the gentle gardener, Made

I am in awe.

I just stopped Made while he was bent over and cleaning the pathway of the dried leaves, and asked him why he isn't sitting with everyone at the first "team meeting". He smiled and stopped working and crouched down and explained to me;

"When you do talking and decide on something. You must do it. Now it is your responsibility. You have list. You must do it. I have list, so I will do it. The others now just talking talking, so I don't stay. They say "Who will bring the coconuts? Who will cut the banana leaves?" It is not on anybody's list, so now just talking talking. Maybe the girls must do it. "

"Yes, Made, that is right. I always ask you for banana leaves and palm leaves for the offerings, and it isn't on your list, maybe you do not have time to do that for me. Yesterday I needed the banana leaves but you hadn't cut them for me yet, so I cut them myself! But when I cut them I was so sad because I cut one off that had a little caterpillar rolled up in it and I felt so bad for it."

"Yes, I see that Eileen has cut banana leaf yesterday. If this, banana (and he takes one thin bamboo stick of his little sweeping broom and designates it) then here (and he motions to the next three thin bamboo sticks that are behind the one that he has singled out) Eileen cut new leaf from behind. Good to cut first banana leaf next to banana. That leaf slowly bend over, not so important now that banana comes. Back leaf can be important. Not know if new banana come there or not, but if cut leaf, no banana can come, only if cut half leaf, then still can grow and help banana. Eileen cut whole leaf, now water can come and make banana sick."

"Oh, no, Made! So how I cut the leaf yesterday wasn't good. I'm sorry."

Made just smiled. This is how gentle the people here are. He didn't come up to me with an angry face or voice and accuse me or tell me that I just killed the banana plant. Only because I started to ask him about why he is not at the team meeting, did he gently explain to me how to cut the leaf next time. I marveled at his knowledge, how he is so in tune with the plants and understands their cycles and the importance of the plant parts and their overall nature. This is not the first time he has shared his childlike stories of nature with me. Usually after he has been accused of forgetting to water plants, he does not defend or justify anything. He remains silent and present, while being accused. And then a few days later I may point out a plant that has died and ask him what he thinks happened, since it looked so healthy a few days before, and he crouches down again, like with the broomstick, and gently opens up the stalk or a leaf or digs a bit in the earth to show me that an insect has entered and eaten the plant from the roots or insides. He doesn't uproot it, he lets the insect also live inside the dead plant. Each creature has its role to play in the ecology of the garden, and he just tends it to the best of his ability, respecting it all, aware of it all, a partner in this Garden of Eden.