I’ll enter Singapore tomorrow on a mission. It’s a special mission, rooted in my passion for world record-breaking.
Firstly, I’m fulfilling a visa requirement process, but for me, the rest of what I plan is more interesting. Having set up contacts for various things, I’m sure to be busy for my few days in the ocean shipping hub.
The bird park is very good, I remember from my last visit. That’s a great place for me to collect hundreds of photos I can use to explain avian taxonomy plus a lot more to children in Borneo. The tight-knit greenbelts that criss-cross Singapore like a spider web overlay on the urban plan are a story unto themselves for someone wanting to show children about quality cityscape management. I’ll snake my way along several, camera in hand, scanning the land for anything interesting I can use to depict the way nature works. What’s more, these greenbelts will offer me the chance to show Indonesian children in remote villages that large clusters of trees can successfully co-occupy space inhabited by humans. To far-flung Indonesian communities accustomed to flattening tropical jungle, I’m eager to show that it needn’t be so.
In the city centre, I’ll be pointing my camera skywards. Tall buildings don’t feature in the dreams of jungle children I believe, but it’d be fair to explain what the produce of the mines they know goes towards developing. Down where industry thrives – around the port – insofar as I’m allowed to, I’ll photograph the goings-on to show the children how bulk surface freight moves between land masses. I’ll be using these images to explain why their small villages keep receiving sustenance in plastic containers and how so much of it can possibly keep arriving without end.
In the alleyways and gardens of Singapore, I’ll surely find a great deal more. Until I get there though, I’ve no idea what surprises may await me. But one thing’s for sure: if the children of natural jungles cannot comprehend the power and influence of urban jungles, encouraging them into lifestyles of genuine sustainability will be that much harder to do.
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