Group dynamics become paramount in survival situations. Communicate effectively to work together, and the sum is far greater than its parts. On the other hand, miscommunication leading to disfunctionality can literally cripple the strongest crew. We awoke in the morning with a fractured group that did not believe in its leaders, who were not listening to their followers. So my lovely lady and myself endeavored to promote communication and synergy among our elements. We began with the suggestion of making a mental map of the region through which we had wandered.
A mental map, committed to form by drawing on paper, becomes a very tangible piece of communication. When a number of them appear, disparate geographic ideas become part of a group's mental map. That is not to say that the group's mental map is necessarily reflective of the geographic reality. But in a situation like this, the geographic reality is truly not as important as the group's idea of reality. No one will get out alive unless the group works together. The group cannot work together unless it has a commonly agreed upon reality. If each member has a different mental map, a different reality, than each member will react differently when faced with new information, like a trail or a water source or an informative view point.
So we made mental maps in a sketchbook that I happened to be carrying. Reinhold, Boone and my girlfriend all drew legible, useful maps. And it turned out that they were remarkably similar. Which was really cool. Now, time for a gameplan.
The gameplan was water. We were all very dehydrated. You can survive in a warm environment for a hell of a long time (days to weeks) without food. Your body goes into survival mode, it practices conservation, it metabolizes more efficiently, it starts burning fat when fuel runs low, and will eventually burn muscle when fat runs low. But water, water is another story, as my 6th grade biology teacher taught me with the memorable phrase "Without water, metabolism comes to a G-R-I-N-D-I-N-G halt!" He occasionally accentuated the point by throwing a chair across the room. For real.
Returning to the story ... We decided to go for water. We descended from the ridge back to the ill-directed streambed, and now placed our faith in its upstream water potential. We had a seen a muddy puddle or two the day before. Perhaps upstream it would be running, copious and clear.
We came upon a puddle of mud. It was a few feet wide, perhaps a foot deep, revealed a remarkable biodiversity when disturbed, and had the consistency and coloration of thick chocolate milk. Reinhold had a LifeStraw (check out the link!) in his pack, a product designed for just this circumstance. We scooped up the liquiaceous mud, filtered it through a spare shirt into a tupperware, and then slurped up the resultant liquid through the LifeStraw. It smelled of rotting organic matter, it tasted sulfurous and bitter, but lordy lord it was WET!
The water, however filthy, helped tremendously. Dehydration, and the heat exhaustion that can accompany it, produce profound feelings of despondency, along with lethargy and muddled thoughts. We continued onward, with a bit more vigor, and soon found bamboo growing alongside the streambed. Bamboo has the outstanding trait of holding water in the segments of its trunk. Boone hacked open a section with a knife, stuck a bamboo straw into the craw, and sucked.* Sweet juicy flavorful moist refreshing water was the reward. Remember this the next time you are lost in the rainforest.
We kept moving upstream, and came upon real flowing water, crystal clear pools of the stuff. We sucked and sucked, lying on our bellies with our faces inches from the stream, LifeStraw between our lips, taking turns while we saturated our withered cellular structure with robust water molecules. Over the course of a half hour, the entire group, save Mia, fully rejuvenated. Mia chose not to drink any jungle water, due to a hellacious history of parasites that were still severely impacting her.
With confidence reasonably restored, we directed our attention to finding our way home. We debated on strategies, and decided that we should set a course towards the flooded forest we had passed by yesterday. We figured it was roughly South Southwest, and resolved to set forth in this direction. I pointed out the likelihood of trails appearing that ran in different directions, highlighting our tendency to follow a trail, even if in the wrong direction. The possibility was noted, and the group surged forth from the streambed, in a South Southwesterly direction.
"I found a trail!"
"So did I"
"How does yours look?"
"Not so great, how about yours?"
"Looking good. More of a Northwest direction, but definitely a trail."
"Sweet, we're moving towards you"
Never underestimate the comfort derived from a trail. Given a choice, humans will always follow a trail instead of hacking through trackless wilderness. For that matter, so will most ungulates.
Well, off we went, following one trail to the Northwest, then another to the South, which soon bent Southeast, and then we changed direction and headed North, possibly to compensate for the last bearing. Reinhold was far ahead, occasionally hooting so that we could locate him. Boone was ahead as well, endeavoring to help Reinhold search for trail, while also keeping us posted on Reinhold's whereabouts. Each hoot seemed to reveal a new direction of travel, leaving us flustered, then frustrated, and then furious. Yesterday was repeating itself. We stumbled through a maze, becoming more and more disoriented, and less and less confident that we would see the solid line of a road, or smell the sweet scent of hot asphalt under a tropical sun.
Anger, fueled by fear, rose in my throat. I yelled as loudly as I could to Boone, who was within shouting distance, although still cloaked by jungle. Reinhold, unexpectedly close, could hear me also. They did not know it, but we had reached a breaking point. My girlfriend and I, along with Jacob and Mia, had just held a vote of no confidence, or something close to it. We could not continue to blindly follow a man who appeared to us to be blind. We had to know why our direction kept on changing. We had to know what our direction was. We had to know what the fuck was going through Reinhold's head every time he began to follow a new bearing.
Reinhold and Boone emerged from the jungle, moving purposefully. I said we had to stop, and talk.
"Yes of course, let us talk, but we will keep pushing forward in a northerly direction as we speak"
"NO!" "NO!"
My girlfriend and I spoke as one, even if it sounded like two separate utterances. The line had been drawn in the moist shallow jungle soil, even if our leaders did not know it. Would they stop and hear us? Or would they press onwards, pursuing the phantom trail that was always just ahead, that would either take us home or take us to hell.
Coming soon... Part IV: Strawberry Milk, Sliced White Bread and a .357 Magnum
*Somewhere, I have a video of Boone sucking bamboo water. You have never seen a happier face. If I can find it, I'll post it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment