Peter D’Auria ‘14, Syiah Kuala University Fellow

Sometimes while falling asleep in Aceh I would feel earthquakes. In a country crisscrossed by fault lines, in a city devastated fifteen years ago by a catastrophic quake and the following tsunami, it always seemed inevitable that I would experience an earthquake before my time there was up. Lying in bed, slipping into unconsciousness, I would suddenly feel the house shaking—the bedroom wobbling around me; the mattress shuddering, and I would think: This is it.

Peter D’ Auria ‘14, Syiah Kuala University Fellow

A butterfly entering your house means that you will have a visitor. It’s become clear that the house I live in does not belong to me. The creatures living here are following their own schedules, pursuing their own agendas. A small brown frog has made my bathroom its home, returning even after I gently evicted it.