While an experienced medic I was still a young man, mostly on my own with, at least what I thought were, some really heavy responsibilities. The pressure to do well, teaching in a language dialect I didn't know well, and gain a people's confidence in an other-wise hostile environment would often weigh hard on my testosterone laden shoulders.
Some days were worse than others and nothing would ever seemed to go right during those times. I'd get frustrated and finally blow up ending with me throwing something, kicking a tree/rock while yelling and swearing the whole time. The tribe would usually quietly avoid me until the next day which would embarrass me and sometimes make me more sullen...not good for the work I was trying to accomplish.
One day I was by the river when I dropped some supplies out of my canoe into the muddy water. I'd been waiting WEEKS for them and they were probably ruined. I went totally beserk!
Suddenly I felt a intense fire in my head, a blinding flash in my eyeballs and found MYSELF in the water...face down and wallowing.
Sputtering and fuming I dragged myself out, completely soaked and bedraggled, up the muddy bank. As I got to the top I saw these two VERY old tribeswomen looking at me with their heads canted to one side. I felt a small and very tender lump on the side of my head and KNEW they had ambushed me and then PUSHED me in the river!
I raised both my arms in the air to yell something at them, but this only caused me to lose my balance and I landed face down hard into the mud. What's more my open mouth gobbled up half a pile of dog scat laying on the shore.
Now I came up to my knees looking like a black minstrel singer and dry heaving my toenails!
Those two old crones just bent down and tapped me on my head with a shiny spirit stick and said my brain had been too hot and would I like them to help me back into the water?
Huhhh?
For some reason that struck my funny bone and I collapsed onto my back, covered in mud and dog shat and started heaving again...only this time with laughter.
I laughed so hard and long that I thought I was choking with asthma. When I was able to compose myself I looked up into the trees to see both old women and several other tribe members, including all the children surrounded me in what appeared to be a huge footbal huddle from below...al; laughing just as hard as I was. I doubled over in hysterics at all those brown smiling faces.
Later that day, those same two old biddies gathered up ALL my clothes and washed them themselves at the river rocks, returing them all clean, dried and folded.
I don't think I ever lost my temper around my indigenous friends again (at least that I can recall) and couldn't help but laugh anytime someone showed up from the outside wanting to yell about how things were going badly over this or that with our missions or back at SOCOM headquarters where they never really seemed to have any clue as to where we were or what we were doing. But when they started griping too loud or too long, those tiny grandmothers would always show up at my side and gently tap me on the head with a stick (albeit a small one)...a reminder of a lesson learned. And they did that for the several months I ended up staying with them.
While I had been sent there to teach THEM to take better care of themselves, it was I who went on to learn many other lessons about myself and life that a young man, like I was then, truly needed to have under his belt.
[attachment 11194 RiverCanoe.jpg]
Some days were worse than others and nothing would ever seemed to go right during those times. I'd get frustrated and finally blow up ending with me throwing something, kicking a tree/rock while yelling and swearing the whole time. The tribe would usually quietly avoid me until the next day which would embarrass me and sometimes make me more sullen...not good for the work I was trying to accomplish.
One day I was by the river when I dropped some supplies out of my canoe into the muddy water. I'd been waiting WEEKS for them and they were probably ruined. I went totally beserk!
Suddenly I felt a intense fire in my head, a blinding flash in my eyeballs and found MYSELF in the water...face down and wallowing.
Sputtering and fuming I dragged myself out, completely soaked and bedraggled, up the muddy bank. As I got to the top I saw these two VERY old tribeswomen looking at me with their heads canted to one side. I felt a small and very tender lump on the side of my head and KNEW they had ambushed me and then PUSHED me in the river!
I raised both my arms in the air to yell something at them, but this only caused me to lose my balance and I landed face down hard into the mud. What's more my open mouth gobbled up half a pile of dog scat laying on the shore.
Now I came up to my knees looking like a black minstrel singer and dry heaving my toenails!
Those two old crones just bent down and tapped me on my head with a shiny spirit stick and said my brain had been too hot and would I like them to help me back into the water?
Huhhh?
For some reason that struck my funny bone and I collapsed onto my back, covered in mud and dog shat and started heaving again...only this time with laughter.
I laughed so hard and long that I thought I was choking with asthma. When I was able to compose myself I looked up into the trees to see both old women and several other tribe members, including all the children surrounded me in what appeared to be a huge footbal huddle from below...al; laughing just as hard as I was. I doubled over in hysterics at all those brown smiling faces.
Later that day, those same two old biddies gathered up ALL my clothes and washed them themselves at the river rocks, returing them all clean, dried and folded.
I don't think I ever lost my temper around my indigenous friends again (at least that I can recall) and couldn't help but laugh anytime someone showed up from the outside wanting to yell about how things were going badly over this or that with our missions or back at SOCOM headquarters where they never really seemed to have any clue as to where we were or what we were doing. But when they started griping too loud or too long, those tiny grandmothers would always show up at my side and gently tap me on the head with a stick (albeit a small one)...a reminder of a lesson learned. And they did that for the several months I ended up staying with them.
While I had been sent there to teach THEM to take better care of themselves, it was I who went on to learn many other lessons about myself and life that a young man, like I was then, truly needed to have under his belt.
[attachment 11194 RiverCanoe.jpg]
