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

¿Quién Sabe?67gotten pregnant, but he couldn’t let that get in the way of feeling andbeing responsible for the kids he’d fathered.Although the guards knew nothing of what was going on in Keith’sor any of our lives, they cruelly played on our desire to get home. Whenour energy was flagging and our pace slowed to a crawl, they wouldrelay this message to us through Tom: “If you walk faster, you will seeyour family in two days.”We had no idea if they were telling the truth, but their claims had thedesired effect. We picked up the pace as best we could. Whenever wewere together, we’d speculate about whether or not we should believetheir words. Our consensus was that it was unlikely that we’d see ourfamilies in two days, but maybe that was their way of telling us thatwe were going somewhere to be released. In our depleted condition—mental, physical, emotional—we were easy targets for that kind ofdeception. When the two days passed and we were no closer to beingwith our families, we didn’t protest to anyone. We simply chalked it upas a lesson we were learning in Hostage 101.TO MThree days after marching from the airplane, we arrived at anotherfinca, but unfortunately our second encounter with finca hospitalitywas only marginally better than our first. This time, instead of sleepingout on a mound of grass on the ground, we were led to a smallbedroom. A couple of nasty, dirt-encrusted mattresses were on thef loor and all around them were piles of FARC trash, saltine-crackerwrappers, and empty bags of powdered milk. Keith, Marc, and I hardlyexchanged a word before we fell onto the mattresses and into a deep,immediate sleep.When I woke up, I was in a half-dazed, semiaware state for an houror so. I could hear a lot of voices, and I found myself thinking of thefew times when I’d been in South America during a festival. I’d do my