It's easy being Green!

Let me introduce you to Norsalleh! He is in charge of the tree nursery here. This is a wondrous place that soothes the soul and makes you feel happy just being in it. There are thousands upon thousands of happy little seedlings and saplings all lying in neat little rows waiting patiently to be taken out into the big wide world and planted. He is also in charge of the regeneration project, and is the person who will help you plant a tree if you come and visit. He is also a boat driver for the river cruises, takes us on seed walks around the forest, and just in case that’s not enough, he’s also a martial arts expert who does regular performances for the tourists. He is also deaf.

Brodie and I absolutely love this guy and there’s never a dull moment when he’s around. He’s never learned sign-language, so our communication is a series of elaborate charades which are always hilarious, and frequently cause serious mis-communication, much to our amusement. It’s easy enough communicating simple practical things like “what time shall we meet tomorrow?” and “you’re using the machete wrong” and “look how gross and sweaty I am!”, but it’s another story trying to communicate about something abstract, or someone or something that’s not in front of you or just having general chit chat about the world. Try to picture how you’d communicate “Are we transporting the seedlings tomorrow? Because if so we need to liaise with Martin before we know whether we will be free to help, so will let you know. If not, we can help the following morning.” Because this is the gist of a conversation we had with him this morning. This is also why Norsalleh occasionally turns up expecting to hang out with us, and we are already off busy doing something else. He’s very patient. We are improving though so we’ve recently started attempting to be a bit more adventurous with our subject matter, but trying to explain crowd-funding a boat, engine and man-hours to clear an invasive weed was probably still a little ambitious! 

As he has never learned sign-language, he and his friends and colleagues have developed probably the sign-equivalent of pigeon English…a kind of made-up series of code signs which they all seem to understand, and as a result they can have very complicated conversations that Bro and I attempt to follow like gawping spectators at a tennis match. We usually totally get it wrong, but it’s quite fun trying to follow!

This man is an absolute living legend so I thought he deserved a post all to himself!