I’m going to continue to bounce these vignettes around – deal with it, it’s my blog! It’s weird talking to the internet. I’m also kinda writing these all at once, if you couldn’t tell. I meant to do this last night, but I was super tired after working in the jungle all day (the subject of this post) and kinda in pain. Something must have gotten inside my boot and bitten/stung me through my sock. One of the kids thinks it was a decent sized bug whose name I forget and anything is possible. He also suggested I pour lemon juice on it, which I did – can’t hurt right? So anyway, it kinda hurts to walk. 18 hours later it’s better, but more swollen and still hurts. It kinda looks like a big ugly bee sting, so nothing life threatening I think, but it hurts! Fortunately, it’s easy to keep your foot elevated in a hammock and so I did that while I slept last night.
Oh, I also cut my thumb relatively badly while in the jungle. Remember I just said I re-learned the importance of cutting away from yourself? Yeah. That’s what I was talking about. It is shallow but along, from the tip of my thumb almost to the base of the nail. It bled a lot and it taught me another good lesson – I need to make up a jungle/travel medkit to carry with me when I go on an excursion! I made a bandage out of a handkerchief and it was bleeding enough that it was clean, but yeah. Ouch. Cleaned it very well when I got home (soaked in antiseptic) and today it seems to be healing nicely with no sign of infection. Probably will scar, though, since the edges don’t quite want to go neatly together. Anyway, none of that is the point.
The point is, yesterday I went deep into the Jungle and did a hard day’s work! It was awesome! On my way home from a morning run a few days back, I walked past a house and saw a circle of guys standing around looking like they were seika-ed up for something cool (seika is a cool word in Sarmaccan, kinda like dwaeyo which is my favorite word in Korean – it means prepare). So I stopped to chat and they told me they were headed into the jungle on a boat and would be making boards. I managed to get invited/invite myself to their next excursion (scheduled for the following day). Random folks, just met them – totally fine. I talked to some of my main buddies here about it to check the guy and the work out and to let them know I’d be gone, and everything looked good!
So I got up early and did my workout and then cooked a day’s worth of food (which I didn’t end up needing, since they fed me – I’d heard they would but didn’t want to depend on it) and then headed over to the guy’s house. Nobody was there. Turns out they decided not to go that day. I was super bummed, and more so because I’d just spent 20 minutes trying to find his house in my full jungle-get up, carrying a heavy pack and a machete, and telling everyone I saw that I was going into the Bush! It worked out fine – I ended up going working with my main Rasta buddies all day instead, which was good too.
Later, rinse, repeat the following day and we were off! We took a boat about 10 minutes up river and then took a tiny foot path straight into the jungle for about half an hour. A man with a shot gun was in the lead and there were five of us in total. The thick, lushness of the jungle is almost indescribable. It is so…alive. I felt like I was in the movie Swiss Family Robinson, a childhood favorite (I think that was Aunt Ronnie – thanks!) Quiet but loud in that incredibly vibrant, natural way. Dark but filled with green light.
Our destination was a great tree – at least a meter thick and unknowably tall. The blue sky above it was almost like a scar after so much green.
We made an impromptu saw mill with machetes, an axe, trees for levers and wedges, and two chainsaws. These guys can use chainsaws better than I can use tweezers and I saw them pull boards out of a giant hunk of tree for nine hours. And yes, they were barefoot and the sawdust flew like snow. I helped as much as I could, which was a lot of carry and fetch and heave, but it was good work and I enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy the noise so much, so I won’t go with them awesome, but it was very interesting to see one source of money and raw materials for the village.
At about sunset, we walked back. The lead chainsaw guy had the shotgun, in case we saw anything that might become dinner meat, but it was a quiet walk back. Except for my being silly enough to cut myself and something biting my foot, it was an awesome day. Next time I’ll wrap my boots and cut away from myself. And bring a jungle medkit, but less food and water. Good lessons to learn, and not bad for my first expedition!
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