What I was once afraid of, I now see as life.
We brought life to Ksunu', and Ksunu' brought life to us.
An invisible thread, a pulse, a spirit, connects us all. The bird building her nest, the boy bouncing his ball, the moth in the air, the soil beneath our feet, the giggles after lights have gone out. I was reminded of this sacred connection this past week while Jonny and I stayed at an abandoned school high, high up in the mountains of Taoyuan. We helped conduct an English-learning camp for students there where we quite literally… camped. Sleeping bags, campfires, and all. The school we stayed at is nestled in the beautiful mountains of Ksunu’, which is home to an aboriginal tribe in Taiwan.
The school hadn’t been used for 20 years, and it showed. When we first got there to set up camp, the other teachers and I silently prodded through the old classrooms and hallways, trying to hold back our doubts. Cockroach carcasses lined the floors, their backs arched, legs frozen in the air. Cobwebs clung to the corners of the classrooms, and the pavement outside was cracked. When we made our way to the third floor, we gasped and jumped back when we saw a massive spider the size of my hand. It clung to the middle of its web, like a warning. We looked at each other wide-eyed, wondering how we would survive.
Two large canvases positioned at the front of the school caught my eye. They were blank and torn, but I saw the potential of a welcome sign sprucing up the abandoned building. We bought paint at a craft store, and I set to paint these canvases the morning before the kids would come.
I started painting, sketching out the big letters of “CAMP KSUNU’” with my paintbrush. As I got closer to the canvas, I could make out the faint lines of a picture underneath. I saw a small face of a little girl, and another faint outline of a man. I dipped my paintbrush in the red paint, trying to figure out what to do with those faces. Should I just paint over it? They’d been abandoned after all. Likely, nobody would notice. The paintbrush felt heavy in my hand. I felt a looming responsibility to honor the Ksunu’ tribe, a people not known by many in Taiwan - and to barely any foreigners. I wanted to pay tribute to the history of the land, but then again I wasn’t a professional painter, and I didn’t know if I could do justice to the original art, and to the people who had first inhabited this school.
I grabbed a smaller brush and began outlining what I could make out of the faces and bodies faded in the canvas. A little girl sprung to life almost immediately. She was carrying a walking stick. She had bangs and long dark hair. I saw a father, his back turned to me, also carrying a walking stick. I saw a son, a mother. A family! I painted, thinking of how unqualified I was to be “restoring” these paintings. But then again, I was the one with the brush in my hand. They had been fading for over 20 years. And so, paint stroke by paint stroke, I paid tribute to the people of Ksunu’ in my own little way.
Painting that girl on the torn canvas brought a dose of magic to the rest of the week. She was there when our 15 city-kid-campers shot baskets, played water games, and tried s’mores for the first time. She was there when we danced on the cracked pavement after a rainstorm, crouched to see a new colorful bug, and washed our dishes in the outdoor sinks. She was there when the kids followed the leaders around, yelling “Teacher! Teacher! Can I have your Instagram?”
Somehow, that painted canvas served as a portal to a different time. A connection between what used to be and what is. As we (the campers and leaders alike) honed into that connection between history and the present, life and death, old and new - everything began to appear differently. The greens became more green, and the pinks more pink. Clouds touched the tops of the mountains daily, blending the gap between heaven and earth. It made my heart flutter each time. We are life. We breathe the same air, drink the same water, bask in the same sun. What once made me scream at the beginning of the week (a spider the size of my hand) began to look magnificent to me on Day Five. What a beautiful thing it is to be so boldly seen like a spider on her throne in the middle of her web. Large, unabashedly alive, glittering in the sunlight.
We brought life to Ksunu’, and Ksunu’ brought life to us.
Thanks for reading,
Kimber