The Jungle

Is it kind, I wonder, to bring up a child in a jungle? It depends, I suppose, on the child, and on the jungle. My parents raised my brothers and I in a jungle far from America.  Our jungle became home to us, with its creatures and smells and sounds.

It was a fight at first, a series of unfortunate events. There was the day I was swarmed with biting ants and too terrified to run away, the day I played in a field of sharp-edged grass, and came home covered in tiny sharp grass hairs that hurt like needles.  The jungle didn't let you go unscathed. I learned to love it, but it was a kind of love that mingled with respect. 

There was the day I found jungle fruit trees covered with clusters of red, velvety fruit; the day I saw caterpillars spinning themselves into shiny green cacoons; the day I found purple nuts that I learned to crack open with a rock. When I weigh the good and the bad together, I find them both to be of value. The good is so good it was worth going through the bad; and the bad? It taught me to respect the jungle.