Tamarinds and Lost Opportunities

Tamarinds and Lost Opportunities | June 20, 2025

November 1, 2024

We walk back through Komodo Village after several hours of hiking through Komodo National Park. I had seen perhaps a dozen dragons spread throughout the arid hills of the island. They were the entire reason for traveling to this part of the world, the draw and focal point of my current travel desires. I saw them, perhaps a dozen altogether over the course of two hours, and then the moment was over. I slowly walk behind my husband and our guide, trying to draw out the last moments of my visit to this piece of earth before the inevitable departure. Time is a flat circle. I am living in the time of envisioning my travels to this place while simultaneously walking toward this visit's conclusion.

The village is of equal interest as the dragons. In many ways, it's like so many others of its kind throughout the world - except, this one has tamarinds. Not that I knew that until this moment, though. The guide had paused on the outskirts before we reentered the village, reaching up into a tree to grab a handful of beige pods. He handed most of the pods to me and then purposefully bent one until it cracked and exposed its pulpy interior. He placed it in his mouth, smiled, and then nodded in indication that I should do the same. 

"Tamarind", he said. 

"Sorry?" I didn't understand the word through his accent. 

"Tamarind", he repeated. 

I put a pod in my mouth, chew, and delight at the sticky sourness, unlike anything I had tasted before. I realize I really like tamarinds.  

I eat several more pods as we continue our walk down the path, passing through a gap in the corrugated metal fence which separates the national park from the village. A small dragon - an urban dragon? - scurries away from us as we approach. 

The houses rapidly increase in density. People appear: walking, sitting in the shade, going about their business. A young boy with a stick runs up to us as we walk past a certain house, presumably to take a look at the tourists. He swings the stick as he moves about, looking at me and my husband with interest while animatedly exchanging words with our guide. 

Suddenly, I'm struck with inspiration. I take one of my remaining tamarinds and hold it out to the boy. He stops moving and drops the stick to his side as he reaches to take it. In my peripheral vision, I see a woman moving from the shade of the house's eaves. She calls out in incomprehensible Indonesian, and our guide says something in return. It doesn't take much to understand that she was concerned with what I was giving her child, but the watchful guide had seen the exchange and, presumably, succinctly explained it. 

The boy, now holding the tamarind, runs back to the house. My eyes follow him and look at his mother; she watches the boy as he expertly shreds the pod and happily stuffs it in his mouth. She then looks up, straight at me. 

"Doughnut?" She smiles and raises a long metal rod with small doughnuts on the end. She appears to be in the process of deep frying outside in the coolness of her front porch. 

"Oh, no thanks!" I smile back. I'm still holding a tamarind or two. 

During this brief moment, we had slowed down but not stopped our walking. The pace resumes as we continue onward, and are soon back at the docks. The visit is over, it has just begun, it lives on in this moment as I sit and think about that brief exchange, that one time - the only time - in Komodo Village. 

Why didn't I take the doughnut? Why did I say no? It was done without thought, without foresight or awareness. Yes, I held a tamarind in my hand, but it wasn't like I didn't have the capacity to still accept a small doughnut. I realize now that I said "no" out of a blind compulsion, because something in childhood or life had emphasized at a reasonless age that to accept an offer meant posing an imposition. An imposition, a debt incurred, in the form of another's time, energy, or scarce resources. If I accept the offer of a drink, a meal, an anything, it creates an obligation for the other person to make good on my acceptance. Where did I learn that? 

Why didn't I take the doughnut? I said no without thinking, yet I also said no because I thought that it would be an imposition to the woman who was offering. 

With the clarity of hindsight, I now understand that she was offering what she had - a doughnut - just as I had offered what I had to the boy. It was not an imposition for me to give him a tamarind; my offering had been done without real thought, but also with the subconscious intent of passing on a small joy in an act of kindness. His happy acceptance of the tamarind reflected back onto me - not as an imposition, but a gaining. [Here we could extend into the evolutionary debate of altruism, but that is not the purpose of this post.]

Why didn't I take the doughnut? I had not saved the woman from an imposition, but instead denied her the act of reciprocity and generosity. I had also denied myself a likely delicious doughnut, an interesting experience, and variety and interest in my travels. 

I am now aware that the act of offering something is a gift not only to the receiver, but also to the giver. It is validating for someone to accept that which we freely offer. It doesn't matter if it's the offer of time, refreshment, or a gift. To deny these offerings takes something away from both parties. It is a lost opportunity. I didn't recognize it in that moment in Komodo Village, but I do now. 

The lost opportunity of the tamarind.... what could have been gained by my acceptance of the doughnut? I don't know, because that moment has faded into the past. Self, help me to recognize when I am presented with these opportunities and give me enough pause to make the right choice. Offer the tamarind, accept the doughnut, facilitate the reciprocity of this life.