So, the resort's on fire...and the aftermath

The past 24 hours has been an interesting internal exploration of my attachment to material possessions… mainly prompted by the fact that half of Scuba Junkie's Mabul Beach Resort burned down in a blazing fire last night.  (I guess I'll summarize what happened first, in this post, and then, when my brain's settled, move onto documenting my deep and brilliant thoughts regarding material possessions...) 

I’d had a fantastic day of diving around Mabul Island, in the Semporna Archipelago off of northeastern Borneo.  I’d lazed on the beach a little.  I’d had a refreshing shower.   I’d hopped into the hammock outside of the dorm room next to mine (I was in #14, my lucky number!), and in the process met and chatted with some fascinating people, including a fisheries biologist who took time between contracts to be a dive master, and Kurt, Princeton ’08 (small world, ya?).  One of those serene, deeply fulfilling, “life is good” days.   As dinnertime approached, I returned to my room to wash my hands (my affection for animals meant that stray dogs had tried to nuzzle up against me whilst I chilled in the hammock), and decided to sit on the bed and check email.  My dorm mates were sitting outside, on our balcony, chatting with a guy from the next room over beers. 

Imperceptibly, the smell of burning plastic entered my consciousness.  Probably just another garbage fire…the poverty-stricken villages around Mabul Island regularly burned their trash.  One of my dorm mates closed the door so the smell wouldn’t get worse in the room.

Seconds later, another dorm mate rushed into the room.  “Grab all of your stuff.  There’s a fire.  Like, a REAL fire.  Get everything.”

Automatically, I packed my computer and grabbed my bag with my wallet and passport.  I started gathering stuff into my big pack, and then my brain froze.  I spent valuable seconds taking things out of the bag, then sticking them back in, thinking, “Do I really need this?  No, I should leave it…No, I might need it.”  I hesitated.  Should I even be packing?  Aren’t you supposed to just grab your passport and wallet and get the hell out?  No, we had time, right?  They would contain the fire.  I mean, it was probably silly to be bringing my bag out at all.  OK, Tara, just bring it, just get it and go.

I scanned the room, and some sort of autopilot turned on.  Shoddy sunglasses? No.  Notebooks?  Nothing too important in them.   Lonely Planet guide book?  Replaceable.   Go go go!  I sprinted out with my roommates.  Only then did I grasp the gravity of the situation.  Flames were stabbing out of the windows of rooms 16 and 17.  Rooms 13 through 24 were all connected, with thatch roofs over the entryways.  Smoke chugged into the air.  The manager of the resort was shouting: “Everyone to the beach!”, tears streaming down her face.  It was a blur of activitiy, panicked activity.

The fire was between us and the beach, so we had to run to the other set of rooms and then back to the water.  As we got to the beach, I gazed, stupefied, at the flames.  I wanted to take pictures.  Where was my…oh no.  I left my little point and shoot in the room.  Wait…oh no.  My new Canon, that I needed for my research.  I did not have $1000 to replace it, and it wasn’t insured (whoops).   It was under my bed in its bag.

This was incredibly, incredibly stupid.  I sprinted back past the fire.  Room 15 wasn’t on fire yet, so I dashed into room 14.  It was eerily dark, illuminated by the nearby flames, smoke starting to creep in.  I dove under the bed, grabbed my Canon, swept my hand over my bed and grabbed my point and shoot and its waterproof housing, and got the hell out of there.

Back on the beach, I found my way to the cluster of people who I’d become most familiar with.  My roommates.  The fellow Princetonian (“So…I think we should send these photos of the fire to Princeton’s weekly alum newsletter…”).  My dive buddy from the day.  Everyone watched the brilliant flames grow, defying the darkness of the night sky.  The wind blew mercilessly.  The resort staff and villagers were doing what they could, but that block of rooms was gone.

I felt faint.  The adrenaline, plus not having eaten in hours, plus my tendency to, well, faint (I hate it...I'm not a weak person, it just happens), all converged, and I had to sit down.  My brain feebly tried grasp the situation: “Oh. My. God.  This whole island is going up in flames.  The shanties just behind the rooms are just like tinder.  These people are going to lose everything.  I can’t believe this.  This is going to be such a tragedy.”   And, one by one, the items I had left behind popped up in my head.  Swimsuit.  The sarong I’ve travelled everywhere with for the past 5 years.  My Invisalign braces…shite, those’ll cost a lot to replace.  Running shoes.  All of my toiletries.  Not too bad, but still…if I’d thought straight, I could’ve gotten everything.  I vacillated between reenacting my evacuation and kicking myself for not grabbing more, and realizing how silly it was to let that bother me - this fire was dangerous, and if it spread, much more was at risk than a few of my possessions.  

Jeff, my dive buddy, had been in room 17.  He lost everything but his passport.  I stayed with him along with a small group of others, helping him talk through it, trying to comfort him.  “It’s all replaceable.  You have your passport.  You’ve already bought your flights.  Things will work out.”  In the meantime, I was trying to repress that sinking feeling in my heart every time I thought of another thing that I’d left behind.  I was kicking myself for not sprinting to the bathroom and then to the clothesline outside.  I was saying words that I knew were true, but they weren't comforting me...even though I'd saved most of my things.  “It’s just stuff, right?”

The opaquely orange flames had thinned out.  The outline of the building glowed deep orange as the fire subsided.  Beams crashed, spraying sparks.  Murmurings of the crowd diffusing into my wired brain.   “If that had happened four hours later, when everyone was asleep...my god…”… “’Where are we going to stay tonight?  It looks like rain…” … “I don’t know what I lost…I don’t know what I have with me…” … “What are we going to do now?”  The resort staff did a roll call.  Some walked around getting people’s reports: “It was about 5 minutes before dinner, and we smelled this really bad-smelling smoke. Like burning garbage.”  “I saw a light flickering on and off in that room.”  “Those women, they were using candles in their room!” 

I was thinking about the time that had passed.  It seemed as if time had been suspended.  Reality had been suspended.  The concept of time telescoped in my mind, zooming in and out, and it was all so surreal, and the panic was fading, and the stress was fluctuating, and…I had to sit down again.  I needed sugar.  The people around me were fantastic, contributing chocolate. But, as soon as I’d chomped down on that much-needed sugar, I realized how parched I was.  Ah, my Sigg bottle…is now part of the fire.

The staff started handing out water bottles. Scuba Jeff staff brought over more boxes of water bottles.  The fire finally slumbered.   We made our way to the resort next door, Borneo Divers, where the staff briefed us on the events and on the next steps.  Half of us were to spend the night at Scuba Jeff’s, and the other half at Aron Hayat – two “resorts” on the other side of the island that were almost empty.  The stark white fluorescent light in the meeting room cast grim shadows over tired, confused, stressed faces and scattered bags. 

Borneo Divers provided us with dinner.  The dining room was more cheerful.  I sat on a couch, still shaking.  I was surrounded by fellow tourists and by some of the Scuba Junkie staff.  The room buzzed with the same lines of conversation, interrupted by lulls where fatigue and shock took over.  But things slowly became more normal.  The Princetonian told his fire story, which was actually pretty funny (in short, he’d been in the shower and thought the commotion was caused by pirates attacking, and he’d considered barricading himself in the bathroom). I confessed to my fear of being in the middle of taking a huge dump when a fire or other disaster occurred.  Beer was poured and consumed.

Scube Jeff's

We made our way to our beds for the night.  A long line of people toting what belongings they’d saved, following the sand path across the island under the stars and palms, blue flashlight beams darting around.  Scuba Jeff’s was very basic, and they threw as many mattresses as they could into the rooms.  I was exhausted and felt grimy.  I wandered around a little, talking with people, but finally had to lie down.  I put my earphones in and scrolled to a random song – one of my friend Nathan James' trio's songs.  How nice to hear a familiar voice in such a strange situation.

I laid there, restless.  I thought about how I’d phoned a couple of loved ones, but not my parents - my mother has a tendency to freak out.  But I suddenly really wanted to talk to them.  I got up and walked to the back part of the jetty that Scuba Jeff’s was on, and dangled my legs over the edge as I dialed home.  As the phone rang, I realized that the water below was crystal clear…

It was so nice to talk to my parents and Danny.  My mother didn’t even panic.  But she said, “oh, Ta-Ta…you must have been so scared.”  And I realized I had been scared.  The whole night, I’d been pretty much on auto-pilot, but I didn’t really realize how I felt. And now I felt like crying. 

But then I pulled myself together. I was fine.  No one was hurt.  The surrounding villages were safe.  I had most of my belongings.  A feeling of unity had risen above the stress and panic among the resort staff and guests, and that evokes all sorts of warm and fuzzies. I’d talked to some of the most important people in my life that night, reconnecting with how much they meant to me.   And I was in Borneo.  Loving life, living the dream. 

“You know, Mama, I was really scared.  But I’m fine now.  I’m safe.  I have a bed to sleep in.  And…and…” (I looked around me, at the gorgeously transparent and placid water underneath me, and the thick, wondrous halo of stars above) “…it’s a really, really beautiful night.  It’s just…beautiful.”  Someone started playing delicate and soothing guitar music behind me.   I was a little spark of a soul among all of this beauty, these emotions, these thoughts, the events of the universe , and it all resonated and echoed under the pointilism stars in the cavernous sky, and I felt the spirit of everything in the world come gently together. 

Early morning from Scuba Jeff's jetty

Just… beautiful.

What's left of rooms 13-24

I've had a really lovely day today.  I visited the smoldering remains of my room (I confess, I was hoping by some miracle that some things survived, and I confirmed that this hope was laughable).  I documented all of my lost belongings, and it comes to at least $500, none covered by insurance (valuable lesson learned).  But, though there's a part of my that tries to nag and stress about the money (that's a big chunk of the grad student salary), I think I don't really care.  It's not really that much, considering what could have happened...and really not worth mentioning, considering how much I still have, especially when I think about the impoverished communities on this island.  I'm getting money back from Scuba Junkie, which they offered up-front to all of their guests.  I decided to spend more money and get a room at the fancy Borneo Divers, because I just needed somewhere nice to rest up, and they had a permit available for me to dive Sipadan (supposed to be an amazing dive site...and someone was nice enough to lend me her swimsuit for these couple of days).

Thinking about the "what ifs", imagining scenarios only slightly different from what happened, makes me realize what a close call it was (what if my roommates hadn't been on the balcony to see the fire?  What if I'd been taking a nap?).  That shakes me.  Walking around the island and smelling fire in the villages from cooking and garbage piles makes me really nervous.  But I've experienced enough happiness today to cast away those shudder-evoking thoughts.  I phoned my little sister, who I've been missing because I really wish she could join me for these adventures. I talked with my fellow Scuba Junkie-ites (turns out, surviving a fire is a great bonding experience), walked around the villages, sat on the beach, and had a lovely evening with some new friends.  On a tropical island. Life is good.  It's very, very good.

* Note: Just want to say that Scuba Junkie's a great company with awesome folks, and I would definitely dive and stay with them again (and they'll probably be the most prepared for fire, after this).  They handled this situation professionally, and, as I witnessed the quest of others trying to find alternate accommodations, definitely offered the best deal and service on the island. *