Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [124]
On the inside, the hut has the feel of a subterranean cavern to it, all narrow and muddy, with a low ceiling that barely lets me stand up straight. There are three sections, each one partitioned by curtains: a small central living room, including a space where Wilson's wide-screen TV will go someday if Sony ever invents one that can be powered by excrement. Then, on either end, two bedrooms. Sole illumination is from a fire burning in a crude stone hearth, emitting a steady plume of smoke that fills the house with a thick, gaseous haze, clogging my throat and making my eyes sting. The Masai do this to kill mosquitoes and other bugs. How it doesn't kill the occupants too is beyond me.
On the plus side, the house doesn't smell anywhere near as awful as I thought it was going to. More earthy than dungy. The bed I'll be sleeping on is yet another large slab of dried dung raised about six inches off the ground, compacted down, and covered with a blanket to hide—well, that it's a load of crap.
While the camera is being set up to shoot all of this and Kevin's lighting the space,3 Jay takes me back outside, away from prying eyes. “So what are you going to do?” he asks, fixing me with his most earnest hangdog look.
“What d'you mean?”
“Will you be staying?”
I didn't know I had a choice. But now that push has come to shove and lions have come to eat me, it seems I do.
“I've been told that under no circumstances must I put the host in serious danger,” he continues, “and this could be a very dangerous situation. You heard the man: people get eaten. You'd be totally justified if you decided not to stay. If you want to come back to the hotel in the van with us, nobody's going to say anything.”
“But what about the 'sleeping for five hours’ thing?”
After all we've been through, in Vanuatu particularly, and all the multifarious ways the integrity of the show has been nibbled at since, I realize I must come across as strangely obtuse to be defending this policy right now.
“Cash,” he says in mild disbelief, “it's a frickin’ TV show. You're not expected to risk your life for it. I mean, I'm not telling you what to do, but if you come back with us in the van, nobody's going to blame you or say anything. I'll personally tell the office how dangerous this was. They'll understand. On the other hand …” Fidgeting, he stares into the middle distance, to where the hyenas are prowling. “… if you decide to stay, we'll do our best to protect you, but—that's your decision.”
In other words, put up or shut up.
It's a major dilemma. When I started out on this yearlong adventure, an issue as basic as “Do I want to sleep in a village under siege from ravenous lions?” wouldn't have troubled me for even a split second. I'd have fled. “I am not MacGyver,” I'd have said haughtily. “I am not a type A maniac like the rest of you and I don't give a damn about being on your stupid team. I did not sign up for this show to go and put my life on the line for other people's entertainment. I don't bungee jump; I don't walk across ten-thousand-foot-high icy mountains in cheap boots with no grips on them; I may climb erupting, windblown volcanoes, but only if someone hangs onto me the whole time and I get to complain about it all the way up and all the way back down again. And, as the natives of Yakel Village will happily testify, I don't like Nature or the wild and I don't sleep on muddy, bug-ridden floors in the middle of nowhere. That's just not me. Sorry.”
My God, what a pompous ass I must have seemed back then. No wonder there were so many Crew Looks. And no wonder everyone expressed such grizzled exasperation as they frantically tried to figure out last-minute solutions to problems that would never have existed if celebrity lawyer Star Jones had been the host, or that guy with the anger-management problem from The Partridge Family.
But that's how much I've changed. Reflecting on the “me” that began filming this show a year ago