Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
takers and kidnappers, especially if they believe you may have informa-
tion useful to them. Common tricks are to vary your sleeping times, serve
you meals you would associate with certain times of day at the wrong
times, and keep you in total darkness to prevent you from being aware of
whether it is daylight outside. It will be important for you to try to main-
tain a sense of the passage of time. If you can hear the sounds of the street,
it is a safe assumption that activity is higher during the daylight hours and
lower at night. Also, since it is usually cooler at night, you can determine
the time of day from paying attention to the temperature. Observe the
condition of your guards or others with whom you come in contact. They
are people, too, and are affected by the human biorhythmic cycle. If it is
three o'clock in the morning, it is very likely that the guards will look
lethargic and sleepy. Try to count the passage of days and record the date.
Scratching a simple tick mark someplace to mark the passage of every day
is an easy way to do this.
You may continue to be physically abused throughout the ordeal. You
may be beaten to obtain information or merely to amuse the criminals
holding you. Women, and to a lesser extent men, may be sexually abused.
Remember, you must do everything you can to stay alive. If you are assaulted
in this manner, you will probably be forced to endure it. There is no shame
in this. Do what you must to survive the ordeal.
KEEP PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY ACTIVE
Try to exercise whenever possible. Keeping your body as physically fit
under the circumstances is vital to your survival. A healthy, fit individual
is likely to be more resistant to disease. Exercise is also one of the best ways
to relieve stress, which will be one of your most difficult challenges during
captivity. Eat whatever you are given, whenever it is offered to you. Your
appetite will certainly not be what it should be, but food is a basic neces-
sity and you need to survive. You have no way of knowing whether food
will be withheld as a punishment or whether the kidnappers have suffi-
cient resources to “waste” on their victims.
It is also extremely important to exercise your mind. If you have never
seen the movie
Midnight Express,
rent it to see a depiction of how the mind
of a captive can deteriorate over the course of the captivity. Any mental
exercise you can come up with will keep your wits intact. Try to remember
the soliloquies of Hamlet, Macbeth, or any of your favorite Shakespearean
