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08/18/2001 Archived Entry: "The Mission"

A programme that I'd been looking forward to for a few days finally aired today; called The Mission: A Grand Adventure, it was about an assorted bunch of British explorers, GPs, soldiers and PR agents delivered a grand piano to a tribe deep in the Amazon. Why? Because the tribe (the Wai Wai) had seen a photo of a piano in an old magazine and said that they would like one.

It was a gloriously crazy and wonderful adventure as you got to see them lugging it over all sorts of terrain and the Brit soldier trying to defend himself against accusations of weakness from joking tribesmen. The one thing that really spoke to me on the programme, though, was a comment the team leader made. He said that he never saw the point of doing things like climbing Everest just because it's there - he'd much rather spend his time doing something that helped people and made a difference, and was also personally challenging to him. And I think that sums up perfectly what I feel on the matter.

The grand piano did get to the tribe village intact and in working order, amazingly, and the Wai Wai were overjoyed to see its arrival, having never heard the sounds of a piano before.