University of Virginia Library

False View

Yet as we disembarked
from the helicopters, we all
knew once again that there is
something false about the view
from above. As always, the
speed and height of the
choppers had masked the
steepness of the hills and the
thickness of the jungle.

In those hills where the
leeches wait patiently to
burrow into human flesh, the
rain began and there was
nothing we could do except
curse silently and get wet. For
the rest of the day it continued
filtering down through the
trees and bamboo thickets
before finally soaking us to the
skin.

We moved slowly, not so
much to mute the sounds of
our footsteps, but rather to
avoid being toppled over by
the wet vines that clung to the
ground like snakes. Each step
became a special undertaking, a
carefully planned assault on all
those natural forces that
worked against us. It was up
again, down again, fall, sprawl,
climb, crawl the whole of our
day. But that night when we
pitched our soggy tents, we
had moved perhaps two
kilometers (1.2 miles) from the
place the helicopters had
deposited us that morning.