The No Name Diary

Friday 25th of October

Laif arrived on dry land an hour or so later; what met her was a coastline of deserted beaches and high white cliffs illuminated by a full moon and the starlight. The speedboat slowed, the motor finally stuttering into silence as it entered a cove. It glided forward onto the pebbles and came to a rest. Laif waited; listening out into the night, hearing nothing now but the sound of the lapping waves, peering into the shadows. She took her shoes off and got down, clenching her teeth as her feet met the fresh water. She waded past the bow of the boat and onto the sand where she stayed a while, looking around, trying to work out what to do, feeling the motion of the sea still gently rocking her body. Of her two conflicting instincts, to stay quiet or shout out, she finally gave in to the latter:

“Hey! Anyone there? Hello?” But there was no response so she trudged forward into the softer sand, heading up towards trees and a gap in the high rock, deciding that she’d find somewhere to rest until the sun rose.

***

As I was sat on that bench reading about Laif, her strange voyage across the sea to that beating living land, Rowan appeared in front of me. He was on his way into school so we ended up doing the walk together. Rowan with his impressive shirts and carefully selected pens in the shirt pocket; famous for his marking, a colour-coded note system, the intricacies of which only a few of the staff know in their full depth. I, pushing along my battered black and white mountain bike, a notebook, textbook and cuddly toy in the backpack. Shortly afterwards began another afternoon negotiating a roomful of people every hour, creating boards full of words and symbols, walking around, sitting at the desk, footsteps in the corridor, the sound of moving chairs, boards getting wiped clean and the cycle starting all over again until night came and the electric shutters rolled down on another day’s work.

I rode home, thinking about Laif’s journey bumping along the waves; it reminded me of arriving at that port in Panama many years ago, surrounded by dense, humid jungle, hoping to get to Colombia by sea… I’d taken one of those rickety decorated buses to get there and upon arriving I’d seen the dock, then a bar with a dance floor, a bedsit on the corner, 20 odd houses, a shop and a fair-sized police building. The trip hadn’t begun well; I got ripped off by the guy who rented out the bedsit and wandering around the houses, met the police chief who kept on asking me what I was doing there. The next morning I was on a bench by the dock at 5.30am, asking in bad Spanish if any of the boats coming in and out was going to Colombia. The morning crept on, boats left and I felt I had to give up waiting for someone going the whole way. I settled for a ride with some friendly men with long dark hair who looked to have the blood of the Amazon running deep in their veins. They’d said they’d take me close.

Three or four hours later, after dropping people off on the many island settlements constructed on poles along the waters of the Panamanian coast, we arrived at a final island where these two men stood on a long jetty refuelling the boat before saying goodbye to me and heading back north. I was a little concerned; I hadn’t expected to be left on an island. I stood on that jetty quite a while hoping a boat might come past but none did. I slept on a roof that night, looking down into a shack where a girl cooked in a big pot over a wood fire. The whole of the next day was spent sitting on my bag looking out, the blazing sun beating down relentlessly, getting nervous, feeling stupid and annoyed. Eventually a boat pulled in which looked like a fishing vessel. There was a motley crew of about six sailors on it and the guy I thought was the captain; a big bald Latino with a belly who was wearing a pair of gold sunglasses. He took one look at me and said it was eighty dollars to get me back to Miramar, (the port where I’d started). All I had in cash was forty so I offered it to him but he didn’t accept. I sat back down, glumly watching them tie up the ship. One of the crew started chatting to me, a short, stocky and tanned asian-looking guy. He said insistently that I should offer to work on the ship, which I did when the captain came back. He refused again. The motor started and they began untying the ropes. As the boat was leaving, that same sailor shouted to me angrily and motioned that I get on. I didn’t think twice. I threw on my bag and jumped on board, the three hour journey to get to that island was about to turn into a three day journey to get back. A journey at the end of which I was to meet someone who’d change my life forever.