loan receipt

It has been 3 weeks holding on to this guidebook by Mr Henry Stedman - The trekking guide to Africa's highest mountain.

I went to the National Library specifically looking for a guidebook on Kilimanjaro. Scanning the bookshelves, it took some time but as if it was meant to be, I found it.



There was only one copy. Dog eared and tatty, I flipped the pages and found loan receipts from other people who had also borrowed the book. Names of strangers I did not know. Just like me they had the uncertainty and desire?

I read the book, leaving the loan receipts from the others in there.

These loan receipts intrigued me, sometimes even more than the text inside the book. Who were these people? Did they go to Kilimanjaro eventually? What sort of mountains did they move to make this trip?

Their names - ordinary.

"Lim Guak Hoon"

Desk bound office workers. Perhaps they do accounts or law. Taking annual leave, breaking their piggy banks, vacating all other obligations to fly out on jet plane from Singapore to Tanzania to climb a mountain with a back pack full of dreams.

So heartwarming it was to see their loan receipts in there, I will be pitching my loan receipt in there too. Perhaps the next person who finds it, won't pitch my loan receipt into the dustbin and leaves his loan receipt in there too for the next person to find.