After the typhoon there is a strong smell of freshly baked lasagna in the village. Everything is green. The balconies are green. The patios are green. The path is green.
Some trees, the big old ones, have decided it’s finally time to lie their heads to rest on the path. An old man appears through a tree, turns around, shouts something throatily, and a black dog also appears through a tree. I step away because he’s on my list of mean dogs with indifferent owners.
Now that the typhoon is over, there is a bustle of activity as if it were nine AM and time for work. Chinese. White. Filipino. Men and women are sweeping, sawing, hurling, thrusting, pulling, dragging, shoving, chucking all kinds of things into the jungle. Green to green. Renewal born from destruction. Nothing wasted. A deep feeling of security.
The swamp looks as if it’s had its hair gelled back. The well is full of leaves. The frangipani by the gate of the community garden fell into the pond and is being hacked to pieces now, one by one thrown into a swamp by an older British woman who says with a nervous laugh that she’s just happy the weather has calmed down now. She seems embarrassed by the plain fact that she is excited to be hacking at something. It gives me a sharp fear which I then fling into the swamp.
I pass the concrete threshold out of the village and take the back woods route up to the wind turbine. The bamboo shoot a friend and I planted two weeks ago is alive, thriving even. Two men are clearing the trail. I ask them if it’s doable. They ask what do I mean by that. For a second I don’t even know what I mean. One of the men has a very warm and kind voice so incongruous with his appearance that it throws me off balance. And balance is not something I can stand to lose on a muddy incline after a typhoon. Then I find the word passable. Is the rest of the trail passable? I ask. They say yes. Because I am flustered, it is not until I am much further down the hill and out of sight that I remember to thank them for clearing the path. I stop.
I can still hear them, the man’s kind voice echoing down the hillside. I hesitate to call out my thanks. I do not want to sound as if I am in distress and they come running.