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

Broken Bones and Broken Bonds221Her behavior was a shock to all of us. Because he’d put himself at riskby lying for her, Keith was probably the most upset among the three ofus. He saw Ingrid’s actions as just another power play, an attempt touse the radio to control us. If she wanted to bestow a favor on one ofus by passing along a message, we’d be grateful and more likely to dosomething for her in return. I didn’t want to be that cynical about hermotivations or anyone else’s, but even if I viewed this act on its own, itwas hard to come up with any other plausible explanation.To add insult to injury, keeping us in radio silence took serious efforton her part. She had to go out of her way to do it. We were in such closequarters and with the same people all the time that it was difficult, ifnot impossible, to hide anything. A lot of our barriers or boundarieshad already been broken down. The three of us were so familiar withthe sight of one another squatting down to move our bowels that itdidn’t even register in our minds that this was something unusual, thatin our lives before, it would have taken extraordinary circumstances forus to have even contemplated doing it.Sleeping in a small room with ten other people, eating with themevery day, you developed a kind of casual and forced intimacy that I hadonly experienced before in boot camp. If you spoke with someone, youwere almost always within earshot of others. If you whispered or wanderedoff to a secluded part of the enclosure with that person, you mightas well have been setting off alarm bells or firing a signal flair into thesky to let everyone else know you were sharing some business.In a way, Camp Caribe was a kind of boot camp. We were beingtested physically and mentally. We were being stripped down and laidbare, torn apart so that new selves could emerge. Keith had noticedthis process taking place in himself and the three of us. He said that“character will out.” In other words, captivity would reveal the essentialnature of us all. The jungle would strip away all layers of camouflage.Now, in the case of Ingrid and the radio, it appeared that was exactlywhat was happening.