Have you ever seen the show “Man vs. Wild?” It’s a popular show on Savannah. We have several episodes and it’s a
family show we can all watch together without having to be subjected to another
cartoon. If you haven’t seen it,
it’s about this British guy that puts himself in survivor type situations
(stranded on a desert island needing to be rescued, dropped in the middle of a
rainforest and has to find his way out, etc.) and educates/entertains the
viewer with various ways to find food, water, make tools, navigate, etc. You can imagine the draw to an eight
year old boy.
So it should come as no surprise that Jake likes to “play”
man vs. wild when we go on hikes or venture out to the beach. He has a “camel skin” pouch that he
drinks his water from (there was one episode where the guy used a camel skin
for various different things, one of them being to collect water. I think that was the same episode he
opened up the stomach of a dead camel and squeezed water out of his digested
food.). He has been known to try
and navigate by the sun as well as use bamboo and a leaf to try and make a
water catcher. My favorite was
when he and Andy went foraging for termites.
Him: “Mommy,
mommy, mommy! You have to try
these!”
Me: “Try what?”
Him:
“Termites!”
Me: “Why? I have snacks in my bag….good snacks.”
Him: “Oh come
on! They’re good! They taste like pine nuts!”
Me: “Fine” crunch, crunch “hmmm…they do taste pine nutty”
These little adventures are often instigated by my dear
husband and are usually pretty tame, yet entertaining all the same (like when
he fried up grasshoppers in OK this summer for all of the cousins to try).
Well, it seems they’ve stepped up their game since I’ve been
gone. It started with an air
rifle. Before we get all anti-guns
on me, let me just say, Andy and I both come from families with guns. They were always used for hunting, we
learned gun safety at an early age and while I’m not a card carrying member of
the NRA, I don’t believe that guns do bad things. I think people do bad things. While we don’t have guns on board, its strictly because
they’re a pain in the rear when traveling between the various countries. Ok…with that out of the way….
Andy bought Jake an air rifle and while they were waiting
out the super typhoon in their little hide out, Jake took target practice at
some buoys Andy set up in the water.
When he got bored with that, he took to shooting the hundreds of leaves
floating around and got quite good with his aim. Like anything, when you get pretty good at it, you want a
new challenge. So it went with
Jake. He wanted to go hunting.
If you’ve ever been to this side of the world, you would
know that there is never a shortage of rats. All shapes and sizes…mostly the big, hairy, disgusting
variety. Andy figured no one would
complain if there was one less rat on the islands. So off they went to an undisclosed location and
searched for the rats. Apparently,
Jake is pretty good at this hunting thing because it was a one shot, one kill
right to the head.
As he stood there with his kill, Andy said he had the
biggest grin on his face. He said
a 12 point buck wouldn’t have gotten any more excitement.
“Let’s eat it, daddy!”
“Really?”
“Yes! You have
to eat what you kill!”
Can’t argue with that…if don’t want to eat it, don’t shoot
it, right?
So being the kind of guy he is (I just couldn’t find the
right adjective there), Andy showed Jake how to skin and gut it (I had no idea
that’s how they were fitting science in while I was gone), and threw it on the
barbie….far away from the ribs they were supposed to eat that night (I
hope). After numerous bouts of “is
it done yet?” they finally dove in.
“Hey daddy, you
know that really bad taste you get in your mouth when you eat a bad
chicken? That’s what this tastes
like! Yuck!”
And just like that, rat is off the menu.
I know some of you are worried about the whole disease
aspect of this…rest assured, these are not garbage eating rats…they’re coconut
eating rats…I think that makes a difference? Anyway, that which does not kill us, only makes us stronger,
right?
