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

Getting Healthy 273cise Camp; we were too far from water, and he wanted to make life alittle easier on everyone. When we got back, we saw that Milton haddone something he’d promised he’d do to us if we didn’t respect himand his guerrillas. He made our enclosure smaller. All the work we’ddone creating a more level area was undone, but as soon as we movedback in, we started leveling it off again. With our smaller area and ourstronger bodies, it took a lot less time to get the job done.TOMIt seemed as if at every camp we were at, there was a particular speciesof pest we had to deal with. Rogelio was one of them at the ExerciseCamp. What was of more concern to us was that after two years ofbeing in the jungle, we had all been aff licted with some kind of jungleillness or condition. Over time these all built up to take a collective tollon us.Walking through the jungle, it was easy to get a cut or scratch. Inthe barbed-wire cage, we were constantly getting scratched up. It wasthere that Keith and I both developed leishmaniasis, a fairly commonjungle disease, and though it makes you look like a leper, it isn’t lifethreatening—solong as you get treated. It’s caused by a parasite thatcertain jungle flies carry. Those flies are attracted to open wounds; theytransmit the parasite when they bite you, and you later develop opensores or ulcers that spread in size. Untreated, the sores continue tospread and multiply and can eventually endanger internal organs. Severalmonths into our stay at the Exercise Camp, shortly after Eliécerhad talked about suicide, I developed a sore on my foot and hand, whileKeith had one on his elbow.In addition to being the racionista, Rogelio was, in defiance of alllogic and common sense, our medic. He was a borderline sociopath,but he was the one we had to see to be checked out. He immediatelytold Keith he had “leish” and they started him on a course of treatment.He received intramuscular injections forty to fifty times to help clear it