A Rememberance

The day started off in an air conditioned office with me putting together a telescope and flipping through a bird identification book. Then sometime around noon we set out to the field site which was about a half hour ride from the municipal hall. I stepped out of the vehicle onto the sandy path beneath a cloudless sky and instantly felt the heat of the sun on the top of my head. After waiting for a couple minutes our "guides" arrived and it was at that moment I knew we were in for an afternoon of headaches. Our "guides" were a group of kids no older than twelve and the youngest one was still a bit wobbly since he didn't have complete control of his body yet. Despite the obvious set back we started making our way into the brush that is adjacent to the seashore. Our "guides" told us that they had seen two tabon birds earlier so this was going to be no problem. After an hour of not seeing our intended target, the tabon bird we took a short break. Then the idea was had to send the kids into the woods while we held stationary positions and waited for them to flush out the ideal birds. There was a lot of waiting in the sun but not much else happened. The afternoon continued to drag on with the same result. Our last effort was to send the kids into the woods one more time but it failed again. The sun was starting to set and we decided to call it a day. As we were heading back to the vehicle the guides/kids came running up to us telling us that they had just seen 3 birds. I just started laughing but other people in the group started questioning them like they believed them. I still don't know if they believed the kids or were just humoring them. I can only hope that they knew the truth. We made one last stop at a house on our way back so someone in our group could buy crabs from a fisherman. I had fished out my hanker chief to wipe of my face which was nice and sweaty from our excursion and set it down on a table next to me. After the crab was purchased and the conversation ended we were ready to go. I reached down to grab my hanker chief and it was gone. I looked around and saw one of our guides had swiped it. I gave him a half smile and started to walk towards him but he ran. I could see this was going to be difficult. I smiled again and told him to come here. He just laughed and started to walk back to his house. I made a quick movement towards him and he took off running again. It was than that I knew I had a decision to make. I could chase him down and wrestle the hanker chief from him and possibly spark an international incident or I could try to obtain help from his parents or people in my party but they seem too amused to provide any help or I could just give the kid a dirty look, remember his face for future retribution and leave without my hanker chief. I definitely wanted to see where option one could lead but I decided to choose boring option three and just walk away from the situation. I took one last glance back at the kid and saw him showing his newly claimed prize to his friends. During my reflection of this incident I've know decided that if I am ever in the situation the best thing to do is grab one of the kids sandals or something else of theirs so at least it's a fair trade.