"Before We Start, I will tell you how I Lost my Right Hand on Lake Tanganyika"
Posted: Tuesday, May 17, 2011
by Christofer French
Rain Dancer Associates, LLC
What a Way to Start A Dinner!
This is not the way you open an elegant dining experience in Pasadena at Monahan’s in 1976. But then when Jean Pierre Hallet lifts his unadorned right arm, without a right hand, twinkles with a virtual glowing merriment, you tend to follow down the path that you are being led.
As he sat there his arm, which was large because it naturally corresponded to his mighty frame and great stature for normal people, still commanded one to stare at it. This was not a handicapped individual who starts mumbling if you glance at his infirmity, this was a war hero at sixteen when he fought the Nazis in Belgium, an adventurer and activist who had faced death 19 times, and who lost this self-same hand at the age of 30.
By now, the absence of his right hand was a matter of fame. He was Jean Pierre Hallet – The Savior of the Pygmies. The Author, Naturalist and Activist. He used it now as an older man as his way of providing an exclamation point! It was now a kind of “brand” for this man who had taken as his mission the survival of the unique pygmy peoples of Africa. Through deforestation, commercial development, outright genocide and brutal lack of concern about their special living circumstances, the pygmies in the 70’s were dying off in a manner that makes one use the word “holocaust”.
It was my job to interview people who were seeking special assistance from our Foundation in the 70’s; we were interested in perhaps providing funding for the Hero of the Pygmies and Founder of the Pygmy Fund. He lived in Malibu, California. We were headquartered in Pasadena, California.
To meet Jean Pierre was an experience all by itself. A tall man with a large long beard, he had a big voice, and a warm way that made him a loveable and imposing man. Knowing he was a decorated war hero fighting the Nazis in the Belgian Resistance, and having read his books and even purchased an item from his museum, I consider it a wonderful accident of fate to have met him and become his friend. We were all star struck and in awe. His voice seemed to make the walls shake. His smile melted man and woman alike. And to think all of this personality, which today would have gone well on a thousand talk shows, was spent laying his life out for his beloved Pygmies.
That night, the Foundation would learn that he was more than legitimate as a Founder of a Humanitarian cause; he was a Doer and Hero who truly lived his purposeful life up to the end. His long lost dream was to build a special kind of African Wildlife Museum in California.
I am a Walloon!
His story and fame went back to his Father, an artist who lived in the Belgian Congo. As a child, he was raised among the Pygmies. After being sent back to Europe to get an education, History threw him into World War II, and a resistance unit which got him his first Heroic experiences. He told me a few days later: “I am a Walloon! We are a kind of minority. We go back into European History. We are French-speaking Belgians and are fiery and independent.”
As we settled in for a wonderful repast in a lively Irish Pub, I went ahead and pursued his first proposed topic of conversation. “So, what I do know is that you were trying to feed the starving Bosso people of Southern Burundi who were part Pygmy. Obviously, you were obtaining quite a few fish in a quick manner. They were being starved, and you were trying a quick self-help method of feeding people.”
He jumped right in. “Yes. But it was quite dangerous --- the way I was fishing. Two sticks of dynamite blew up in my hand. It scarred my body and face, besides the obvious injury. Surviving the blast was definitely amazing, but getting to the clinic was a miracle all by itself.
As we sipped wine at Monahan’s, as a young man, who had lived a normal life in America, I thought to myself, this person has led an utterly unique life with power and pride and soul.
Driving a Truck with One Hand and a Bleeding Stump
“I did not know if I was going to actually survive for a long time. First, I struggled to rescue myself— alone — from attacking crocodiles, as I made my way back to the shore. I stood up and started staggering a mile to my truck. I tied a tourniquet above the bleeding stump with my teeth and my left hand. I asked myself if I would survive without the clinic. I concluded that I would not, so despite all of my unattended wounds I started the 200 mile drive on a narrow, steeply curving mountain road, in a race to beat a night-time road closure and get to a clinic.”
“So, all the time you are bleeding and fighting pain and suffering, there is a possibility that a simple night-time road closure could leave you dead on the road?” I was afraid to interrupt him, but had to have that cleared up.
“Yes. When I got to the guard’s hut, they were still there. The road was still open. I made it to the clinic and collapsed. Obviously, they saved my life.”
“You know my left hand is not much, but I went ahead and changed my whole life to live with this.” He changed his whole life for his mission, not just his one handedness. His heart never left the Pygmy cause, but his life was a mural that covered continents and nations.
That was not our first and only time to meet. We would meet a few more times. As our relationship developed he would hug me with his big left arm and say: “Christoff, maybe we can make something happen.”
As it turned out, the “powers that be” were not able to provide the big funding he asked for. The impact that his personality, and power and love had on me have lasted until this day. He fought Leukemia for two years. He was a stalwart human being who died in 2004. If you are interested, read his books, explore the Pygmy issues.
Check out www.pygmyfund.org/eulogy.html .
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Quite a story Christofer, thanks for sharing.Thanks. He was truly a great guy with a gigantic heart. Appreciate your comment.
That was very interesting. Losing any part of the body is unimaginable. Although he managed to pull it through. Thanks.
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