Sabine Kuegler, jungle child of Papua

Noone likes to be poor. Or do they? Sabine Kuegler had an unconventional upbringing to say the least. For years she lived in a remote jungle area of West Papua, Indonesia, where she and her family lived among a warmongering headhunting tribe untouched by modern civilisation.

She ate roast bat, crocodile and fat white grubs and hunted birds and wild pig with a bow and arrow. She learnt how to kill poisonous snakes and shared her house with rats, flying cockroaches and spiders as big as dinner plates. 

Until she was 17, the jungle and its timeless ways were all she knew. She finally managed to get out of the jungle after a rich uncle paid for her to go to a boarding school in Switzerland. But despite finding riches by marrying a super rich businessman (where else have you heard that before?!!!), she is deeply unhappy. 

"I have become very overwhelmed. As I get older, I feel it getting worse. The question of where I belong is growing stronger. At first, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now, I am getting to the point where I just want quiet. I don't want all this pressure around me, the noise, the people, the appointments. I just long to be able to go back and wake up in a place where time goes very slowly. I was always a happy, easy-going, uncomplicated person until I came to the West. I have become nervous and tight. I am unhappy, not with my life, but with the situation I am in - not being able to reach the point of saying I am home." 

Unable to cope in the modern world she smoked so heavily her weight went down to 48 kilos. She even sliced herself up with a razor blade. For more on Sabine Kuegler’s remarkable life click here.