My first night on the trail with the dingos we arrived in camp an hour after dark, the autistic kids were tired, the weather conditions were a 15 mile an hour wind, snow on the ground, and cold in the low twenties. Everybody wanted a fire and a hot meal. Half of the 7 kids set to work busting a coal with their bowdrills, the other half dug a fire pit, latrine, and spread tarps to sleep on. The coal busting went on for over an hour. Each failed attempt to create a coal increased the anxiety in the group. Soon all hands in camp had tired from multiple failures the unforgiving wind howled on from the northern slopes of the snowy peaks above us. Disparity in the camp turned fighting teenagers to silence as they one by one chose the icy desert ground to soothe their sore muscles and weary minds. Murmurs ensued, only one bow still could be heard in the wind, music in an odd orchestra of troubled expletives. Lyrics of blame, gusting billows of dangerous wind chills, and 7 angry youth with hate in their words and war in their hearts, and the bow hummed on. The silence of the high desert was upset that night with the turmoil of the dingo camp. Mother nature had a lesson and there were 7 angry hearts, hungry and troubled.
She was just as cold as her students. She carried a burden just as heavy as them. Her immediate stress levels were high, charged to keep her pups safe. Her bow hummed silently two inches above the ground, the spindle spoke soft audible tones in-between the gusts of wind, only those who have pained their own deltoid in the arts of primitive fire making may empathise with the pain of fatigue she must have felt, no complaint escaped her lips. He came to her, knowing her pain from his own long weeks in the program, offering to help. Together in tandem they operated the bow, his arm fiery with fatigue, he rested and she instructed him to ensure the tinder bundle was in proper order, incriminating words and blaming tones from this students voice filled the icy camp, but he remained there with her, tinder bundle in hand, protected from the elements. The moon was high and clear skies made the desert shine. I heard her voice, she quietly shrieked “I have a coal!” And I watched the dingos “eat hot” that night.
