US family 'survives' Guyana cultural quest; toiled on remote Rupununi ranch for nine days
Stabroek News
November 11, 2003
Jay and Maureen Berger of Traverse City Michigan and their three children have survived nine days roughing it at an isolated outpost in southern Guyana as part of the National Geographic Channel's "Worlds Apart" television series.
The programme places different American families in remote places to experience the cultures first-hand.
According to a report in Saturday's Traverse City Record Eagle, the couple and their children Ben, 17; Luke, 14; and Emma, 12, arrived home Tuesday and were back at work and school on Thursday.
Their adventure began Oct. 22 when they flew to the South American country to live with a host-family in what they thought would be a rural village setting.
Instead they were taken by bush plane and open jeep to a 2,000-square-mile cattle ranch in a savannah 50 miles from the Brazilian border.
It was just the first of many surprises for the family, who during their stay lived and toiled alongside the extended Charlie family, native Amerindians from the Wapishana tribe who worked on the ranch.
Jay Berger said his family lived in a 15-by-15-foot room of a three-room thatched-roof house made of sun-baked bricks and slept in hammocks beneath mosquito netting. They awoke each morning at 4:30 to cook breakfast over a brick-hearth wood fire and tumbled into bed each evening at 7 p.m.
In between they worked alongside the Charlie family, butchering a steer, roping and branding calves, fetching wood and water from a river 1/4-mile away, and experiencing the harsh realities of daily life on an outpost without electricity or plumbing.
Capturing it all on tape were two producers and two cameramen from National Geographic.
"The first six days were very difficult," said Berger, a partner in the financial planning and investment firm Integrated Wealth Manage-ment. "Probably the biggest adjustment was to the heat," which averaged in the 90s.
Eventually the hard work, primitive conditions and lack of privacy took its toll, he said. The biggest challenge was "keeping our family positive, from being overwhelmed by the amount of work.
"None of us were really prepared, we weren't climatized, we weren't prepared mentally or physically," he added.
That became abundantly clear on the first day when the family had to help butcher a steer, he said.
"I'm almost fainting and (Maureen's) got her arms in the carcass up to her elbows and our daughter's crying because she's uncomfortable with that and she has to take the parts to the river to wash them," Berger recalls. "I remember going to bed and thinking maybe tomorrow will be a better day."
He said the family managed to bolster each other through the toughest times by regrouping each evening during a ritual bath at the river. By day seven they no longer had to work as hard, and got to spend more time socialising.
For Maureen Berger, who applied for the show after watching a segment about it on "Oprah," the most difficult part of the adventure was watching how hard her family was working and knowing she was the instigator of the whole thing.
"But it was worth it," she said. "Each one of the kids had come up to me at the end and said, 'I'm glad we did this.'!"
Ultimately the Bergers came away from their experience with admiration for the Charlie family's sense of humour and love of the land and awe at their work ethic, Jay Berger said."They spend all their time sustaining themselves. They don't complain about it, they just do it," he said. "We work hard at our house so we can play. They work hard so they can live."
He said that while it's unlikely the families will meet again, they will try to stay in touch. Right now the Bergers are making arrangements to send their hosts some things to make life easier, including a chain saw, some folding chairs and head lamps.
They're also considering renting a hall and raising money to support MediVac services in Guyana in conjunction with the airing of their segment of the show sometime between late December and early February. "I wouldn't do it again, but I'd do it over," he said. "If you would have asked on day five I'd have said no."