I’ve been watching a BBC series called Tribal Wives on Youtube lately. The premise is that they have a British woman live with a remote tribe for a month and take on the role of a Tribal Wife. Women have been sent to Thailand, Gabon, Mexico, and Namibia, to name a few locations.
It’s really fascinating to watch someone cope after being forced to cast off all the modern “comforts” of life, such as cell phones and indoor plumbing. It’s interesting to see them struggle with the day in and day out grueling work that comes with living rough. For many women in the world, life is really, really hard.
But what I enjoy most is seeing what inevitably happens. These women generally assume that they will have nothing to learn from these uneducated, poverty-stricken, deprived people. But by the end of their stay, they discover that there’s a certain wisdom that comes from not being distracted by all the extras of modern living. There’s a certain glory to just living. Just getting on with it.
In the episode I watched today, a woman from London was placed with the Raramuri tribe of Northwest Mexico. This is a woman who spends a lot of her time worrying and overthinking things, and not trusting people. She lives with this tribe, learns their customs and traditions, and works side by side with the women. Her nervous nature becomes all too evident by comparison.
Their advice to her is not to think so much. Basically, she needs to get over it. Just relax and do what needs to be done. The Raramuri have a saying, “Walk your life.” Sometimes the most profound insights come in deceptively simple packages.
Just walk your life.
[Image credit: bbc.co.uk]
The View from a Drawbridge 