Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
ability to set priorities. Bennie was sick of it. Who the hell was
Dwight to say these things to him? These criticisms had been more
frequent in recent days. If anyone objected to Dwight for his being
either wrong or rude, he would say, “I’m just trying to point some­
thing out that might be helpful to you as a person. I’m a psycholo­
gist, so I have expertise on such matters. The fact that you interpret
it as rude says something more about you than me.” It drove Bennie
crazy that Dwight could turn a situation around and make it seem
that the other person was at fault. The night before, he had lain
awake replaying Dwight’s insults, then imagining verbiage he could
fling at the brute the next time.
They were sitting around the fire one evening after dinner, when
Dwight insulted him again. Yet another discussion had come up
about how to be rescued without exposing the Lajamees to danger.
Dwight started by saying that the Lajamees might be suffering
from paranoiac delusions. There were plenty of tribal people around
Inle Lake who were not on the lam or in fear of their lives, he said.
They’d seen the women in those turbans, wearing red-and-black
clothes, Karen women. You couldn’t miss them. And nobody was
lining them up and shooting them, let alone doing what Black Spot
said. Dwight knew of cults in America that were built around a
shared culture of persecution when none really existed. The cults
talked of mass suicide, just as the Lajamees did. Some actually car­
ried through with it. The People’s Temple, for instance—nine hun­
dred people died, most of them forced to drink poison. What if that
happened here? They didn’t want to be caught in that insanity, did
they? “We have to do whatever we can to get rescued,” Dwight said.
“We can keep fires going and draw attention with smoke. Or a cou­
ple of us who are strong enough can hack our way down and bring
back help.”
“But who knows for sure if the danger isn’t real?” Heidi re­
sponded. “What if the soldiers kill the tribe? How can we face our­
349