Today, Jamey Tisdale exudes health and vitality. His longish blond hair flips and flings into his eyes as he pounces at a runaway Frisbee. His slender frame is complimented by wiry muscles; as a matter of fact, he would almost be graceful if his feet had not grown to fill size ten and a half Teva’s—much too large for a man who barely reaches 5’7”. All this intense vitality starkly contradicts a picture taken of him a few years ago of a man, standing by himself in the Heart of Darkness: Cameroon, West Africa. His malaria wracked and starving body wrapped in a sarong.
People who know Jamey, however, realize that starvation and malaria come nowhere near to trampling his spirit. Instead, he now owns a collection of “when I was in Africa” stories. At any given opportunity, he will trap people and educate them (willingly or unwillingly) about the ‘real’ Africa. Thankfully, the stories are usually entertaining, if not a little off color. His theme seems to be that people lose their rigid codes of behavior under stressful circumstances, like starvation.
In the late 1980s, Jamey and about 105 other people, ranging in age from 18 to 27 and from 15 different countries, spent three months in Cameroon. They were involved in a project called Operation Raleigh (affectionately known among participants as Op Ral), a four year program developed to break down cultural barriers and international prejudices among some of the world’s future leaders. The program was the pet project of Prince Charles; it involved approximately four thousand Venturers from 50 different countries. The Venturers circumnavigated the globe performing community service, scientific research, and adventure projects. Approximately 500 Americans participated, and the US was represented on every single expedition save one: Noriega would not allow American Venturers in Panama.
Jamey’s particular expedition to West Africa afforded an opportunity to help the Cameroonians while learning about West African culture… and he would learn a little about himself, too. The conditions under which the Venturers lived never came close to their normal lives. They didn’t live in dormitories or sleep in cots. Instead, the Venturers found themselves sleeping in ‘bashas’ (raised platforms made of split bamboo and covered by a tarp) and/or resting in jungle hammocks (solid cloth bottomed hammocks with mosquito netting). Jamey fondly recalls that, “on one exceptionally special and well-remembered occasion, I had the pleasure of spending the night in a mud hut. This was the only night (in the entire three months) that I had the pleasure of sleeping in a building. Well, a sort of building.” Yet, Jamey does not regret any of his adventures—not even the slight starvation.
Jamey first discovered his malnutrition when based in Dikome Balue. As a service project, he and two other Venturers attempted “to paint over the dirt” in one room of a “pseudo-hospital” built of concrete blocks. They discovered a pair of scales hiding in a dusty corner and, on a lark, decided to weigh themselves.
To Jamey’s shock, he found he had dropped from 130 to 110 pounds; each of the others had lost an equivalent amount of weight. Technically, Jamey was not malnourished because the Venturers were on a scientifically balanced diet… most of the time. At this point, the men decided to take desperate measures, according to Jamey. “We formed a starvation pact. Mango, Allan and I, from then on, tried to receive kitchen detail. We would feed each other while cooking, make sure we all got larger portions of food, and horde the leftovers. But by the next day of work, we all developed the shakes from being hungry.” The women on the expedition gained weight from the rations due to the high carbohydrates in the diet. The men, unfortunately, lost weight. Ever the opportunist, Jamey guilted the women into donating their extra candy bars; he got to the point where he would eat anything, even liver pate’ (though a delicacy to many, Jamey views it as “cat food’). He once even ate 12 portions before someone stopped him. On many nights, he would gorge until he could only lie on the ground and view the stars. “The Starving Threesome, as we were called, never could get enough to eat… no matter how much food we devoured.”
Part of his problem was caused by carrying too much weight in his backpack. Hikers, as a rule, should never carry more than 1/3 of their weight, and he regularly toted more than half his weight. “Besides the radio parts, the boxes of food, the water and the shelter I had to carry, I had the ungodly stupid notion of carrying around Sea Monkeys, a Slinky, a couple packs of cards, my Walkman and a bunch of tapes. It would have been simpler to have just put bricks in my pockets.”
Dikome Balue also served as the base camp for these jungle treks and, “from here we would hike off into the rainforests of the Rumpi Hills for ten day stretches, visiting the local villagers to deliver rudimentary medical care and to give talks on birth control and diarrhea prevention.” For many of the villages visited, the Venturers were the first outsiders they had ever seen. Yet, “we always felt welcome and safe, no matter where we trekked. The people were some of the most friendly beings I should ever hope to meet.”
Unfortunately, packing in and packing out his gear on these treks wore Jamey down… And, “That’s probably how I got sick,” Jamey asserted, “besides being bitten by a malaria infected mosquito.” In addition to rapid weight loss and disease infested biting bugs, the Venturers also battled dysentery and gastroenteritis. Trips to the “squat and drop” became an extra adventure to those who succumbed to this ravaging of their bowels. They waddled out over a four foot deep ‘toilet’, each foot balanced on a log that stretched six feet across the pit. The tortured soul would then squat down to relieve their bodies and then try to waddle back to the other side… withOUT falling in the muck filled pit. Quite a gymnastic feat.
The medieval torture toilets helped Jamey return to the basic idea of simply surviving this adventure, but the death of a fellow adventurer cemented the concept. At this point, “we realized we could die at any time; she had just slipped on a rock and broke her neck; it could have happened to any of us at any time. At this point, nothing bothered us anymore; we all returned to a baser level of life. We weren’t hung up on morals, codes of behavior or ethics. We dreamed about the things we missed the most and, consequently, our conversations revolved around three things—food, fornicating, and farting.”
They didn’t smell good, either. When Jamey first arrived in Cameroon, he could hardly stand the smell of the natives, but “you didn’t walk away from them or avoid them because that would be rude.” At this point, the Venturers were still cognizant of their own bodies and, after the first day of work, all the men and women went down to the river to bathe, the men going one way, and the women going the other. However, “the next day we had already lost some inhibitions; after work, we all went to the same spot on the river, and the clothes hit the air at the same time our bodies hit the water. Not long after that, I noticed I couldn’t smell the Africans anymore.” A few weeks later, a Red Cross helper visiting the Operation Raleigh camp politely informed the Venturers that “although you all cannot smell it, you are all mildewing.”
Jamey laughs, now, when he thinks about the mildew. Actually, he is always laughing because he “doesn’t stress over the little things,” according his friends. He actually enjoys these small moments. “On some days we would journey into the forest for the express purpose of butterfly collecting. We were trying to catalogue what was in the forest and identify new species. These were the days when we would catch little to nothing. But, as soon as you got into the forest without a net, they (the butterflies) would practically land on your head. Even under these conditions, we would catch, in a week, ten times the number of species found in England.”
After finishing his butterfly story, Jamey finds he is tired of this Frisbee game, so we go into his apartment, and I continue to pelt him with questions as he plays video games. It’s nearly impossible for Jamey to be absorbed in less than two activities at a time. For a brief moment, his attention is split between me and the game of Mario Brothers. His character is hopping through a field of giant mushrooms and attacking flying turtles; Jamey loves the game as he figures it is the brainchild of a 60s refugee—the game is loaded with what Jamey calls good and bad ‘shrooms, a land of clouds, and flags embossed with peace signs. As Jamey’s character races across the screen in search of an elusive princess, Jamey’s nose starts to itch. His hand reaches to eradicate the problem, but the movement starts his glasses rocking. The frames teeter for a few seconds, and then settle lopsidedly on his face. Upon closer scrutiny, you notice his glasses aren’t held together by screws; instead, the frames are jerry-rigged by bread tie wrappers. This ingenuitive frugalness drives his roommate, Rob, bonkers as he tries to wrap up the sandwich bread bags with ever increasing difficulty. As his fingers fumble with the bread tie remnants, he grumbles that, “I feel like I am trying to put a diaper on a fly.” Living with Jamey and his creative solutions does present its difficulties.
He first mastered making do with minimal materials while his group helped to build a bridge in Cameroon. Now finished, the bridge spans 180 meters (about two and a half football fields) across a river and is the largest single suspension bridge in Africa. In order to build something of this magnitude, the Venturers needed to move seven ton logs, but the turfajacks the group had to move the logs with were only supposed to be able to move two tons or less. Eventually, one of the turfajacks exploded; fortunately, no one was hurt. Jamey still considers this a miracle.
He considers the project, though, a disaster because “we built it to give year round access to the park for the World Wildlife Fund people and for the local Africans and, also, because it was a nice large object that Op Ral could say they had built. Unfortunately, the bridge also gave year round access to poachers. The locals almost never use the bridge because the ladder to get on it went 33 feet straight up in the air, and the Cameroonians are notorious for their fear of heights.”
“On opening day, the Governor came for the ceremonies. Locals clambered all over the braces and supports as he climbed toward the top to initiate the bridge. Part of the way up, a brace cracked under the weight, and a mumble went through the crowd. Bad omen. We knew, then, that the natives would probably never get on it again. It was frustrating for me because I had almost gotten killed building it. Once I had to climb up a tree with chainsaw in hand and had to cross part of the way over the river in order to trim some branches out of the way, so we could put the sway bracing in (to keep the bridge from vibrating). Halfway up, I saw fire ants pouring out of the tree, so I had to jump to the ground. But… I guess it didn’t matter because I wasn’t hurt.”
Though Jamey complains about climbing trees while carrying chainsaws, he was actually quite careful, and the people in his group took great pains to stay safe and well. Common sense was crucial as many of their treks took them deep into the jungle and, if they got hurt, they probably would not make it back to base camp. Even if they were able to make it to a village, there was no guarantee that there would be adequate medical help. Jamey is still cautious in the woods, and his caution has ensured injury free forays into nature’s playground.
Civilization, though, tends to mess with him. Once, after a solid night of drinking, he slipped backwards down the stairs of his apartment in Greenville, NC. After Jamey hollered for a good 10 minutes, Rob finally woke up and investigated the source of the cacophonous screeching. He found Jamey flat on his back with one foot caught in the stair railing and with his head firmly embedded in the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Jamey still claims the stairs attacked him. He also claims he could have gotten up on his own, and… he only lay helpless so Rob could see why it was so dangerous to store a bike against a wall at the foot of the stairs.
After regaling me with this story of evil stairsteps, his Mario Brothers’ character falls one too many times, and the game is over. Bored with technology, Jamey now wants to return to the Frisbee game he deserted earlier in the day. We head outside, smelling the crisp, fresh scents of spring, and Jamey bounds across the street and into a field beginning to burgeon with green blades of lush grass. He quickly jumps into the game in progress and snatches a disc out of the air. While running, catching, and throwing and then repeating the same steps, Jamey starts another story. This time, though, the theme is less dark… less ominous… less depressing. After one particularly lucky snag of a Frisbee, Jamey stops on the field and stares down at the disc clenched in his callused hands. He spins it for a few seconds, and then stops… and stares again. Engraved in the plastic toy is a map of the world with Africa glaring in gold relief. “You know what,” Jamey pontificates aloud, not really noticing the rest of the players (and me) listening, “Frisbee is the answer to world peace. We (Operation Raleigh) were playing soccer with the local men one day, and the egos of both sides ran out of control. We were playing in jungle boots, and they were playing in bare feet, and neither of the two teams wanted to lose. It was the ‘defend our motherland’ versus the ‘third world can’t beat us civilized people’. And then, someone brought out a Frisbee. The Brits didn’t know how to throw one, and the Africans had never seen one. All of a sudden, we were all caught up in the excitement of a new sport. Even the African women and children came out to play (they wouldn’t play soccer). For the rest of the afternoon, we all played Frisbee, and we all got along. Maybe we should have Frisbees instead of nuclear weapons to settle disputes. At least you can eat off Frisbees.”
For Jamey’s next adventure, a trip to South America, he’s packing Frisbees instead of Sea Monkeys as welcoming gifts for the locals. This child’s toy may not be everyone’s idea of harmony, but it works for Jamey.
