Ndura. Son Of The Forest

DAY 3

HOW MY SUFFERINGS BEGAN

Something was attacking me, my whole body was itching. I jumped up immediately, shouting, my head totally cleared out. I looked at my hands and they were covered with red ants with big heads, my body was coated in them. They stung me everywhere, repeatedly. I took off my clothes, almost ripping them off, and I started swatting my body with my hands, jumping, moving and squirming around like the tail of a lizard, shouting and moaning from pain. Some went into my mouth, forcing me to spit over and over again, others went into my nose, my ears, everywhere. It was like an entire swarm of bees had decided to attack me at the same time. Little by little I was able to get rid of the ants, but it took me about ten minutes to realize that there were no ants left on my body. An endless column of ants^[9] crossed the area where I had slept. My entire body was red from the beating I had given myself to get the ants off me and it was full of red dots even redder than the bites those damn insects had inflicted on my body. It all itched so much that I didn't even know where to start scratching. Although there were no ants left on me anymore, from time to time I felt like something scampered on my body and again, I would start shaking convulsively.

When I dominated my rage and my frustration a little, I took my backpack and I also shook all the ants off of it, I did the same with the blanket and the clothes I had scattered around on the ground. I only put my sneakers on and I packed the rest in my backpack. I took some stones and branches and I threw them on the neat column of ants with fury while I insulted them. For a little while I lost control, anger took me over, yes, ants were guilty of everything, I had to end the ants, they put me in this stupid situation and they were going to pay for it. I stepped on them over and over again, furious, frenetic, as if I was possessed by an unstoppable destructive fervor. Some climbed on my legs, biting me again, but I no longer felt a thing, the pain had ceased to exist for a moment. I only had one thought in my head: kill the ants. I stomped on and kicked the ones that were on the ground and with hard slaps, I squashed those that were on my body, crushing them against my legs, my arms or my chest. For a few minutes, that was my only war, my only world: stomping, slapping with my hand, shouting with anger, frustration, bottled in for too long. A furious Gulliver destroying the world of Lilliput. Then I moved away a few steps, I crumbled on the ground and I stayed there for a while, gone, totally surrendering to my fate, blind to what was happening around me, oblivious of any other thing that was not nothingness and inner emptiness. I finally came back to my senses. At night I thought I had heard the murmur of a nearby stream, so I went looking for it, naked, careless, shaking, and my entire body itching, the stick in my hand and my backpack on my shoulder. Leaving behind me a myriad of squashed ants and many more scampering around in their particular dance of disorganized madness.

Indeed, my hearing had not deceived me. A river of about sixteen feet wide made its way through the middle of the forest, before my eyes. My first intention was to take my shoes off and to throw myself in the water, but I remembered something about leeches, so first, I carefully inspected the water on the riverbank letting caution take over my desperation for a moment. The sheer thought of having one stuck on my body, hooked, absorbing my blood, made me shudder. When I touched the water with my hand I noticed that it wasn't too cold for me to be able to stand it for a while. I didn't see anything, except some precious small colorful fish, some more colorful than others, that were too small to eat and too pretty to kill. Their body was long and flattened, their tail divided in three parts, the middle one looked like a bird's feather, their eyes were proportionally big in comparison to their head, they had an iridescent blue color, but when the rays of sun reflected on their body, an incredible range of colors from blue to violet blurred on their scales^[10]. I looked for some other things like piranhas, crocodiles or something similar and I didn't find a thing. So I decided to soak a little after drinking a bit of water.

I walked a little into the water, first making sure with the stick that the ground was steady. I kept my sneakers on, because I was afraid to get bitten by a bug or to have something nailed in my foot. The first contact gave me the chills because of the contrast between the temperature of the water and the outside temperature, although I immediately got used to it. Some dragonflies with vivid colors flew around me, with their long shape and their fast and confident way of flying. There were also a large number of insects, either flying or scampering on the surface of the water as if it were a skating rink.

When the water reached my knees, I stopped and I got all my body wet with my hands. The refreshing effect of the water over the infinite number of ant bites and scratches on my swollen knee was an indescribable sensation of relief. Being in the water for a while, forgetting everything, enjoying every second, put me in a state of deep relaxation. I closed my eyes and I submerged my head in the water holding my breath as long as I could, feeling the coolness all over my skin, surrounding it and smoothly caressing it. For a brief moment all the problems, the preoccupations, just vanished. I also drank big gulps of water, until I felt completely satiated. When I got out of the water, determined to survive at all costs, my spirits were reinforced and my mind ready to fight.

I heard a noise in a nearby tree and I quickly hid in the bushes. They had found me, naked and off guard, they were definitely going to kill me, to assassinate me without any mercy, to sacrifice me like a vile animal. I did not want to die, could I have thrown them off track? Didn't I deserve a little serenity? Hadn't I had enough with the ants? The images of Juan riddled with bullets by the rebels popped in my head like a succession of short flashes. Alex's lifeless body seated in the airplane after the crash with blood dripping from his forehead tormented me once more. I imagined myself bleeding from several holes in my body inflicted on me by the shootings of the rebels, lying on the ground at the foot of a huge tree, they laugh at me while I'm in agony. The pain... I scanned the leaves of the trees and I finally discovered the origin of the sound: a monkey about two foot tall with a tail as long as its body, a bluish face, it had a tuft of dark hair on each side between eye and ear, and a white oblique one over the eyes, most of its body was yellowish brown, except its throat, chest and belly that were white^[11]. Perhaps I wasn't predestined to die that day. Little by little, more monkeys appeared, until there were five of them, jumping from branch to branch and squealing. They must have been playing or something, they perched themselves on a branch and they shook it energetically while they shrieked. Perhaps they were in their mating season, I had no idea, but it was a huge show. Little by little, my heart started beating at a normal pace again. The last thing I saw was one of them picking something up from the ground and eating it, from where I was standing it looked like a centipede.

On the other riverbank, I saw another monkey of similar shape but with different colors. This one had a black face, white sideburns and a beard that spread over its chest and parts of the arms. Its color was more blackish and it had an orange reddish triangular spot on its back. It was bigger than the other one and it was relatively more robust^[12]. It drank a little water raising it to its mouth with its hand then it disappeared. I watched the others play and jump for a while, it was a unique experience that I never thought I'd ever see. Once again I remembered my two dead friends and how they would have enjoyed seeing this, especially the cheerful Alex, always so curious about everything. Now with whom would I talk about these moments, with whom would I share them? Nobody who hadn’t lived it with me could have understood it. No! I shouldn't think about that, it didn't help me keep going forward and what I needed now was to garner as much energy as I possibly could to be able to survive. Leaving this damn forest had to be my only goal. To escape this green hell.

I took off my sneakers, I twisted them a little to drain the water and I hooked them on the extremities of some branches to dry them out. Then I took the bottle and I looked for a small stream to fill it, I thought I read somewhere that it was worse to take water from sites where the water was stagnant because there were more possibilities of it being insanitary or having some type of bug. Good thing I remembered that before drinking. My entire body wouldn't stop itching, although with less intensity than before. I felt a throbbing pain in my thigh and when I looked at it to check if I had a bruise, I saw a leech stuck on my leg, sucking the blood out of me. It was some sort of a slug, thinner maybe. At first I got scared, then I calmed down and thought about a solution. If I remembered well, you could remove leeches with salt or by burning them. I took out the lighter and burned it with the flame until it shrank, I took advantage of that moment and removed it with the knife. It left a red spot in the place it had been before, a drop of blood oozed on the edge. I heated the tip of the knife with the lighter and I carefully cauterized the wound. I had no idea if leeches infected the wound they created or not and I preferred not to risk it. It hurt so much that I had to make a huge effort not to scream at the top of my lungs. I checked the rest of my body in case I had another one, but there were none. Now on my leg I had the shape of the tip of my knife tattooed by the burn. I was going to have a tremendous blister. Perhaps I shouldn't have done such an outrageous thing.

Laziness took control of my body and I decided to take the morning off. So many consecutive emotions were tiring, I was exhausted and my body weighed a ton. I looked for a spot in the shade and when I was dry I put my clothes on and I used the souvenir t-shirt from Namibia that I had in the backpack, to cover all my head with, including my face, to avoid contact with the annoying and abundant insects that lingered on the riverbank. Before lying down, I checked out a shrub that was close to me, I had already seen many like it, with a showy carmine fruit with small bluish seeds^[13]. Could it be edible? I crushed a confused ant that I wasn't able to shake off of my clothes. I closed my eyes and I let myself go into a state of drowsiness, dozing off, the heat and the humidity weighing on my muscles and willpower.

A shot, then a burst from some automatic weapon, more shots. I immediately jumped to my feet. I heard the shots on the other bank of the river, although distant. Now I was sure I wasn't imagining it, they were going to find me at any moment now. Suddenly, it came back to me that my situation did not allow me to just relax. Not maintaining all my senses in constant alert was my road to perdition.

I quickly gathered all my things, I shoved the shirt in the backpack, I put my socks and sneakers on and I picked the stick up. They were still wet, but at that moment, I didn't have time to concentrate on such nonsense. I decided that the best way possible to get somewhere, was to walk along the riverbed, but it seemed quite dangerous to me to follow along the riverbank, so I ventured into the forest once again to try and go unnoticed between the foliage and walk thirteen or fifteen feet away, parallel to the river. It was a small world, I looked in all directions and didn't find more than an impenetrable green wall without any exit. At most, I saw 13 or 16 feet in front of me. I soon lost the river and, once again, I was on my way to nowhere.

I walked at a fast pace at times and a slower one at others for the entire afternoon with little moments of rest. Just enough to catch my breath a little and to listen for more shots in case there were others. I had to permanently put up with the sound my sneakers were making with each step I took, similar to the one produced when you step into a puddle, and the sporadic cramp warnings in my calf. The density of the foliage increased incrementally, plunging into the shadows in some places. There were mosquitos everywhere, they wouldn't stop harassing me as if we were in an endless battle. Sometimes they reminded me of the Japanese kamikazes of World War II, swooping down on their target without any regard for their lives. The mosquitos were the same, continuously throwing themselves at my body, regardless of the casualties I caused with my hands, using them as antiaircraft artillery. Some were so big that they looked more like giant bombers rather than fighter aircrafts, whose mere presence could make the enemy apprehensive. When I saw them approaching I immediately tensed up, ready to avoid them. There were always some hungry ones, I had plenty of bites on my arms and legs, in places where my clothes did not cover my body. Some were even on the same bites the other ants from this morning had left me. I was fighting a losing battle, a banal, futile, useless fight, since they had no end and I was increasingly tired. They bothered me so much that I decided to cover the parts that my clothes didn't with moist soil, creating an impenetrable barrier between them and my naked skin. That fleeting idea saved me. It was uncomfortable to move, especially when it dried, but the continuous attacks were worse.

Thanks to this trick I was able to forget those ruthless insects for a good while and, although I couldn't claim victory yet, at least it was a temporary truce. It also had the surprising effect of stopping the itching where the ants had previously been. Finally, a lucky break.

I didn't stop looking around, I had the constant feeling that I was being followed, that I was getting increasingly cornered, in a limitless forest. I even thought I heard steps and voices behind me or saw fleeting faces of guerrilla men watching me with ferocity from between the trees, constantly monitoring me. The truth is I didn't really see anything with clarity, I didn't find a single trace of their presence in the area. I had the impression that the trees bent over my head, imprisoning me more and more in a living wooden cell. I didn't know if I was becoming paranoid or what, but I had to calm down if I wanted to survive in this unfamiliar and deadly forest.

While I was madly wandering, I came across a gruesome scene. What seemed to be a family of primates, as large as a chimpanzee or similar, were lying in a glade without hands, feet or heads in the middle of large pools of blood, parched and surrounded by thousands of flies and all types of insects and scavengers. The stink coming from them was unbearable and I couldn't avoid instantly having vomit come up my throat. I gathered my strength and looked again. There were two that must have been adults and a smaller one. There didn't appear to be any young ones, what I didn't know was why they hadn't slaughtered them too, was it because there were none or because they had taken them to sell them on the black market. I knew that there were particular parts of animals that were easily sold as aphrodisiacs in the Asian countries: rhino horns, tiger bones and other things like that. Perhaps this was for something of the sort. I decided to get away as fast as possible from that damned place. This discovery not only confirmed once again the cruelty of the human race, but it also demonstrated that I was walking in areas frequented by furtive hunters, surely not very friendly with strangers.

I was very affected by everything that was happening. At a certain point, I finally felt a strong cramp in my calf of my right leg and it forced me to stop and stretch it while I squeezed my mouth shut from the pain and writhed on the ground. I had to stay seated for a while before I was able to move again and it kept bothering me non-stop for the rest of the day. Several times I thought the cramp was back and I had to stop to stretch my leg. When it started growing dark I was completely exhausted and I hadn't advanced a lot because I was forced to walk at a slow pace. My legs were especially exhausted from all the walking, my knee and calf were sore and my feet were almost numb. Looking at it from a positive point of view, if I ever left this place, I would have eliminated the incipient beer belly that was starting to show. It’s still something. I shouldn't lose my sense of humor that could perhaps save me. It was the only thing I had left, that and my desire to live. Elena, what would I give for one of your hugs right now, for a smile! Or for one of those tasty dishes that you prepared!

I sat on top of a fallen trunk, I ate all the quince that I had left and I took a big sip of water. I only had around a fifth of the bottle left and no food. I would spend this third night in a tree, after the ants experience I didn't think I'd be able to sleep, since the ants are on both the ground and on the trees, but what I least wished for was to get captured asleep by the scoundrels who fired the shots . Like the first night, I looked for a suitable tree and when I found it, I climbed to the chosen branch with the help of a creeper. As soon as I put my hand on it, I had to take it off because I felt a sharp prick. The creeper had thorns. I rubbed my injured palm and I looked for another tree to climb on. When I found it I carefully climbed it and I prepared myself to spend another night in hell. I took my sneakers and socks off and I prayed they would be dry in the morning, although I highly doubted it, since the air was almost permanently humid. My feet were wrinkled and had a light brownish green color. I dried them as well as I could, but the uncomfortable sensation persisted anyway. I tried to get warm, but I couldn't, neither with the blanket nor by rubbing my body. The ants and mosquito bites incessantly bothered me, but there was nothing I could do about it. The only thing that relieved this discomfort, was when I rubbed the humid mud on my body to avoid the bites, at those moments the constant itching was replaced by a comforting sensation that I wouldn't know how to describe. I felt a constant pain in my legs that I couldn't pinpoint, and in my back too. My right arm was numb from exhaustion from giving imaginary machete blows with the stick all day long.

I was so exhausted that I immediately fell asleep. My last thought was about hoping to wake up the next day to a breakfast with a huge glass of milk with honey and some toast covered in butter and strawberry or blackberry jam.

DAY 4

HOW I SURVIVED A TROPICAL STORM

A very close noise woke me up and I almost fell to the ground from terror. This was it. They had discovered me, I was finished. All this effort for nothing, I let them catch me off guard, neglected, and now I was going to pay the price. I held the branch tightly and I looked, frightened, in every direction searching for the rebels, shouting "do not shoot me, do not shoot me!" But I didn't see anything. If it had been them, they would have shot me or, at least, forced me to get down from the tree, so I supposed it was a false alarm. Then what kind of animal had gone through here, I was a little obsessed.

"Can't I wake up just one day relaxed?" I grumbled aloud "Can't you leave me alone for just a little while?

The truth is I didn't care. I got down to the ground and I stretched, generously yawning. I had slept a good handful of continuous hours, but my back hurt like hell. In addition, as soon as my thoughts were a little clearer, I started feeling the continuous itching in my legs and arms, where ants and mosquitos had sunk their teeth. Sleeping in a branch wasn't the best thing for my body, but honestly it seemed better than the ground, where I was at the disposal of every person or animal that went through here. I carefully checked my legs and arms and saw that some wounds, mainly those caused by chafing against plants, were infected. Just what I needed. I heard an increasing roar that turned out to be my stomach. I was atrociously hungry and I did not have anything left to eat. My priority for the day was to find food, since water wasn't an issue at the time being, because I had located the river once again. I would have liked to have the reasonable Alex by my side to listen to his always meditated and wise advice. But I was alone, Alex was dead, Juan was dead and I was left alone. It was my fault, all my fault.

I walked to the river to wash my face a little and drink water. I also filled up the bottle. I drank so much water that I felt momentarily satiated, but that would only last a short time. I sat on a rock and I pondered the best way to obtain food. While I tried to find a solution I noticed a tree near me that reminded me of something. I observed it carefully. I knew there was something about that tree, it was that feeling of having something on the tip of your tongue and not knowing what it was. Then I remembered. It was the same type of tree where I had seen that sort of parrot eating his fruit. That's when the light bulb switched on over my head, where finally the idea broke the molds of forgetfulness, where necessity ended the stagnation of my mind. If animals ate that fruit I could possibly do it as well. I had read that some animals had a metabolism that was able to digest poisonous fruit, but most of the fruit they specifically picked, would also have to be edible for me, especially if a monkey ate it, and they were supposed to be the closest thing to a man in this place.

I stood up and walked to the tree. Then I climbed between the branches and I took two or three pieces of fruit, the ones that looked most appetizing. I got down with them and I sliced in half the first with the knife. The inside reminded me of the Siam pumpkin jam in its shape and texture, but in red. I peeled one of the halves and I took a small bite. I chewed it slowly, almost sucking on it. It tasted strange, but it was good. I ate the two halves voraciously and I peeled and ate the second one as well. When I cut the third one in half, I noticed it had tiny bugs in it and I threw it away. I climb the tree again and I took half a dozen more. I chose five of them between the greenest, so I could take them with me in the backpack and eat them another day, and the others to eat right away.

I finished my breakfast and I felt totally satisfied, as much for having eaten as for having been able to find the food. Anyway, I challenged myself to keep an eye out for other food sources from that moment on, different fruit or any other thing, since I could not solely subsist on that fruit. I decided to pay attention to the birds and monkeys. In addition, I had to think of a way to eat meat without having to cook it, since, although I had a lighter, I couldn't risk starting a fire from fear of attracting the rebels, unless I discovered a way of making a fire without smoke. Maybe if I ate it in very small pieces it wouldn't be that difficult. Something similar to carpaccio in Italian restaurants.

As I was scrutinizing the river in search of some fish with an edible appearance I noticed some plants that grew on its bank. They were more than two feet tall, green, and the newest leaves were a bit reddish. Their stem was covered with a bristling fuzz. The leaves were oval with serrated margins and denticles^[14]. What really intrigued me was its smell. It had a strong minty aroma. I thought that it could probably be useful so I picked a big handful of leaves. The forest never ceased to amaze me. Perhaps, after all, I could still find a way to survive. Again the euphoria.

That day I decided to continue like the previous afternoon: walking parallel to the riverbed without going too close to the riverbank. As far as I could remember, the Democratic Republic of the Congo did not have an exit to the sea, so if the river ended up in the ocean, it would be in another country, where there were no rebels and where I could find help. Anyway, the alternative method of guiding my way using the sun as a reference didn't seem to be working for me, since I had no sense of direction whatsoever.

The morning went by calmly. Walking and resting; although I felt a permanent fatigue that made it seem that my legs weighed 40 pounds each. From time to time I had the feeling I was being watched, fixed eyes permanently on my back, but I looked everywhere and never saw anybody, not even one sign of human life. The socks had surprisingly dried. The sneakers were still damp, but at least they no longer made that annoying noise, although my feet had definitively contracted some type of fungus, as if I had been in a pestilent swimming pool. Whenever I saw some kind of bird or animal I stood totally quiet and observed it to try to discover what it was eating, but I had no luck, I only saw it moving from one place to another, it didn't seem to be very hungry. Just my luck.

At a certain point, I felt something on my nose, I ran my hand over it and then looked at it, it seemed to be water. I looked upwards and watched as another one dropped and another one and another, until there was a moment it felt like the clouds were collapsing over me. The sky went dark almost instantly. It was raining, what I am saying, it was pouring rain like I had never seen before. I could hear the thunder far away in the distance and, from time to time, I caught a glimpse of the fleeting glow of lightning, glares that illuminated my surroundings as if they were lampposts. I quickly looked for a place to take shelter. The only thing I found was the possibility of hiding under a tree, curled up on the ground with the backpack under my legs. I put the cap on and I covered my body with the blanket. Then, imitating birds in moments like these, I arranged myself in a way to remain completely still to get wet as little as possible, letting the rain fall in the same place.

It rained non-stop for many hours, so many that it seemed more like days. I was hungry but I didn't dare move at all. The water had completely soaked the blanket and the t-shirt and I felt it falling in rivulets down my back. It also fell from the trunk of the tree and went underneath me in some places. More water, more thunder, more lightning. In those hours in which I didn't even move my head, I distracted myself trying to catch a glimpse of some small insect on the ground and, when I found it, I entertained myself watching how the drops fell on it or how it got dragged by the current. I also found a couple of worms feasting, covering themselves in mud, on the surface. And it continued raining and roaring, as if the Bantu creator god, Bumba, had been accumulating his strength and decided to let all his rage go in one blow, over my head, to finish me. I was cold and I began to shiver, my teeth chattering against my will, uncontrollably. Small streams formed in some places, running over obstacles heading in an unknown direction. I heard the river roaring behind me, stronger than before, I supposed it had risen because of the rain. Hunger pangs in my stomach became increasingly sharp and the rain kept on falling and falling. And more thunder and electrical sparks produced by the discharge of the battles between clouds. I was getting wetter. Staying still must be effective in small showers, but with storms like these, the only way to stay dry is having a ceiling and four walls, because I don't even think an umbrella could have saved me from looking as if I had been swimming in the river. Now I no longer had to worry about the fact that my shoes were wet, I just wanted to know when the sky would finish emptying itself on my defenseless head.

I was desperate. I began to think that this could last for days or even weeks. I remembered the Asian monsoons and their devastating consequences. It wasn't surprising that there were such high trees in the forest if they watered them like that quite often. If the storm lasted too long, this was going to look like an aquarium with monkeys instead of fish. Strangely, with the rain, most of the usual sounds and noises died down. The roaring of the falling water possibly tuned out everything or the creatures who produced them had gone home to take shelter. Everyone but me, I was there, in the middle of the storm of the century without a place to shelter myself, at the mercy of this weather. If I kept degrading this fast, the next thing I would be digging would be my tomb, to be able to bury myself when I died of physical and mental exhaustion. It didn't seem to be such a bad option after all, it almost felt like a desirable break instead.

A thunderbolt struck a tree, about thirty feet away from me, splitting it in two. The noise it produced left me deaf for a few seconds, the ground shook, the end of the world was near and I was lost. The upper part of the tree fell to the ground, stuck to the trunk of another tree that was still standing, its extremity burning, creating a loud uproar. A strange smell flooded the place. At first I was petrified, thinking about the danger I was in, being so close to another tree, imagining a thunderbolt piercing my body, instantly frying me from the inside; but then I watched the fire and I decided that, since I was already completely soaked, it wouldn't change much if I moved and got closer to the fire, it would at least give me some heat, something I strongly desired at that moment. I stood up and all my joints hurt as if a countless number of long needles had been nailed in them, especially in the knees. I had to try three times and to rub my legs repeatedly until I was able to move again. I stood just a few inches away from the flame.