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

46 OUT OF CAPTIVITYarea and a storage-closet shed that had a separate door to the outside.Farid pointed to the cramped storage area, no bigger than four feet byten feet, indicating that this was where I would sleep. That wouldn’thave been too bad, except the room was also filled with sacks of rice,bags of black plastic filled with who knew what, and other assortedboxes and packages. When Farid closed the door, the space was overwhelmedby the odor of stale food and decayed flesh. Under normalcircumstances, I might have found it hard to sleep, but the next thing Iknew, light was filtering through the slits in the wooden walls indicatingthat morning had come.The door had no lock on it, so I walked out of the shed. Scatteredaround the clearing were a few logs and log benches, and I took a seatwith my back to the building where most of the FARC were sitting.This was really my first moment of extended time alone, awake, andnot preoccupied by thoughts of the march. Into that vacuum came arush of emotion and thoughts that overpowered me. My mental statereflected the scene in front of me—sharp peaks bathed in sunlight anda steeply carved out valley mottled in shade. As physically high up as Iwas at that moment, emotionally I had tumbled down that ravinelikecleft.I found myself thinking of the day I’d left for Colombia to come onthis rotation. Before my daughter, Destiney, went off to school that Friday,she’d come into Shane’s and my bedroom, where I still lay easinginto my morning. Destiney gave me a big kiss and a hug—the kindonly a nine-year-old girl could give to make her dad feel so loved. Now,as I sat in a clearing a lifetime away from that moment, I got angry atmyself for not having gotten up that morning to spend more time withher. I should have said good-bye to Cody and Joey—my other two kids,whom other people might call my stepsons but who I just thought ofas my sons.All I could think of was Destiney’s drawing desk that sat on ourscreened porch. She would sit for hours at that slant-top desk, paint-