Asakiyume mita

No doubt you've heard the story of the four children--oldest only 13, youngest only 11 months at the start of the ordeal--who survived in the Amazon rain forest for 40 days after the small plane they were in crashed. The oldest, a girl named Lesly, was able to take care of her younger siblings, including the baby, until rescuers eventually found them.

The children were indigenous, and family members say that they were familiar with the forest, and Lesly had knowledge of which fruits and roots were edible and which were not. And apparently they started out with a supply of cassava flour. Colombian TV had images of a shelter Lesley built for the others to keep the rain off.

When I messaged my guides R & L about the story, they said the kurupira, the spirit of the forest who can either lead people astray or save them, must have been watching over them.

Here is a statue of the kurupira from Reserva Flor de Loto. She's got one foot facing forward and one backward (some representations of her have both feet facing backward), which confuses trackers. She can change her appearance to look like someone you know, but her feet are always the giveaway.



My guides also talked about the rescue dog, Wilson, whose tracks led rescuers to the kids--they talked about him because Wilson vanished. Like a trade: Wilson agreed to stay in the forest, and so the forest released the children.

... which is something that feels more comfortable to think about as a story than in reality. In reality, when a real flesh-and-blood dog is involved, you want him to come back as well. Here's a picture of Wilson that Lesly drew (from the paper El Tiempo)



And here is some art from CNN Español



There was a team of indigenous rescuers with the military rescuers, and when they found the children, they sang a song to welcome them back to the human world. The song was to encourage them to leave behind the heat of the forest and take up the heat of humanity.

Quite a story.