Shooting things has never been a passion of mine, but when a few of the Wilos invited me to go with them for a day of hunting, I figured it would be a great chance to spend some quality time out with the guys, a male bonding kind of thing. Glancing up at the sky, I saw nothing but beautiful blue. Maybe, just maybe, the torrential rains that generally dampen my adventurous spirit and my hunting trips would hold off.
“When are you going?” I asked them.
“Right now. Let’s go,” they replied urgently.
“I’ll meet you at the boat,” I said. Hurriedly gathering together a few pens and pencils and a notepad, I rushed down to the dugout. No one was there yet. I waited, and waited some more, swatting at the gnats that swarmed around my face and neck. Forty-five minutes later everybody joined me. We pushed the boat away from shore and headed upriver to where we would spend the day hunting.
The dugout eventually pulled into an area of jungle where the river was overflowing the bank. The hunting ground turned out to be completely flooded. I supposed we would have to continue looking for higher, drier ground, since scuba hunting had yet to become a Wilo pastime.
But no. Everybody was getting out of the boat and wading around in the chest-deep water. The idea, it soon became clear to me, was to spend the day pushing through the water, looking for the high places of ground where trapped animals might be taking refuge.
Everybody scattered, and I was left to frantically catch up to Odowiya and Snail. It’s hard to frantically catch up to anybody when you’re in water up to your chest, but desperate times call for manic measures, and I was up to the task.
I fell in behind them, and after sloshing around for a while we came across a hollow tree from which were emanating sounds that betrayed the presence of life. Either the resident termites were having a fiesta, or there was something resembling supper inside the tree.
For the next hour or so the hunters tried coaxing the animal out of its wooden bunker. They cut down a couple of long thin saplings and shoved them up into the hollow of the tree. They shook the tree; they struck it with poles and with their machetes.
The goal, apparently, was to make life miserable for the poor shivering creature. Well, just because I was cold and miserable didn’t mean I was a wimp. I could handle it. I had been miserable before; I was prepared to be miserable again. While the two Wilo men went about this business, I passed the time shivering and pretending I actually enjoyed spending hours flushing animals out of hollow trees while being stung by ants and mosquitoes and other assorted insects.
Finally a fifteen-pound rodent hesitantly stuck his head out of the tree. If his intent was to begin waving a white flag, he never quite got around to it, as he was promptly greeted by a sharp, pointed projectile.
Not satisfied with such a meager day’s work, however, we continued slogging our way along. Occasionally the Wilos would notice stingrays in the murky water and would make wide detours.
To me these stingrays didn’t seem threatening. They looked like nothing more than delicious golden-brown pancakes gracefully gliding through the water, just waiting for someone to pour maple syrup on them, but that might be attributed to the fact that I had left my house without eating breakfast, since I had been told we were leaving “right now”.
At one point, while Odowiya was climbing over a log, a red hairy tarantula jumped up onto his leg. The quick-thinking Odowiya knew exactly what to do in this situation. He froze in mid-stride, turned around and, pointing at the tarantula crouched menacingly on his leg, said, “Awuka.”
Learning cap firmly in place, I deduced that awuka was either an expletive or the name for the spider. Since repeating either one would likely be acceptable in this situation, I gave him a weak smile and tried to repeat the word back to him.
After my third or fourth attempt he indicated he was satisfied with my pronunciation. Then he flicked the tarantula back onto the log and continued on, leaving me with the moral dilemma of choosing either to stomp the thing into oblivion or to gingerly step over it. I never have liked spiders much, anyway. Especially ones with a fondness for jumping onto passers-by.
A while later, as we were wading through knee-deep water, the two hunters in front of me shouted something unintelligible and jumped for the nearest trees. This was a little disconcerting, and as soon as my eyes had settled back into their respective sockets, I determined that the wise course of action would be to follow their example. Thus persuaded, I grabbed a nearby branch and pulled myself up and out of the water, at the same time noticing two stingrays coming our way.
Considering this was the first time in my life to be treed by a stingray, I can hardly be blamed for choosing a tree that was a bit too small to effectively hold my weight. As I sensed the tree begin to slowly bend under me, I began lifting my feet to compensate for the distressingly rapid loss of clearance between me and the two stingrays that were quickly approaching.
None too soon, they passed underneath and I was able to unwrap my legs from around my ears. From then on I always took note of where the good climbing trees were.
Finally, soaked to the skin from slipping and sliding all day long, it was time to head for home. I pulled myself out of the water and into the boat. I glanced up at the storm clouds forming in the distance. “Ha!” I felt like shouting to the dark clouds. “You’re too far away! This is one time you won’t be able to soak me, and ruin a perfectly good hunting trip.”
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