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Amerindian woman recounts jungle survival story to parliamentarian
A parliamentarian is describing her as a heroine.
Some 24 years ago, lost in the dense jungle of Guyana, 13-year-old Bertina Domingo and her nine-year-old sister, Bernadette, were lost after their uncle died.
MP Alister Charlie (r) with survivor, Bertina Domingo
Newspaper reports said they survived for a month on berries, evading wild animals like jaguars, crocodiles and poisonous snakes before being rescued by miners.
On Sunday, Member of Parliament for the People’s Progressive Party, Alister Charlie, who hails from Region Nine, said that the girls’ parents had given them up for dead after they failed to return from what should have been a short trip through the dense forest.
Charlie said on Sunday, he met Bertina, a resident and farmer, at Apoteri village where she is now a mother of seven. Her sister Bernadette resides in Brazil.
According to Charlie, in a Facebook post, after the rescue, the girls were admitted to the Georgetown public Hospital, covered in angry red mosquito bites.
The gifts poured in from persons who were touched by their tale of survival with the PPP government declaring them national heroines.
It began with the Easter holiday, in April 1995 while school was closed. The girls’ uncle decided to take them to see their family farm, located about an hour on foot from their home through the dense jungle.
According to Charlie, the girls were no stranger to the dense forest. They belong to the Wapishan tribe.
They had left their home in Apoteri, an Amerindian riverain village in Region Nine about 200 miles south of the capital city, Georgetown, carrying a box of matches, two hammocks and machetes.
At some point during their trek, Charlie wrote, their uncle lost his way.
When the three didn’t return, local police and residents of Apoteri village tried in vain to track them.
Speaking with Bertina on Sunday, Charlie said that the 37-year-old woman, a mother of seven, recounted how her uncle had died.
She said that they left home on April 7, 1995, the Friday before Palm Sunday.
In her Wapishan tongue, Bertina recalled watching her uncle grow thin and become weak.
He may have died of the same strain of malaria that Bernadette was suffering from, the Falsiparum strain, which can kill within days if not treated.
Left to fend for themselves, the girls hacked their way through the dense forest, losing track of time. They staved off hunger with berries and other wild fruits and, occasionally, a feast of fish.
Bernadette related that they cooked the fish over the flames of the wax-like gum that comes from the Haiwa tree. They also used the gum as candles to light their way through the dark forest.
Bertina was treated for dysentery she got from drinking creek water. She related that the most frightening moment was when a jaguar, locally called a bush tiger, came charging at them.
The girls ran to scramble up a tree, but Bernadette stumbled and fell.
”I tell my sister to climb up quick,″ Bertina said. ”We come down from the tree only when the tiger went away.″
At one point, they narrowly missed being rescued, Bernadette recalled.
”We walk and we hear an engine and I tell my sister, “Hear the pork knocker (small gold miner) engine, let me walk up quick.″”
But the noise faded away before she could get to the vehicle.
Help came 31 days later when the girls stumbled upon some miners, who cared for them for a week before bringing them to Georgetown.
The Guyana Airways Corporation donated two tickets to reunite the children with their parents in Apoteri.
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