Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

SIXProof of LifeJuly 2003—September 2003KEITHI never would have guessed that knowing how many bars of soap I hadat my disposal would have such an inf luence on my outlook. When Pollodumped those things at our feet and told us they’d be in short supply,he might as well have been dumping our hearts onto the ground. Asquickly as we scrambled to pick up those blue bars, I knew we’d have tobe just as fast at picking ourselves up if we were going to make it backto higher emotional ground. A day or so later, Ferney dropped off morerazors, toothpaste, and toothbrushes. Message received, sir: We weregoing away for a long time to a place or places where resupply was goingto be tough. As much as we’d been able in the past to spin a spiderwebof hope out of the most insignificant of things—hat vs. hatless guards,being near a road, changes in the guards’ shift patterns—there was nodenying this new reality.To give you a better idea of how much our inactivity affected our