I saved those people!

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Geo: 6.23593, -75.5751

She's 60-ish, maybe reaches 5' on tiptoes, has shoulder length fine hair she can't be bothered to comb, and walks with a stoop. For dinner it's a slice of plain brown bread that she's layered with tuna she's squeezed the sunflower seed oil out of and slices of raw mushroom. And a papaya. Next night it's a pineapple. The whole pineapple--that's it. That's dinner.
But she is very kind, has inspired us with us a ton of information on our next adventure. We have piles of notes from her on places to stay, tours, taxis, restaurants---really valuable info when you're in a totally new environment (story to come) and has been everywhere.
Last night she was talking about how she'll go into an area of conflict just after the worse has cleared so she can be a witness, so it speak. She said she was in Namibia just 5 years after their brutal 30 year war for independence. She was riding on a bus with locals when soldiers stopped the bus and marched out all the peasants onto the road. But then they put them all back on again, "because they saw me," she said.
"I saved those people from being murdered," she said with pride shining all over her.
I was probably maybe perhaps just bit incredulous that this tiny old woman could think she had such power and blurted out...
"But wouldn't they just have done it anyway as soon as you left?"
"Well not those people!" she answered almost indignantly.
Did she save those people? Who knows. Stranger things have happened and does it really matter? She's never married, never had children, has an MBA and is working on two more degrees and this is how she finds her center. I say more power to her--she's busy doing good.
Next she's going to Santa Marta where we'll be in a couple of weeks but she's then taking a six day hike into the jungle to find la Cuidad Perdida, the lost city.
Don't think we'll be along on that one.

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