Demarcation Diaries
23 September 2001
The decaying leaves are soft and cold under my feet. I am walking barefoot
through the jungle, something I wouldn't have dreamt of doing two weeks
ago. It's not that we are getting reckless but that the irrational fear of
the jungle is giving way to a measured caution. The reason I am barefoot
is that I have been down to the stream to wash my clothes and myself
properly, for the first time in four days. We have had a busy time at our
first camp and we recently moved to the second. Unfortunately we've had a
poor satellite phone connection so we've been cut off from email and
updates until now. Well, it still doesn't work properly. This update will
actually reach you via a short flight with the helicopter tomorrow. Talk about an indirect
access to the internet.
As I pass the camp I walk by the Deni who are just getting ready to go.
"Amushide?" Vabishi ask me. Is everything ok? I reply "Eamushide!", things
are fine. As much as the Deni were imitating us in the relative comfort of
the Savio, we are imitating them out here. I suppose that is what you do
when out of your natural habitat. Speaking of which, as I write this Vabishi
sits down beside me and looks at me typing. He reads the text and spells
out the words he recognizes. We are all learning here.
Last night we feasted on wild pig, freshly speared by the Deni. We sat
around the camp fire at night, exhausted from carrying the all camp gear
4.5 km, and ate the pig with our bare hands. It doesn't taste like pork at
all, more like beef or deer and it is juicy and absolutely delicious. We
had this treat because the Deni decided to go hunting. They don't have to
and they shouldn't, but we couldn't really stop them. Though they may have
seemed a bit Westernized on the Savio, they are all Indian out here.
Imagine four guys leaving in the morning with only their machetes and
coming back at noon with four wild pigs over their shoulders, bloody
clothes and proud, happy faces. That day the Deni finally proved that our
romantic preconception about Indians aren't entirely off.
Steve
Find out about the different
volunteers on the demarcation project.
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