TUMBANG MARIKOI Yes, there are doctors in our hospital. But they are from Germany. Besides, they don't speak English. You don't know German, but they can't speak English. You are people from one European continent, but you can't understand each other...' The head of one of the most remote districts of central Kalimantan laughed heartily at his conclusion: here, after all, what our world came to. I'll say this for him, but he spoke the language of Shakespeare perfectly. A few days earlier boys from a small village downstream the Kahayan River said that in Tumbang Marikoi there was a doctor from Russia. Russia and Germany were most likely to be merged in their understanding in the image of a united country, where a lot of white misters and refined misses indulge in a leisurely life in their luxurious mansions. The boys also added that upstream the Dayaks were holding an orangutan in captivity, and immediately offered to take me there by boat, explaining that to go there by road was very long and tedious. I was nearly to go down to a pier with them, but at the last minute I refused to go into a boat: the price they called was $ 30 which seemed to be too high. Keeping to the nearest path, I went into the forest at that time and wandered in the kingdom of unripe hands of bananas and rubber trees which natives milk to have white "milk". And there, having gone through many adventures, almost having drowned in a quagmire, I reached Tumbang Marikoi on my own. The last miles turned out to be the most difficult. Equatorial sun hovered over my head like a bird of prey. Slopes alternated with rises. The absence of cars, lianas, crawling over the road, wild forest, a more and more wayward river and a large snake, quickly slipping in front of me, made it clear that I was penetrating into the most remote, sparsely populated district of central Kalimantan. At one of the passes, unable to throw off a backpack, I leaned forward a roadside and must have been sitting like that for half an hour, unable to move on. But I had scarcely continued my way, a wonderful panorama unfolded before my eyes. In the inaccessible distance I could see mountains. The middle ground was brightened up with a conical mountain of a regular shape, which was buried in verdure and resembled either a small extinct volcano or a majestic pyramid, overgrown by the jungle. In the foreground there was a modern bridge raising. Actually, just after the bridge the village of Tumbang Marikoi began. In the village office they pointed to the cottage where a person, managing the foothills there, lived. 'Swimming here is safe,' he told me. 'All local crocodiles were eaten by the Dayaks long ago. And you will not find an orangutan -- there are few of them left, they live deep in the jungle and the rivers here are very difficult to navigate.' I took a deep breath. The prospect of meeting a mysterious Russian-German doctor, who also, didn't understand English, was hardly reassuring. However, the manager also said that the village of Tumbang Maraya, where I was making my way for, was a dozen miles away. Such a long way with a backpack was above my strength, and I could not afford to hire a car. 'What should I do... I'll go and meet with a doctor', I thought, picturing a strict lean mister in a pince-nez in my imagination. As it usually happens in Indonesia, immediately appeared an attendant, who took me to the hospital by his motorbike. The open verandah, where patients gather in the morning, by the time we arrived was empty. They didn't answer to a knock at once. After a while, the door creaked, and a tall stately plump woman appeared in the aisle. In the movies German women are lean, prim, stingy, or, quite the contrary, vulgar. With the former the distance is slightly greater than desired. With such a person you involuntarily huddle up and look a bit askance. With the latter there is a presence of sin in the air and a sinful beginning is put in the forefront at once at the expense of spirituality, which appears indistinctly somewhere in the distance. The woman, who opened the door to our knock, had dignity. But this dignity was expressed so simply that a respectful, but at the same time trusting, distance arose in our communication. Her soft house dress, an organic ability to dress comfortably, to look mildly, to speak directly attracted immediately. I had a complete feeling that I was communicating with a Russian person in a Russian village and that this little woman with plump hands would grasp an oven fork and get a pot with ripe porridge out of the Russian oven... (to be continued)

• published: 22 Jan 2012
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