Picnic With The Penan

Articles Tagged with: Picnic With The Penan

2 October, 2012

Small is Festival

Text and photos by Martin Lambie

Arkitrekkers Andy, Richard, Sally, Maryam, Lewis, Adam and myself headed up the team dispatched to represent our great organisation at the Small Is Festival a few weekends ago. The festival, organised by Practical Action in partnership with Engineers Without Borders, gathers several hundred people together every year to celebrate the ideas of distinguished philosopher E. F. Schumacher who in his 1973 book “Small Is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered” encouraged people to share, learn and be inspired by sustainable living, international development and appropriate technology.

The team arrived from all corners of the UK to set up camp amongst the festival-goers in the grounds of the Schumacher Centre, a former stately home in rural Warwickshire. We were struck by the eclectic mix of people and friendly atmosphere at the festival and, fuelled by veggie curry and a beer or many, soon got stuck into enjoying the evening’s musical entertainment. Lewis, Richard and I escaped the music for a short while to stencil the Arkitrek logo onto 7 red t-shirts (and a lighting engineer’s chest who took a fancy to the logo!). Later, the boys showcased their fire-lighting skills back at the campsite, designing and building a multitude of twig and smouldering paper arrangements until finally one of them decided to burn.

After a cooked breakfast courtesy of the ever prepared Mr Andy Gilding, day one of the workshop began. Titled “Design and build a Penan Jungle Camp”, our workshop aimed to emulate one of the amazing Arkitrek camps happening next year, in which participants will design and construct a contemporary camp for trekking tourism with the Penan tribe deep in the rainforests of Sarawak – contact us for more details.. We kicked off the activities by building a replica of a traditional jungle camp known as a Pondok, guided by the reports written and sketches drawn by Arkitrekker Sarah Greenlees who visited the Penan a few months ago.

The structure consists of two key elements: a raise timber living platform (sometimes including a stretcher bed) and a roof of simple timber frame and sheltered by a thatch of large rainforest leaves or, more commonly these days, substituted by a tarpaulin. Being without a rainforest to find huge leaves, we opted for the latter, and as the roof frame began to rise, the first volunteers eager to get their hands dirty joined the construction efforts.

We were running the only workshop at the festival to span the entire weekend, so various activities ran continuously throughout the day. This allowed participants to come and go as they pleased whilst us red-t-shirted-people mucked in or answered questions from curious passers-by.

Saturday afternoon saw us run a design session with participants young and old to brainstorm and get some ideas down on paper for the new rainforest camp. The brief required the design to respond to it’s environment, be comfortable, durable and visually striking to promote responsible community-based tourism. Amongst the many fantastic ideas, triangular designs seemed to be favoured owing to their simplicity, efficient use of materials, and effective shedding of rainwater.

Later in the afternoon at the other side of the workshop area, Rokiah Yaman of Creative Health Lab (and friend of Arkitrek) was speaking at the biogas workshop and was joined by our very own Maryam to talk about our biogas camp next year at Borneo Sunbear Conservation Centre – contact us for more details.

Day two picked up where we left off the previous day: model making, to explore a few ideas in three dimensions before taking on the full size build. With a rough twin pyramidal design in our heads following the triangle themed ideas thrown around the previous day, a group of us downed craft-knives, foamboard and UHU glue in favour of saws, timber poles and sisal rope to get cracking on the full size mock up.

As a group, with the help of many volunteers, we discussed and designed whilst we built, lashing posts, tying tension supports, stringing up a tarpaulin hammock, sawing timber to size, building steps and laying the floor.

By the end of the day we had a magnificent new jungle camp prototype which (somewhat surprisingly given our makeshift design method) fit the brief really quite well we thought. The frame could be clad in anything from tarpaulin to wooden boards, the lightweight structure can be moved easily and materials are used efficiently only touching the ground at three points, which minimises the number of foundations and access routes for creepy crawlies. A fireplace could be lit under the overhanging roof and the triangular plan might be rotated and repeated to either create an internal courtyard or rainwater collection at its centrepoint. But above all, it was an enjoyable weekend for everyone involved and it marks a starting point for the lucky few who go to the rainforests of Sarawak next year.

And if you’re wondering what happened to the shelter after the festival, we hear that one of our young helpers persuaded his dad to rebuild it in their garden! Does this mark Arkitrek’s first building in the UK? If you have our shelter in your garden please get in touch, we’d love to see some photos!

Camp3 Recce

Sarah Greenlees reports from the recce trip for an Arkitrek Camp

Last week I went on the recee for an Arkitrek Camp, which will take place deep in the Sarawak rainforest. I was expecting an exciting trip and within 24 hours we had trekked through spectacular primary rainforest; taken low canoes down forest lined rivers; scrambled up hills; slid down hills and stumbled across streams; we had eaten a variety of meats from eel to barking-deer and civet cat ; we had met villagers and learnt to use blowpipes; been fishing and hunting; explored limestone caves and climbed lianas to get views of forest covered hills and towering limestone pinnacles. This was far more of an adventure than I had ever imagined and that is all thanks to our gregarious and generous guides and hosts- the Penan of Long Ageng.

The Penan are the last nomadic tribe in Borneo and to describe them as resourceful would be an understatement. While we trekked in with packs heavy with hammocks, extra clothing and first aid kits, the Penan had divided a couple of key items between them- 2 cooking pots and a kettle, a couple of tarpaulins, 2 blankets and a fishing net. Within minutes of reaching our camping site they had built a comfortable shelter and had laid on a great spread for lunch. While we got eaten by mosquitoes and fought infected cuts and blisters, the Penan were untouched. While we stumbled and fell through streams, sliding off rocks and becoming unbalanced by the currents, the two young guys we were following jumped from rock to rock barefoot, catching frogs and throwing nets for eels to get breakfast for the next morning.

When, after caving, our hands were too dirty to eat with, the headman Jawa cut spoons from the trunk of a sapling and stitched leaves together to make bowls for us. When we got caught in a thunder storm he stitched large leaves together to make umbrellas. When we lost the propeller on our boat the next morning, a nail was pulled from the floor of the boat and used to affix a new propeller. The Penan seemed to carry nothing into the forest, but always had exactly everything that they need.

And so from this ease that they have with their environment I was able to begin to envision how the Arkitrek Camp might work. It will be tough and it will be a steep learning curve for the participants. There will be discomfort and tears I’m sure, and thanks to the ravenous, albeit tiny leeches there will certainly be blood, but I am also confidant that with the quiet and poised assistance of Jawa and his friends this discomfort will pass very quickly and everyone will settle into some sort of system with the forest. Learning from the way the Penan live in the forest I was also able to refine a kit list, sort out safety procedures and protocols, and work out the logistics of getting materials into such a cut-off place.

Returning from the forest, tired and somewhat beaten, we spent 2 nights in the luxury of the village. In the course of the final meeting to sort out logistics with the community, it struck me that the village was very egalitarian. On our trek, everything had been shared, be it pans or food or blankets. In other communities you might expect the headman to receive some sort of special treatment. However, Jawa had worked harder than everyone else to make the shelter and provide food and clean water. He was never without a pack and usually was carrying the kettle and a pan. We asked how the headman was picked and were told that people voted for the person that they felt worked the hardest for the rest of the community, the person that was the least selfish.

We had visited Jawa’s house. Instead of living in one of the longhouse lots with a big kitchen and sleeping rooms, he lived in a small 4m2 pondok (hut) on the edge of his tapioca farm. He shared this with his wife and son. The village leader lived in the most humble hut. When trips were made to live in the forest for months on end the women and children go as well. There seem to be little divisions. In our meeting with the community this seemed to be apparent as well. The women were having as much of an input as the men were. They were coming up with just as many ideas and questions. Their input was respected and valued. Throughout the meeting the Jawa held one of the village children as he fell asleep.

Of course, 4 days is not enough time to form an authority on a community, but it seemed to me that through all of the experiments of alternative living from communes to co-ops, what people were really trying to attain was what the Penan already had.

Before coming to Borneo I had never heard of the Penan. Deforestation was only an environmental issue. I didn’t realise it was also such a deeply social issue. As we left the village behind on the river and trekked back to the logging road that, that the threats to their way of life were so close and so out of their control. We learnt that they felt they could not keep up with modern developments and could not survive without the forest as a lifeline, and yet were prevented from even being able to do a simple thing like registering a vote. The politics are complex and the threats to their lives seem insurmountable. The list of endangered communities in Borneo exceeds just orang utans and sun bears, it also includes indigenous people.

And so the Arkitrek Camp is nearly on us. It will be tough, it will be sweaty and it will be a challenge of endurance; but it will also be a privilege to work alongside and learn from this incredible community. There will be a warm welcome and a family that will always welcome you back to their little bit of forest. And they will probably welcome you with civet cat!

Photos courtesy of Jesse Kip and Charlie Ryan