What Would You Do?

Two months ago I introduced readers to the story of Kenneth Good.  Good was a cultural anthropologist, who, while studying the Yanomama tribe of the Amazon rainforest, became infatuated with – and eventually married - a young Yanomama girl named Yarima.  In Good’s autobiographical account of his adventures in the Amazon, he recounts the many barriers he encountered in trying to maintain his marriage to his young Bride.  The following is a fictionalized (by me) spin on one of the real-life challenges Kenneth and Yarima had to overcome during their decades-long love affair.

After nearly a decade spent living among the Yanomama deep in the Venezuelan Amazon, Kennth Good had become well-acclimated to Yanomama life.  However, unlike the Yanomama he still needed to make occasional trips out to the city in order to stock up on trading supplies and medicines, as well as to secure funding to continue his research.  These trips often kept him away from the village for months at a time.  In Good’s absence, Yarima became the target of sexual advances from the young men in her village, as would be the case for any post-pubescent Yanomama woman who didn’t have a husband to protect her.  After one such trip, Good returned to find out Yarima had been gang-raped by a group of men that included her own brother-in-law.  Good decided immediately that he needed to get her out of the Jungle and move with her back to The States.

The problem was that in order for the Venezuelan government to allow Good to leave the country with an indigenous tribeswomen, they would need the proper documentation.  Having never left the jungle, Yarima had no verifiable identity in the eyes of the government.  In order to get the necessary papers, Good would have to bring Yarima to the offices of the Interior Ministry in La Esmerelda, some 500km north of her home village.  They would also need to bring along two of Yarima’s blood relatives to act as witnesses, who could confirm her identity and verify that her marriage to Good was legitimate.

Good used his connections to arrange for a helicopter to ferry him and Yarima to La Esmerelda from a small clearing in the jungle that was a three hour walk from the village.  It was decided that Good would bring Yarima’s teenaged younger brother and her father to act as witnesses.  Together with Ken and Yarima, they were to be at the clearing no later than 7:00pm on the evening of May 19, 1982.  If they didn’t arrive by that time, the helicopter would be forced to leave them behind since it was needed to carry out other missions for the ministry.

When May 19^th arrived, the scene in the village was chaotic.  As the villagers came to the realization that, for the first time, they would be losing one of their beloved daughters, perhaps forever, they insisted that Yarima stay into the afternoon to partake in a midday feast befitting such a good-bye.  This delayed Good’s intended departure time to the point where he began to worry about whether they would be able to make their 7:00pm deadline.  Luckily, Good convinced the village elders to wrap things up by 3 in the afternoon, and by 3:30, Good, Yarima, Yarima’s brother, and Yarima’s father were on their way.

The journey went smoothly for the first two and a half hours.  But then the skies opened up, releasing a torrent of rain that instantly transformed the forest floor into an earthy sponge that was difficult to stand on, much less walk across.  With each step becoming more and more laboured, the group’s progress slowed down to a snail’s pace.

At exactly 5:40, Good and his caravan of in-laws reached the final leg of their journey.  All that lay between them and their destination was an unusually docile section of the mighty Orinoco River.  All four would have to cross the river via a traditional Yanomama suspension bridge comprised of a single thick vine to walk across, with two smaller vines suspended at either side and raised slightly to serve as a handrail.

With the sun having recently set, visibility was next to none.  Therefore Good insisted that they use his flashlight to get across safely, lest someone take a misplaced step and plunge into the piranha-infested river.  The problem was that the bridge could only hold the weight of two people, and with time running out, Good had a decision to make:

Good figured that Yarima’s brother, being the youngest and most nimble of the group, could cross the bridge in one minute.  Good himself would be able to do it in two.  Good estimated that Yarima could handle the crossing in five minutes, while her elderly father would likely take ten minutes to make it across.

By this time, the group had exactly 17 minutes to make it across the bridge if they were going to reach the helicopter before it was scheduled to take off.  If they missed it, it could be weeks before Good could arrange another escort out of the jungle and by that time, the ministry staff would have started their summer vacation, forcing him to wait another three months before he would finally be able to leave the jungle with his wife.  What’s worse, Good had run out of spare batteries for his flashlight, and he knew he’d need it during the rough patches of the journey back home if they did in fact miss their rendez-vous with the helicopter.  Without a functioning flashlight, they’d be forced to spend the night in the jungle, away from the protection and security of the communal hut.  With the proximity of enemy tribes as well as jungle predators, this could prove to be a treacherous undertaking.

If they can make it across the bridge in 17 minutes, they’ll be home-free.  But because the bridge can only hold two people at a time, and they only have one flashlight, they’ll need to make multiple trips in both directions.  If they can’t get all four people across in the allotted time, they’ll be better off turning back right away.  Should they try to cross?  If so, how?