling of seeing something come into being? A dear friend, Aleithia, reminded me that just eight months ago, Uthai Forest was just a bare piece of land and a 3-page Google Doc. In September and October, we started planning the project lightly, but in earnest. In the document: Why we started this project, how we wanted to involve people, and the mechanics of that. I took a look at it again, which I drafted when I had barely an idea of what the land looked like or any knowledge of planting forests. It laid out our plan for the project - to divide the land into plots of 1,000 square meters which can be sponsored and used by individual sponsors. There was a rough gage of the price, directions for getting to Uthai Thani, and bulleted lists of "who we are looking for" and "what this project is not". I want to say it has evolved dramatically and I don't recognize it any more from this Google Doc, but it hasn't actually. The gist is still the same, though now there are the beginnings of a forest to show for it. It is: We are planting a forest. If this is the kind of thing you want to see and make happen in your lifetime, we are finding ways to involve you.
The first paragraphs of my brief for the then-titled "Uthai Thani Agroforestry Project". Thankfully, our branding is much more on point now, if I may say so myself. We have a (much better!) name, logo,website and Facebook page.
Before our volunteers arrived for the tree-planting camp, I could feel myself shaking with excitement (no caffeine involved!). I haven't been so excited for a while! I think it was because some of my closest (and some less close, but still good) friends decided to join the camp (rather last minute, but that's friendship). Many strangers (turned friends) and people from different walks of life joined too, which was very heartening - but I was really happy that some of my friends - friends! - decided to attend.
I'm still wondering why this surprised me so. Wouldn't we expect or hope that those closest to us are the first to invest in our beliefs? I'm don't really know about that. My closest friendships were borne out of circumstance - usually people I went to school or worked with. I have many friends from environmental work and volunteering, and we have similar outlooks on life. I treasure them, but my strongest bonds are still with the people that I grew up, lived, learned, fought, cooked, travelled, rolled around pantsless (very important but optional) with. Shared beliefs and lifestyles or not (and some of us are really so different). So I guess seeing my friends there, planting trees in rural Thailand, carrying around buckets of manure and baby trees and digging holes in hard ass soil was an immensely touching and validating moment. I thought - if my friends are willing to do this kind of thing with me, despite our differences and the bumps and blips in their own lives, then maybe I'm doing something right.
This is something that's stayed constant for me since the birth of Uthai Forest. Back when I didn't feel so personally connected to the project, I thought I would like to make it into something my friends could relate to and join in on. Doing this is really fulfilling and makes me feel like my life (my body! resources! brain! energy! life!) is well lived. I want to keep living it and have my friends come along for the journey too. If I were to consider anything a mark of "success", this would be it. Not amassing a movement full of tree-huggers and eco-warriors, but moulding a place to bring the community I already have. To that - I guess we'll see.
Dreams and reflections aside - the night is gaining on me, and I haven't flexed my writing muscle in a while. I hope you'll forgive the English in this email, I think it doesn't read as nicely as the other few. In any case - sending love from Thailand, and maybe just a final shameless plug - we've another tree-planting camp on June 13-16 and it's the last we've planned for these few months.
Hope you are well, and happy almost-weekend!
All my love,
Hui Ran