Colleagues in the field
Sometimes you don’t even need to hear any words to receive positive reinforcement. This past weekend was a beautiful day to partake in pulling invasive vines off of trees in Guandu Nature Park. After gathering in the basement of the nature center in the park and learning what our task would be for the afternoon, the dozen or so volunteers walked out to grab our weeding knives, gloves, and waterproof boots. We would head out to the edge of the park with the goal of clearing away vines that blocked sunlight for the undergrowth and trees. This was an area of Guandu Nature Park that I hadn’t been to before and it took us directly through the “realm of the buffalo,” as was described by our leader that day.
The work itself was tiring, but not as heavy as getting in hip waders and sloshing through the marshland. Rather than cutting weeds from the ground up we would be pulling vies down. Done mostly in silence, there was something quite satisfying about boring a hole in the undergrowth where once there was a thick thatch of green and brown vines. I saw a deflated basketball on the ground and wondered how and why this pick-up game had ever happened. Who would play basketball out in this forest? Or did the ball end up in the nearby river and float into the wetlands after high tide or a flood? Our garbage tells a story, but the story is hidden from those who were not there to toss it. All we are left with are deflated memories.
The volunteer work lasts for a little over 2 hours. On the way back when we arrive at the realm of the buffalo, I see our group waiting for Lisa at the gate. When we arrived two hours earlier, the buffalo were wading on the other side of the embankment with birds perched on their backs for a free ride. At the end of the day, there are 5 buffalo blocking our paths looking at us as we look at them. Lisa gets to the gate last. The buffalo make no noise and grind their teeth in a non-menacing way. A flick of a tail, the flutter of a flock of birds overhead. When the gate opens, they nonchalantly make way for us to pass. 1…2….3….4….5….they all slowly lumber down into the water again and almost immediately defecate into the brackish pool, their excrement the same color as the water. For a second as we walk by them, I almost envy how relaxed they must feel at this moment. Lisa is the last one out, and closes the gate behind them, leaving the water buffalo to continue their romance with time. An osprey flies overhead, circling the wetlands in search of fresh fish, and I’m thankful for my four-legged colleagues and the moments of shared silence in the wetlands of Guandu.
