Life itself probably writes the most incredible stories, like that of Sabine Kuegler (51). Born in Nepal to two German missionaries and linguists, she grew up with the indigenous Fayu tribe in the deepest jungle of western New Guinea.
Sabine Kuegler grew up with the Fayu tribe in western New Guinea
© Image: Private
She only returned to Europe when she was 17. She wrote the best-selling “Jungle Child” in 2005 (which was even made into a film in 2011) about her exciting childhood and difficult life between these two completely different cultures.
“The difference is that culture in the jungle has more to do with the community. You have no identity, you are part of a group, you have no privacy because you can only survive as a group. In the West, survival has to do with the fact that you have to have an identity, that you have privacy, that you also have much more freedom, but you are not as protected as in the jungle. So, in fact, it's exactly the opposite”, she says on the program “Wonderfully honest – people up close”.
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In 2012, the mother of four became seriously ill, was deemed untreated, and made the courageous decision to return to the jungle in search of a cure. Her journey lasted almost five years until she met a shaman who invented the right medicine.
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“The only thing that kept me going was promising my children that I would come back. That's what I stuck to. Otherwise I would have said: OK, I've had a beautiful, colorful life and it's time to go. But I held on to it, beyond the limits of what a human being can truly bear. There were years of running through the jungle, sleeping in the jungle, sleeping in cabins. And then get sick.
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During this long period, she completely lost herself in the tribal culture, returned to being one of them, and almost never returned. “I was also very scared to go back. For years I was in a culture I didn't understand, where I was afraid, and now I was back in a life I knew. I became more and more wild. “I went deeper and deeper into the jungle,” she says.
Lisa Trompisch in “Wonderfully Honest” Conversation with Sabine Kuegler
© Image: KURIER/Jeff Mangione
But her mother's love was stronger and now she orients herself much better in Western culture. “Because for the first time I understand why I’m different.”
Kuegler also has a much more intense sense of emotions and surroundings, as to survive in the jungle she had to learn to “listen to nature, analyze everything around me”.
In fact, we could also learn a lot from the Fayu. “The reason people are happier there is because their lives are based on society, friendship and family. And that's why I'd like to see people focus more on unity here. Be generous, not too critical, not always critical. A smile costs nothing, being friendly costs nothing.”
She has already written the book “I no longer swim where the crocodiles are” (Westend Verlag) about her emotional journey back to the wild.
© Image: Westend Verlag
You can see what home means to her, whether she's ever taken her kids to the wild, and why time is still an issue in the video above.