Adventures in Farming, WhiteWater Rafting & being a (Teenage) Hobo!
Under Construction
But Pretty Good Progress has been made! - so please do check out the lower portions
During his somewhat troubled teenage years and early twenties RFK Jr. had a number of opportunities to visit Latin America and fell in love with the landscapes, people, culture and wildlife of the land
His first visit was an important but quite challenging initiation into what it means to work really hard.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
For a mere two dollars a week he had to work from dawn until night fell every day – doing a wide variety of hard labor. It nourished qualities of perseverance, endurance and appreciation and honor for a hard days work. Along with the impoverished peasant farm workers of Colombia he worked -
Checking fence wires for breaks to repair – and looking out for possible squatters.
Driving cattle, breaking horses and castrating hogs;
Checking fence wires for breaks to repair – and looking out for possible squatters.
Checking fence wires for breaks to repair – and looking out for possible squatters.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
For a mere two dollars a week he had to work from dawn until night fell every day – doing a wide variety of hard labor. It nourished qualities of perseverance, endurance and appreciation and honor for a hard days work. Along with the impoverished peasant farm workers of Colombia he worked -
Checking fence wires for breaks to repair – and looking out for possible squatters.
Checking fence wires for breaks to repair – and looking out for possible squatters.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
Family friend and RFK Jr’s father-like guide Lem Billings set it up for Bobby to spend the summer of 1969 working on a ranch in the Rio Meta region of Colombia. For a child from a relatively wealthy and rather privileged and beloved family this was a great introduction to how so much of the rest of the world has to work and struggle just to survive and pay bills.
ks of text.
Similarly when his friend Lem Billings hurt his leg falling into a ravine out in the middle of the jungle, Bobby knew how to sew the wound up with stitches; and then he and the rest of the crew managed to lay him onto the raft’s luggage rack to continue safely on down the river.
It was during this period of Bobby’s early-twenties raft adventuring that he first encountered a clear example of mass poisoning by mercury – the toxic metal that would feature so largely through several aspects of his future career. RFK Jr’s early witnessing of the toxic effects of the silvery liquid metal took place during a river exploration – up North on Canada’s Wabigoon River – together with his friend Blake Fleetwood.
On their way to an Objiway Indian village they encountered a whole tribe who had been poisoned by mercury dumped into the river by an upstream paper factory. The tribe members were being poisoned to death by this callous criminal pollution.
Similarly when his friend Lem Billings hurt his leg falling into a ravine out in the middle of the jungle, Bobby knew how to sew the wound up with stitches; and then he and the rest of the crew managed to lay him onto the raft’s luggage rack to continue safely on down the river.
One particularly striking image that stuck in Fleetwood’s mind was the scene of “cats dancing in circles driven mad by the mercury.”
This incident was definitely instrumental in Bobby’s determination to fight back against corporate polluters.
