Lifeguard Jeon

° N I N E T E E N °

Visits with Yoongi are part of my routine now. I stop to see him almost everyday on the way home from the hospital. I've heard people talk about mentors, even though I've never really understood before what people like that are like. But now that I've met Yoongi, I know.

His serenity and openness invite me to speak to him and sometimes I surprise myself and tell him more than I thought I would. The hospital, my home, my parents - even their divorce. He listens, but he never tells me what to do. Only sometimes he raises a hand to stop me. I wait for him to speak, but even then, it's just a few sentences, but with weight and spirit. He's almost . . . divine, and I'm in awe of him. I tell him about Tae and think about asking him whether he knew, but I look at him and his eyes answer.

Yoongi knows all about me, but I don't much about him, so I ask him about growing up in the jungle. I've never met anyone from there before. All I learned in school about the jungle is tropical and full of trees.

he has a far away look in his eyes when he answers, as though his mind has traveled back home and he's telling the story from there, seeing it all again as if he's a child again.

"I was born in an treehouse," he says. "My father was a shaman."

"A what?"

"A shaman is a healer of the rainforest who walks between the visible and invisible worlds. Plants and spirits were his medicines." He shakes his head like he's wondering. "he could look into other people's dreams," he says. "And he would have great dreams of his own, of vision and power."

"how did he learn everything?"

"He was an apprentice to another shaman. One passes the information to another. There are no schools for that."

"So when you were growing up and you got sick he'd find you the right plant and then pray?"

"Something like that," he says, holding out a hand in the air. "The jungle is filled with life," he says, making an arc with his hand. "There are a million different types of plants - almost 3 quarters of the animals and plants in the world. Everywhere you go, Suzy, there's wildlife and the music of nature and color, intense, brilliant color." He smiles. "They say there are four thousand different kinds of butterflies, Suzy. Can you imagine?"

Many medicines come from the jungle, he says, but only one percent of all the plants have been studied for their use as medicine. "Some say the rainforest has a medicine for every disease."

"I want to go. I want to see it all."

"Ah, but there are more than plants and butterflies." He shakes a finger in warning. "Do you like mosquitoes? There are clouds of them."

I shake my head. "I hate them."

"What about spiders, poison frogs, jaguars, tarantulas as big as my hand, and snakes - so many snakes?"

I shake my head again.

"You know the anaconda?" His arm becomes wiggly.

"Only from a scary movie."

Yoongi laughs. "Some say they have seen anacondas as long as 60 feet - a 6-story building. Can you imagine?"

"Are you scared of them?"

"Only an idiot wouldn't be."

Even though he never worked as a doctor, he studied with his father, he says, and learned how to heal himself with plants. "But cures come from spirits too. They enter your heart and soul. You have to give yourself over to the healing journey."

"But in this country, what do you do when you get sick?"

Yoongi shakes his head. "I don't get sick," he says. "I've never been to the doctor."

"But if you did?"

"I'd boil a bush."

"Eh?"

"I'd take the plants I need."

"So you've never taken antibiotics for ear infections, or aspirin for headaches?"

"I don't get headaches, Suzy, but if I did, I would chew the leaves of  feverfew."

"And that's?"

"Nature's aspirin - a plant that helps the pain. But to truly heal, you have to have a spiritual relationship with the plant. You have to want it to work. People in this country . . . they don't understand that. Medicine here can be cold, one sided. It treats the symptoms, not the disease. Here they don't they understand that the mind and body are one."

He tells me about saving the jungle and the rainforest. "It's called the earth's lungs," he tells, because it makes 1/5 of the world's oxgyen.

But people rob the jungle, taking out timber, he says. "Half the animals and plants in the world will be destroyed over the next few decades." Yoongi puts down his paintbrush. "People too," he says. "there used to be ten million native tribespeople in the jungle. Do you know how many are left?"

I shake my head.

"one hundred, two hundred thousand, maybe."

"What happened to them all?"

"They were wiped out by Europeans who came to use the jungle and make money."

"Why can't anyone stop them?"

"The selfish move faster than the selfless." He tilts his head.

"Can't the government help?"

"They're part of the problem, Suzy"

When I finally remember that Irene's waiting for me for dinner, the sky has turned indigo. I get to my feet. "I was so lost in what you told me that I'm late."

"Then you must go. You don't want to miss dinner."

As I start to pedal away, Yoongi calls out to me. "Be careful, Suzy."

"Of what?" I get ready to shout back, but I stop. I'm too far away, and Yoongi's a little hard of hearing.