This is an episode that was recalled to me as I was looking back at some photographs. We had visited a village center and been treated as guests of honor with singing, prayers, testimonies and dancing. At the end, there was the usual photographing of the multudinous children. I had the idea to squat down, you know, to be a kid level for some picures with the kids. Thankfully (for me), I managed to drag down two of my fellow cohorts with me. Well, we learned very quickly that this might not be the smartest thing to do.
The children, in their excitement not only of having us crouched down and far more within reach to touch and rub or pound our heads and shoulders, but also at having additional photo opportunities, thronged and surged forward in a crush of jockeying for better position. We were soon nearly overtaken. Look very closely at the photo below... You can see me, and just below my left shoulder is one blue eye and the forehead of fellow traveler (and GAIA Board President - eek!) Marty, and then one child away from me to my right, the nearly drowned head (eyebrow & eye, really) of my roommate Nadia. We are laughing on the outside, but on the inside we fear we are milliseconds away from being trampled to death by 6,000 exuberant village children.
Alas... we did survive. And - perhaps needless to say - learned NEVER to do that again! (Although it did make for a pretty hysterical picture.)
Whew.
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