Open Writing

Many of my friends are athletes, seeking to be thin, with power and endurance wired into their slim bodies.

One friend, a former South African, mentioned to me last year during a build up for the Two Oceans ultra marathon that you can tell in the change rooms which men are ready for the big race.

“They look like kaffir dogs, “ he said.

Then in explanation “All cock and ribs.”

I’ve seen some amazing appetites for other things as well as food. Have you taken a look into some of the new houses Mandurah way, where the kids each have a bedroom twice as big as the one you shared for years with your brother?

If you were hungry for good today, you would most likely be black and underprivileged. So I guess the true colour of hunger is black – a colour that looks good on me. I can remember only one episode of genuine food hunger in the last 12 years. I was on a survival course with Bob Cooper’s Outdoor Education group and we had to spend three days in Cape Range, near Exmouth, managing as best as we could with no equipment, just the clothes we stood in. We had access to a water dump and we had potassium permanganate crystals to treat the water to make it safe. Six grains per litre is the measure. Overdo it and the water tastes awful. There was no food and food was banned as a topic of conversation.

We had to keep out of sight because there was an SAS exercise on at the time. Bob Cooper said if the troops sighted us, we would be arrested and imprisoned as part of their exercise.

We each had one tea bag. I used mine and re-used it about ten times – hadn’t realised until then how far one tea bag could go.

It was stifling during the day, so we kept out of the gullies and followed the ridges to cooler as we walked to our rendezvous three days away. At night we slept on the ground but there was a 33 knot breeze off the ocean. Being a distance runner, I had very limited body fat. Within two hours of darkness, I was shivering and concluded that hypothermia was a very real threat. I made a fire and within about ten minutes all the others in the group were sitting around it, sleep having been abandoned. They were all hungry for my fire.

There’s an ancient Egyptian phrase, to do green things, meaning to do good. That fire, burning all that wood, was actually a green thing by me. In the morning I suggested we all do a tick inspection and the two genders sorted themselves out for this. One tick was found and quickly removed because it wasn’t firmly established. You’ve probably read that ticks can be removed with a hot cigarette end. Australian ticks haven’t read that story. They’re best removed with kerosene. They hate kero and will come off straight away.

We found ourselves eating the seeds from wattle trees and licking nectar off a native flower. How did it taste? – well, baked beans in tomato sauce are much better.

By the third day, he hunger pangs seemed to have diminished and we were all reconciled to being foodless.

At the rendezvous, Bob Cooper’s staff met us with cool drinks and sandwiches. I was very glad to have them. To my astonishment, all I cold manage was a can of diet coke and a bologna, lettuce and tomato sandwich, white bread. I was full.

So what colour is hunger, you ask me? Hunger is all colours, black, brown, red, yellow and white – the face of poverty in any land.

Where the hunger is for wisdom, the colour is grey because the wisdom comes with age and experience, including suffering.

Where the hunger is to be good, the colour is the purity of white. There is a westerner’s cultural filter before my eyes. Were I Russian, the colour red would be the symbol of purity and holiness, whereas in the West, we use red for passion, heat, rage, intense emotions.

If it was easy to be good, we all wouldn’t need to try so hard.

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For more of Richard's stories, articles and poems please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/western_walkabout/