There is an old, weathered bus stop across the street from our house that serves no purpose other than boarding the occasional spider and its web. In an unusual turn of events, there was a flurry of activity there this weekend. On Friday, three young kids spent the entire afternoon playing under the tin shelter. After a quick tea party on the bench (consisting of juice boxes and cookies), they ventured out to find and collect treasures in the gutters and along the fringes of the rainforest. By late afternoon, the bench was lined, from end to end, with rocks, flowers, leaves, and a few bottle caps.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Kylee ran into the kitchen and said, “Uh, Mom, there’s a bunch of Papuans at the bus stop with knives!” Sure enough, a large group of Papuan men had assembled at the bus stop with their 2-foot machetes. After a few minutes of inspecting and sharpening the machetes, they, too, ventured out into the rainforest, but never returned.

I would have loved to have taken a picture of the Papuans with their machetes, but a covert picture was out of the question, and I wasn’t sure how the armed men would have responded to my request for a photo op.

The unoccupied bus stop.
The dark, curved line in the grass behind the bus stop is the path that the Papuans use to leave and enter the rainforest.