2004-03-28 - 4:41 p.m.
My parents recently had their 25th anniversary. Jacob once shared a theory of his with me that humans cannot visualize numbers greater than three; four becomes two groups of two, five is a group of three and a group of two, and so on. The number 385,607 doesn't mean anything to me or anyone else except: a lot. 25 is a smaller number, but when speaking in terms of years, months, days, all attached to someone else, it suddenly becomes mind boggling. So I say that my parents recently had their 25th anniversary, but what I'm really saying is my parents have been together a lot.
To celebrate, my parents took my brother and I to Mexico with them, a trip they've been planning for years. We stayed at a resort so incredible that one day, when we had the choice to either see ancient Mayan ruins celebrated the world over or stay at the hotel, we stayed at the hotel.
I also got the spanking of a lifetime at Xel-Ha (pronounced shell-ha) at a place called the Cliff of Courage. It was a 12 foot cliff you can jump off of and into the water, the idea being that your feet go in first and the rest of you follows. I however sat down on the water and was, as previously noted, spanked. I did not go again, and was tempted to join my dad in the area he dubbed "the Hammocks of Courage" or "the Hammocks of Fortitude" depending on the time of day.
If anyone ever has the chance to go to Xel-Ha, don't hesistate. The ecological preserve is breathtaking.
Here's an interesting story:
In February, social workers found a feral family of six (only the father spoke a recognizable language; others used hand signs and noises) living in a shed on a farm at Theunissen, in Free State, South Africa. None of the kids (aged 14 to 26) had ever met anyone outside the family and simply ran into the woods any time visitors approached. One boy ambulated only in a frog-like manner. The father said the kids were born normal, and he assumed their poor development was punishment because he could not afford the ceremonial sacraments of the Majola tribe. [News of the Weird, taken from The Star (Johannesburg), 2-24-04]
I seem to recall studying something about a feral boy found in the woods of France sometime in the 1800s while studying Decartes' philosophy, but I fail to remember how the two connected or exactly what I was looking for. This half memory was brought back by this story and I'm sure my 17 year old self would have been extremely interested in this South African family. I wonder what's going to become of them.
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