I guess as I get older I am getting lazier. In a village near the mouth of the Bamu River a man mentioned that there was a small root figure in a village a couple hours walk inland through a sago swamp. In the old days I would have dropped everything and marched away in pursuit of the carving. But on this day, I sent my main man Jerry instead (in the canoe, second from left). Myself, I curled up on the veranda of a house and read a novel, snacked on fire roasted shrimp and waited six hours for his return. The walk was longer and tougher than expected (which is always the case) where it ended up being three hours of delicately balancing on a path of fallen logs where one misstep lands you into the muck and waiting sago spines. The good news was that I got the figure, the bad news were all the spines we had to pull out of Jerry’s feet (July 2009).