Oct 25, 1979
October was one of the hottest months in Bolivia’s Green Hell. It fell somewhere between dry season and rainy season. Somewhere between when surazos, cold blasts of Antarctic air, sporadically pushed through the tropics cooling temperatures in the 90’s down to 50 degrees and lower, and when the rains started to fall, turning the jungle into a muddy mess, and making the air feel like a sauna. The surazos only lasted a few days before high temperatures, again, drove the remnants of cool south winds from the rainforest. The dryer weather and cooler temperatures were my favorite time to be in the jungle. They started in June, but were usually past season by the end of September.
Our contact base on the Rio Vibora was rustic, but livable. Split palm houses were built, and the married men had brought their wives out of the cities to live in our camp. The clearing was getting bigger, but to lessen the chance of ambush from the nomadic Yuqui, the more we cleared, the better. Then, to provide food for us and the Indians, should they be in the area, there were lots of banana starts to plant in the expanding acreage. On top of that, we walked our gift trails a couple times a week to see if the nomads had returned to the area and taken some of the gifts we left for them along the path. Lack of something to do was not what we lacked!
My little house was up, but until the rains started my water barrel was empty. I had no running water, except that which I carried in a bucket, and by the end of the workday, I was too tired to run with it! And, whoever heard of walking water?!?! I only lugged water from the river for drinking, cooking, and doing the dishes. My one exception was when a surazo’s frigid breath blew through the jungle and made it, seem to me, cold enough to make the river freeze over. I knew that would never happen, but being a wimp about cold water, when the temperature dropped below 70 degrees, I transported an extra bucket of water from the river to my house. There it was heated on my little gas stove so that I could take a nice warm spit bath. What luxury that was!
However, Surazos were the exception. It was hot most of the time, so bathing was usually done in the river. The daily routine for most of us men, at least, was to hit the river after work, wash away the day’s dirt, and try to cool off enough to stop sweating for the rest of the evening. The river was the easiest way to accomplish both. Reality was, it was a matter of “stink or swim!”
During dry season, the water in the river was ten feet below the top of the riverbank where our houses were built. Our swimming hole was equipped with a dock made with a split palm platform that was fastened with ropes to two extra swamp tractor tires for floatation, and that was tethered to a tree growing on top the bluff in our clearing. Steps had been cut into the dirt bank to make scaling or going down the steep incline, easier.
Late afternoon on October 27th, as was my habit, I went to the river to wash the day’s accumulated grim off my body. I was the first one there, and did not wait for the others. I dropped my towel on the dock and dove into the brown water. As soon as I broke the purling surface, I was jolted by the worst shock of my life- it was like grabbing a live wire, not just with my hand, something I had experience doing, but with my whole body, a great jolt from my head to my toes.
It hurt! I felt weak of body and befuddled of mind. The next thing I remembered was opening my eyes. I was yet under water, and the momentum of my dive still propelled me towards the far shore. Thankfully, the shock did not drive all wits from my head. I knew I wanted out of the water, pronto! In a panic, I shot to the surface, gulped a lungful of air, and turned and swam madly towards the dock. Had I possessed just one more tiny seed of faith, I’m sure I would have been sprinting, barefoot, on top of the water, and fast closing the gap to the home shore! I did not want another high voltage zap!
I hauled myself onto the dock and sat hugging my knees to my chest in a fetal, sitting position. My body was shaking uncontrollably. From the shock? Or, from the realization that I might have drowned because of it? I did not know! Though my full-body hurt was subsiding, a subtle pain lingered, centered in the back of my legs, just below my knees.
I sat there, trying to regain my composure for what seemed a long time. I was thankful that I was alive, but the question that beset my mind was, “Why did God spare me?” I felt so unworthy! “Why did I survive?” Had the shock stunned me senseless, I would have drowned. Then, I knew my co-workers would have found my body downriver, cradled in the broken arms of a tree, slain earlier by our chain saws, or one uprooted by the rampaging of Old Man River, himself, in a rainy season flood. It was a sobering thought!
When I stopped shaking, I went ahead and soaped up. However, I was not about to jump back in until Greg or Larry got there. When they arrived at the dock, I told them what had happened. Not to be deterred from cooling off that evening, we grabbed a canoe paddle and began to slap the water with it. Each hit of the wood against the water made a big splash and a loud popping crack. It was our hope, that the noise would frighten the eels and they would flee the area.
Thus was born my new pre-swim ritual. I commenced swimming by myself, again, but did not dive in until I had made as much ruckus as possible, slapping the water time and again with the paddle, and then another slap or two just to make sure that Evil Doctor Shock knew I was coming! No more surprises for me, or Mr. Eel!
Oct 30 1979
Yesterday, just before dark, the eel was surfacing a lot in our swimming hole. Today, I attached a “fishing barb,” to one of my “reject,” seven-foot long, Indian arrows. It was rejected because it was not deemed “good enough” to sell to a passing tourist, but for fishing they worked great! I fashioned the steel tip from a large barn spike that I had pounded flat with a hammer, using my axe as an anvil, and using a cold chisel to cut the barb. I sharpened the point with a file. I hoped I could shoot it squarely into the eel’s body, and that the barb would keep it from pulling out when the eel began to thrash about, trying to loose the unwanted burden with which I hoped to saddle it. That was the idea, and because it was dry season, the river was low enough that even the deepest hole was not deep enough to hide the seven-foot shaft. Eventually, the feathered end would come up and I would know where the eel was hiding. I was locked, loaded and ready when evening came! I had a score to settle!
Sadly, cowboys and Indians wasn’t the eel’s favorite game to play because it didn’t appear, at all, during the time I waited for him. I gave up; the mosquitos were hungry! I laid my bow and arrow down, slapped the water with the paddle and dove in, this time without a problem!
November 7, 1979
Wally was watching the river this morning. Hearing reports of his 22 rifle, I ran to see what he was shooting at. My nemesis, the eel, was surfacing repeatedly, writhing back and forth, and twisting over and over in a convoluted dance of death.
Every time the ugly head broke the surface, the big mouth opened wide, as if gasping its last breath. One of the bullets had cut a deep gash across its body, just below the head, The wound was bleeding profusely, turning the water an inky red color. A second bullet had hit the eel on the tail end, but that bleed less than the first wound. I was sure the wounds were mortal, but Larry went ahead and harpooned the eel and drug it to shore.
Our swimming hole was now one eel safer. It measured 72″ long.
Why Did We, Do We, and Will We Keep Swiming?
For months, since we cut the first tree and started clearing our base camp, we had occasional glimpses of huge eel-like creatures surfacing from the murky depths of our swimming hole. We had heard of electric eels, of course, but didn’t know if the ones in our river were the shocking kind. We had swam and bathed in the river almost every day for eight months and never had a problem. Once we learned the eels were electrified, (see below, “Five Steps Backwards”) we still swam in the river because it was the only way to cool off, and again, nobody had ever been shocked by one.
After I got shocked, we still used the river for bathing and cooling off because it was the best and easiest way to do so, and beating the water with a paddle seemed to scare the eels away. Anyway, shocking was not a reoccurring problem!
Today, in 2022, we know there are sharks in the ocean. Every year, here in Florida, people get bitten, and even loose big chunks of their bodies, yet the possibility of a shark attack doesn’t stop the rest of us from going to the beach and getting in the water! It could happen, but not to us, we think!
Five Steps (months) Backwards
May 5,1979
In May of 1979. Dan Naldrett had taken some time off from his ministry elsewhere in Bolivia to help us clear jungle, build a house, or do whatever was needed. On one of his last days with us, Alan Foster took him bow fishing. They would take turns, one paddling the canoe, the other standing in the front with a bow and arrow at ready, should there be fish sunning themselves in the shallows as they silently glided by. They got more than fish, however, when Dan was able to score an eel! They drug it onto the sandbar, afraid to touch it, for fear that it might be an electric eel.
They decided to take it back to camp to show the rest of us. As a precaution, Dan wrapped a plastic rain poncho around it, and gingerly carried it to the canoe being careful to only touch the plastic. Alan was standing in shallow water holding the canoe to steady it so Dan could get himself and the eel aboard. As Dan reached the canoe, he laid the eel across the aluminum gunwales, a conductive metal, the very metal that Alan had his hands on to keep the canoe from tipping! That half-dead eel still had one shock left, and Alan got it! That’s how we learned that the monsters in our river were electric!
Our camp was still crude, a clearing full of stumps, and maybe a house up with another one started. It was just us men out there. With no refrigeration, we kept our meat smoking over a slow burning fire to preserve it till needed. I was tending the fire that day, and when they brought the eel into camp, it was decided that we should eat it, or at least try it, and it was added to the rack! Eel was considered a delicacy in some counties!
The only part of the eel that looked like regular fish muscle was a tiny strip right down the backbone. Most of it looked like white blubber, which seemed to melt and drip fat into the fire the whole time it was cooking. When it was cooked, I tried a little bit from around the backbone. It tasted good but was full of tiny bones. The rest of the eel, the white fatty part, was completely unappetizing. I didn’t even try it!
Shocking Insights
The shock of an eel does not usually kill its prey. In its hunt for food, when the eel senses a potential meal is close by, it sends out a shock wave. It then swims over to see if its victim is small enough to eat. It also shocks when it feels threatened.
I was probably considered a threat, more than a potential meal, when I made that big splash into the eel’s watery habitat. The voltage of an eel is high, but the amperage is low. However, for us air breathing creatures, the shock can be enough to stun a person, and if we are in deep water, the experience could be fatal!
Personal Thoughts
After contemplating this event in my life for over forty years, I believe that in God’s providence I was shocked, but lived to tell about it. I was in deep water, but did not drown. I was swimming alone, but God was there! That day could have had a very different ending, except for the grace of God!
Why one person drowns, and another, in the same situation, lives, I don’t know. My finite mind cannot comprehend the mind of God. I do adhere to the belief that God is a God of second chances. God doesn’t owe us anything! Death is part of the human experience because we live in a fallen world. Yet, God grants second chances to many.
Image by Francisco Leão from Pixabay
Jonah could have drowned, but, miraculously, God saved him and gave him a second chance. On D-day, thousands of soldiers stormed the beaches and were cut to pieces by German machine guns, yet, some survived! Why only some? I don’t know. Of the twelve apostles of Jesus, eleven met a violent death, martyred for their faith. Only John, the Beloved, lived his later years and died an old man in exile on the Isle of Patmos. Why only one out of twelve? I don’t know! What I do know is that whether they lived or died, they were faithful to the end to the One who called them.
The unsaved need a second chance to repent. Christians need a second chance to repent. I need second chances, and third chances and forth . . . I would have given up on the likes of me a long time ago! But, God didn’t!
I am so glad God is patient, and puts up with my rebellion against Him. Yes, there are consequences for my sin, but I am thankful that He is faithful and just to forgive my sins as I confess them to Him. I am in awe that God wants to change the rebel in me into the likeness of Christ. I am incredulous that God chose me, a sinner, to be adopted into his family, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. He doesn’t need me, yet he wants to use me, a sinner saved by grace, to further his plan and purpose here on earth. I’m a work in progress, and even though I have seven decades under my hat, I still have a long ways to go! There are the reasons why I survived an eel shock, a near truck wreck, and so many other blind dates with the Grim Reaper that I don’t even know about- death was waiting at the restaurant, but God steered me to the library instead!
In our lifetimes there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times that our own stupidity almost kills us. Or, how ’bout the imbecility of others? Seems we all have a bent towards stupid! Add to those: accidents, acts of nature, and so many other things over which we have no control. If we knew every single time we had a brush with death, we would be afraid to live! We would probably stay in bed with the covers pulled over our heads!
As long as we live in a fallen world, bad things will happen! Should that bad thing catapult us into eternity, may we be like the disciples, and live each day, faithful until the end!
Here I go, preaching to myself. again!
Local Folklore
Don Miguel, at the Pension Beni, told a story about a highlander who had moved to the jungle to claim free land. One day he went to the river to bath. He waded into the brown water till it reached his knees. After soaking his body, he soaped up and at that moment, a passing eel shocked him. With a great splash, he was knocked over backwards. Like me, he was lucky and survived, but according to Miguel, the man never took a bath, again!
Electrophorus Electricus Fun Facts
-The electric eel is not an eel, but rather, a knife fish.
-Electric eels can grow to 8′ long and weigh 44 pounds.
-There are three kids of electric eels in the world, all native in South America.
-The shock is produced by a battery-like array of cells called electrocytes which make up 80% of their body. I’m guessing that was what all that white, blubber-like stuff was on the eel we cooked. The most powerful type of eel can produce up to 860 volts (I’m sure we had the most powerful kind!), but only one ampere. Volts hurt! Amps kill! Unless you drown, then volts kill, too!
-Electric eels have gills, but that is not their primary means of oxygen intake. They are air breathers, so when I wrote that it appeared the eel was “gasping its last breath,” I may not have been far from the truth! They must come up for air!
-Average number of offspring – 1,200.
-Apparently eels like fried food because in my research I read, “Males will defend their nest and the fry vigorously. Sounds like they have something in common with the cook at a Forth Of July Fish Fry!
-An eel can leap out of the water to attack prey with a more powerful shock. I wonder why Hollywood has never made a movie called, “Revenge of the Electrophorus Electricus.” I’m glad that never happened to us in all the river travel by small boat and canoe, that we did in my first two years in the Bolivian lowlands.
Postscript
I returned to the States in January of 1980. Taking my time, visiting along the way, I eventually reached home in Montana. About that same time, a local soft drink company, probably in Missoula, came out with a new ad on TV to sell their brand of Root Beer. It asked the question, “What do you do when you get shocked by your pet electric eel?” The answer, of course, was to pour yourself a big glass of ice-cold Xbrand Root Beer.
After my shocking experience a few months before, I found this advertisement funny. I could relate, and have often wished that I had a tall glass of ice-cold, foamy Root Beer on that long ago day in Bolivia’s Green Hell! Don’t know if it would have helped, but it sure would have tasted good!
Writings By Phil 
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