Blog 11 (Naval Officer's Perspective)

Imagine my surprise when we saw the smoke rising from this uninhabited island. When I landed on the beach I saw the most amazing sight... a bunch of little boys, filthy, painted like little savages romping on the sand, pretending to be warriors. Cute but strange. No adults to be found. Incredible really that they were able to survive on their own. It seems that this one little boy was the leader and kept them all alive during this strange and frightening experience. He must be quite a smart lad since he told me that only two boys died during this time.

Children will be children no matter where they are and even in this strange situation they find the time to play and relax. When I arrived, it was quite cute because they were chasing the leader in some kind of game like tag and I could hear the ululations coming from their tiny mouths. The boy was pretending to cower as the other boys approached.

When I asked the boy to elaborate, he simply broke down and started crying, his chest heaving with huge sobs, because he must have been so relieved to be rescued. It's hard for me to visualize what they have been through since their plane crashed. But they all seem healthy and once they have a good bath and hair cuts they will be back to normal and forget about everything that happened on this island. They will be so happy to see their parents again and I'm sure that they are looking forward to having cooked meat for dinner again. It must be so boring to just eat fruit everyday.

These boys are so cute even though they look like little savages. Thank goodness my crew and I saw the smoke. The boys were quite clever to start this fire as a signal even though they seem to be a little careless and let the fire get of of control. They should have been more careful because they might have hurt themselves.