Don't Follow Guides Alone!
Or should I say, "Don't Depend on Buddies to Keep You Safe."
In 1976, I spent a semester in Israel, living in a kibbutz near Haifa. During High Holy Days, Janet, one of the girls in our group, and I spent a few days in Jerusalem. She was all a glitter and a glow about being there, but I was more concerned with "being cool." After all, I had been to the Old City a few years before I returned for the kibbutz adventure. I knew the streets, the vibe, the … well, I was just so full of myself. Traveling around northern Israel with a duffle bag slung over my shoulder, I managed somehow to stay out of trouble. Being alone, I did a good job of staying safe. Or maybe it's more like 'God protects fools and lone trampers.' Anyway, I had this idea that my tourist skills were in top form.
This trip, my 'cool' was busted by an especially embarrassing incident.
While wandering around the marketplace, a young man approached us and said he could show us all the important sites. We bit the bait, thinking the two of us together would be okay, and followed him through the crowded narrow lanes through the Old City.
At last, we came to a high place on the outer wall. He continued walking along a ledge that was about a meter wide. Suddenly, I realized that the ledge was getting narrower and whatever "important site" wasn't anywhere near here. Janet had disappeared, leaving me alone with this guy on a precarious lip of ancient wall. As I looked down to the rocks below, panic seized me. My mind raced. Why did he lead us … me … here? Well, DUH! The epiphany struck.
"Just turn and run, you ninnie," my little voice screamed in my head.
For once, I obeyed, trying not to stumble on the uneven, crumbling walkway. His laughter echoed behind me until I rounded the corner, almost colliding with Janet. I grabbed her shoulders, babbling like a dimwad, and hustled us away. I could hear him shouting at us, "Where are you going? Why are you running away from me?"
I was asking myself, why are you so stupid? Why do I ignore that signals?
Already, men in this region had displayed creepy behavior. And a new roommate had regaled us with her tale of crossing north Africa with a pair of unreliable friends. Even the social cohesion of our college group had deteriorated in a way that endangered us. There were plenty of lessons about dependence on companions.
We never saw him again during our subsequent tours and returned safely to the kibbutz. The experience, however, was a precursor to an encounter with a young Bedouin in one of the orchards near the kibbutz. Again, my hiking companion separated from me to visit an Arab village. "For tea," she said with colossal British innocence. I thought it would be dangerous to go there, so I waited on the roadside near a little creek. Bad idea. While she was "having tea," a young Bedouin man approached me. The bells were already clanging in my head regarding my friend's safety. I should have gone to tea. Woulda shoulda coulda.
My biggest mistake here was depending on a companion to have my back. Never get separated! That rule stands no matter what the environment.
When I tramped around Israel the first time alone, danger seemed to go around me. No deliberate caution on my part saved me from harm during that trip. All the little angels (or perhaps I really do have an over-worked guardian) protected me from my oblivion. Could it be that imaginary beings are more reliable than flesh and blood friends? Either through naïveté or malice, sometimes our companions can abandon us at critical times.
If I ever travel again, however, I'll be sure to engage the brain. Learn to read people and suspect their intentions. Instead of depending on bodyguards or buddies, I need to replace that mindless tendency to trust strangers with a lot more skepticism. That may deprive me of some interesting and friendly encounters, but I'll be safe. While the world is getting more dangerous for men on the road, it's always been a minefield for women. I wish I could master the art of determining friend from foe when meeting strangers. It would make forays away from home so much more enjoyable.
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What a story, Sue. Scary. Considering how much traveling you did, I guess you were actually quite lucky! No regrets, it is all learning.
So grateful you set this down. One never knows, nor can one imagine completely in some moments of craving new insights and highlights, that one's own quest can undermine the goal. From an old far travelled lady, yes, Sue, "Look alive," as the saying goes. We can survive this world a hundred thousand days in so many ways, as we have, all through history. We know from those stories. The Bible's,Torah's, and Qu'ran's, included. The burdening costumes women wear based on strangers' sexual fantasies and pride systems. For me, wavering, traveling the globe, more speciificly problematic at home in Canada at first, and then moreso, alone, on my own, in Manhattan from the age of 9, then high school adolescence, and then, during my college dissertaton at age 20-21, traveling the world to study. 1970 In Papua, New Guinea, Nepal, Ethiopia, and finally in 1971, a village in Nigeria. I encountered friends and foe who spoke varied languages, and had varied morals. For me, getting further into the remotest areas was a big test, whether I could even communicate at all, or how to behave in a way that was acceptable to that tribe or village in the wilderness. Perhaps, because, in my own home, members of my family were the largest threat, I had necessarily accepted the worst abuse, sexual and psychic. By my late teens I was developing a useful armor for these faraway places. Far offsite villages, remote, high in the Himalayas to outback gorges, etc. I understood my early experiences of fear and abuse were not going to protect me from a real asshole hiding behind a friendly put-on face, or sudden break of physical boundaries. Though, I was quick to sense that moment, to stay in check with fear, my self-dependence did guide me. What is fear if not a guide or query? It is the best guide if one pays attention, uses it, smell it. That aroma of smoke and mirrors slipping past. Not as clearly purposed as in the hundredth-thousandth murder movie. Sights and sound head me off daily in the city subways, lonely or crowded places. One learns the need to be needed as a new doll, not a flesh and blood human being is the gist. If I was a thief's child, sister, mother, or any family member, I would pray to have the strength to take down that soul-murderer on sight, so to speak. Such is early priming. Our instincts guide us only if we listen to them. Nature prepares us with fear and longing. The wild scream in an infant's voice. The steamy stench of a back alley. The shutdown of survivor's fear is prolific nowadays. Hourly in the news, the bogus taunt, come play, you'll be safe with me? From who? Pay attention to the airy whisper. The finger point. Don't go there, not alone. Can't win 'em all, but better the afterthought to have made the move. One's body and spirit are worthy of second thoughts. No blame. No shame.