The British colonized Api Api, an exotic port on the South China Sea and named it Jesselton at the dawn of the 20th century. During WWII, the Japanese seized control for its strategic geography until the Allied Forces bombed it into rubble and what was left, the Japanese burned to destroy any evidence. Only four structures stand today from its pre-war period.
And that goes a long way of explaining why this country is still very much at the tail end of development. Sidewalks are scarce, open cement ditches line the streets and my hunch is that it’s not just rain water flowing there, plus most concerning of all, there seems to be an irrational fear of Diet Coke.
The city collides with the thicket of jungle that’s right out of the movie “Rain,” the constant monsoon downpour a metaphor for time grinding to a halt, any progress made in baby steps, very slippery baby steps.
I took a cross-island flight today to Sepilok, an Orang Utan (they have a space in the word, that’s how they do) sanctuary that is so mindful of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it that it made me adopt a little fellow named Gelison. Of course, I can’t keep him, but by all accounts, he’s a trouble maker and that seemed just fine to me when I was signing the paperwork.
I happily return home tomorrow to my little monsters and when we all get home, I will play them “Faith” while telling them my Carrie story and then we’ll watch “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
Good lord, it’s been an awful few days.