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

174 OUT OF CAPTIVITYbut she seemed really agitated. From what I could gather, it seemed likeevery other sentence began with the word Ingrid.When Clara stopped talking, Tom explained that Ingrid and Luchohad pretty much decided what the bathing schedule was going to be—the rest of us just had to fill in the other slots. This fit with what we’dalready sensed and could see in the arrangement of our living quarters.We were coming into their previously established territory and we weregoing to have to fit in where we could. If the outside area seemed to bedominated by Ingrid and Lucho, at least the building was large enoughto house the ten of us easily, and it was equally divided.Tom was invaluable in helping us to understand the dynamic at workhere. Even before arriving at what we named Camp Caribe—because ofthe piranha-like fish that were abundant in the nearby water—Tom hadexplained to us that Colombians had a definite love-hate relationshipwith Americans. We were in their country, and now we had “invaded”their prison camp. For most of their lives, Colombians had heard thatthe best things in the world came from the U.S. According to Tom,many Colombians considered Disney World and Miami a prime vacationspot and the center of commerce and finance respectively. Tombelieved that many Colombians, particularly of the upper class likeIngrid and Lucho, resented America’s idealized position as the land ofopportunity being rammed down their throats. They’d grown tired ofsome seeing the U.S. as an example of the biggest and the best but hada grudging respect for it.Knowing all this and understanding that in several different ways wewere outsiders, we needed to tread carefully and let things sort themselvesout. We had been successful in dealing with the FARC by doingnothing but behaving as respectfully and humanely as we possiblycould. We saw no reason to change our approach, especially since wewere dealing with fellow prisoners and not our enemy. I didn’t thinkthat any of us had an especially strong sense of fairness and justice, but