I have friends who are survivor show freaks. I grew up in Papua New Guinea with some of the last stoneage people left on the planet as well as lived with village tribes in West Africa. I always poke fun at my friends that only America could take a way of life, which more than 75% of the world's population have no choice but to live in, and turn it into a million dollar game show
They give me pointed glares and go back to enjoying their show.
National geographic hosted this amazing challenge (I believe it was NG), of a hundred some mile hike across one of Australia's northern deserts. The challenge was between three guys; an American national champion survivalist in his late 20's who had won scores of survival competitions world-wide, a German in his mid 40's who was an extreme survivalist, and a 70 year old Aboriginal man who lived there. The American guy was outfitted with all the techno gear, titanium cookware, powerbars, ultralight tent etc etc, the German guy was all about old style gear and had a blanket and mosquito net, ate bugs, and rubbed campfire ash and grease all over his skin to keep away the hords of bugs at night. The 70 year old Aboriginal had shoes with holes in them, and a satchel over his shoulder in which he carried his blanket and a few essentials in. It was an amazing show. The american guy kicked butt the first week, but after seven days was laid up with fever and heat stroke. The German guy was urinating blood and horrid shape. And the Aboriginal guy was just plugging slowly along, hiking in the early morning, evening and early night and sleeping through the heat of the day. The american guy ended up getting it together and beat the Aboriginal guy buy a few hours with the 70 year old man a few hours behind and the German guy nearly a day behind that. The American guy was in awe of the 70 year old aboriginal. It was like a three week trek. I don't remember all the particulars but it was pretty cool.
Anyway, that was a random digression. Native people's though are just fantastically amazing. My Papua New Guinean friends could move through the jungle for days like you wouldn't believe.
I have a cool book on boomerangs. I gave JeffH the title. It shows how to build all kinds of boomerangs, some of them reliable enough to do on stage and throw them out over an audience. I've never actually built any of them though.
anyway...
Barak