How did you communicate?
Communication is, of course, absolutely key especially if you're like me who goes off alone and tries to pull of a journey. Obviously, I try and learn the national language which isn't all that easy. I'm not a particularly good linguist, but like anything it helps if you've got time on your side, that's part of the thing, and also an ability to immerse yourself. If you're not with a friend who's like you from captain's bush or from somewhere from home and you're alone it's amazing in the course of three months I'd say anyone can learn any language, but you've got to be alone. You've got to be immersed in that place. It helps me of course having a practical task, a very clear objective that I have to learn survivals skills in the Amazon or New Guinea or in Namibia, say with the "Himba" people. And so, I'd have a clear idea of what I needed to do and often I'd just be with children who I find much more open than adults. I'd say teach me this or teach me that and their parents would say he's just some mad foreigner but he wants to learn about walking alone in the forest which of course they wouldn't do by themselves. So, I'd be taught by the young especially but also people who were very familiar with tasks and understood the need to survive themselves.
