Hostel in the forest

The Hostel In the Forest

Note to anyone who would like to help me with my work with suicidal teens. I just searched google today for the Hostel in the Forest and found to my surprise this page was number three on the list. So if you are interested in helping prevent cutting, self harm and teen suicide, please consider coming to which ever part of the world I am currently in and helping me. I and the teens need the help. Right now I am in Uruguay. And since you are probably headed to Georgia, please read this page on Loo who is an 18 year old who lives there and needs some healthy friends.

Thanks.
Steve Hein
August 2007

Here is the original reason I created this page.....

Rob Emmerling found something I wrote about a girl who was staying at the Hostel in the Forest with her mother from Germany. I wrote about how I had gotten on the rope swing with her and we both jumped off of it into the water. Rob seems to think that the fact that we were both in our "birthday suits" together for those 10 seconds or so implies I am some kind of child molester, so I would like to explain the circumstances.

I did a little research today and found this picture. This is the little girl that was on the rope swing with me that day. (Note about the girl's mother) The picture is from this site. It was taken in November of 1997. That would be just about exactly the time I would have been coming back through Georgia after being in Canada for the summer. Or it could have been on a trip up to Georgia from where I lived in Florida, I'm not sure of the exact date, as it was quite long ago.

You can see the rope swing in the background. The people are all sitting around the pool. From this one picture you can get an idea of the kind of place the Hostel in the Forest is. I am not sure if Rob has ever been to a place like this. He might not have had time to since he was busy working on his PhD or PsyD or whatever it is. And then busy kissing up to Dan Goleman. I think if Rob had been there with me for a few days he wouldn't be so concerned now about what I wrote.

Here is close up:

And here is the original full picture if you want to have a look. It takes a little while to load, that's why I've reduced it for this page.

And here is a better pic of the rope swing and pool.

Anyhow here is more of the story of the little girl..

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There is a backpackers hostel in Georgia, USA called the Hostel in the Forest. It is a very alternative kind of place which attracts a lot of hippie types and dreadlock, rainbow festival type people. There is a swimming pool there and it is the norm to swim naked. One day when I was visiting, just passing through on my way to Canada from Florida, a six year old girl asked me to help her swing on the rope swing so she could jump in the water. She and her mother regularly swam naked, as did just about everyone else at the hostel. At that moment I was the only adult there and I also was naked. To be honest I was probably the most self-conscious one there about my nakedness. I was raised in a family and culture where you just didn't do that kind of thing. In Europe it is no big deal, but in America where I was raised, it is. And if you smoke a lot of pot, as most of the young people there did, and as Dan Goleman most probably did when he was young and possibly still does, being naked is not that big of a deal either. But for me, being there and learning to feel somewhat comfortable with nudity was a definite expansion of my comfort zone.

When the girl asked me to swing with her, I faced a dilemma. I felt quite uncomfortable getting on the rope swing with her, with us both being naked! At the same time I didn't want to make a big deal about it and say "No, I don't think it is right" or "No, I wouldn't feel comfortable." I was the one with the discomfort, not her. And I didn't want to start to corrupt her mind with what I call the sick fears of the adults I was accustomed to. I have thought about this since then and wondered if I did the right thing. I think I did. I have found over and over that children and teens have an instinctive knowledge of what is healthy and unhealthy, right and wrong, if you will.

At the time I got on the rope swing I thought for a second that if the girl was too trusting, someone could one day take advantage of her. But I decided that her instincts would tell her the difference between what was healthy and unhealthy touch, for example. And her self-confidence would give her the assertiveness to tell someone to stop if they did something she didn't feel comfortable with. After traveling to many countries and observing many more children and teens I feel more certain that this was the right call.

It is sad that someone like Rob Emmerling uses my decision, and my courage to write about it on my site, as an attempt to make a case that I am a sick child molester. But at the same time I knew that when I decided to put that in my journal one day, someone would surely misinterpret it. Perhaps it is partly also my fault for not giving more background information. But then again it was just journal writing, not an article.

I think we are learning a lot about Rob Emmerling by all of this. I don't think it is making him look very good. I don't think it is helping the "field of EI." I feel bad about that. But I am really tired of being judged and now misrepresented.

S. Hein
April 18, 2005

More thoughts and memories

There are a few more things I want to say about this girl.

First, she was surrounded by people who thought she was very special. She got lots of hugs and lots of attention. Her mother also got lots of time to herself so she was not impatient with her daughter when her daughter wanted something from her. I have no doubt this is partly why she was so happy and self-confident, along with the fact her mother was very open minded and accepting. None of the people in the picture above, by the way, were her parents. This shows what I am talking about. She was always surrounded by a lot of people. And she was the only child there so she got lots more attention than she would in a typical day care center, for example. During this time I was at the Hostel in the Forest the adult to child ratio was about 20 to 1. Not 1 to 20.

To me, this is much more of how the world should be. But instead, what happens? Parents ship their children off to day care centers and schools where there is absolutely no way they get the individual attention they need to satisfy their emotional needs. In Asia and Latin America I have seen one teacher with 40 or more children. How could she possibly control them without using fear and threats? It is an impossible situation.

This little girl also had nearly complete freedom. While she was there she wasn't forced to go to any state run or state regulated school. She just went around the hostel from one place to another as her free spirit guided her to do. When she saw something or someone interesting she would go check it out. When she was no longer interested, she would leave. This also is, to me, how the world should be. I have absolutely no doubt that by now this girl is one of the most interesting, self-confident and creative people you will ever meet. If anyone happens to read this who knows her or her mother, please write me. I would like to see how she is doing in life.

Also, besides the time on the rope swing there is one more memory which stands out. I was cleaning the gaps between the boards of the boardwalk between the treehouses. I was using a large nail and a screwdriver. The leaves would fall and get stuck in the gaps. Then the water could not pass through and it would rot the wood. This is one of the kinds of little things I do without anyone asking me or telling me to do it when I stay someplace. At any rate, the little girl passed by once and asked what I was doing. I explained it to her and asked if she wanted to help. She said yes so I gave her the nail and I worked with the screwdriver. She was very happy and content to be helping me. When she was tired of helping I thanked her and she happily went along her.

She was one of the first children I spent much time with as I was in the early stages of what I will call my personal growth path. I remember this incident because it showed me that children are happy to help you if you just ask them to and not force them, pressure them, guilt trip them, oblige them etc. I remember very clearly that all I said after I explained things was "Do you want to help?" It was as simple as that. I saw then that it feels good to help. And I realized that this is something which is genetically coded into humans, as the ability to makes webs is for spiders and nests is for birds. Since then I have seen this over and over in children. They almost never say no when I ask them to help. It is only as children get older and take on corrupted adult values that they start losing interest in helping. All over the world, I have found that the younger the person is, the more likely they are to help me. (Above about age 4 let's say.)

A fundamental principle of mine is we need to look closely at the true nature of children and use that nature to guide them. This instinctive desire for and satisfaction from helping is one of the most powerful ingredients in the formula on how humans can live more peacefully on earth.

Things are not as complicated as many people would have us believe.

If we treat all children as that little girl was treated by everyone at the Hostel in the Forest, the children will grow to feel less paranoid, more useful and more content.

And the whole world will be a better place.

A more personal note about the hostel.

I have been looking at the pictures of the hostel for about a half hour. And I just read Tom's letter about it. He is the owner and the creator of it. He has had it open for 30 years. I got little teary eyed reading what he wrote. The hostel was a special place for me. I would stop by there every time I was on my way to or from Florida. I suppose I spent about a month or more there all together over four or five years. I had heard about the place from some other travelers. It was a bit hard to find, but well worth it. I used to do a lot of reading there. There were always good books around. It has its own library. And I did a lot of writing. And probably most important, I did a lot of listening. I listened to the stories of the young people whose lives were much different than mine. There weren't many people at the hostel who had MBA degrees, I can tell you that for sure.

There were also some things about it I didn't like. I didn't like how they pressured people to hold hands with them in the circle before dinner. I didn't like how there was a lot of drinking and pot smoking. But still it was and is a very special place. It is true that I became more comfortable with being naked around strangers there. It is actually the first place I ever was naked in front of strangers in fact. I am pretty sure of that. In a way I am thankful to Rob Emmerling that he made such a big deal out of what I had written on my site. It gives me a chance to tell people about this very special place called the Hostel in the Forest. And gives me a chance to think back a little on my life. I wasn't so full of resentment back then. I have become more resentful since I have learned more about how children and teenagers are treated. And since I have started feeling discriminated against. And robbed. And emmerlinged.

I feel very sad and discouraged that there are so many people in the world, especially in the USA it seems, like Rob Emmerling. I truly hope that one day Rob Emmerling has some new experiences and learns to be more open-minded and less insecure. I truly hope he sees, one day, that emotional intelligence is about much more than making money.

Steve Hein
April 18, 2005

Update August 2007 - I looked at the current official HITF web page and I feel saddened to see how it has changed. I heard recently you have to make a reservation to stay there. And I see that appears to be true now. I also see a lot of new rules. I can't remember any rules at all when I was there. It seems almost like it has been taken over by the Nazis or IBM. That is of course a bit of an exaggeration but there is a whole list of rules now, for example you can't stay more than three days. And you can't have pets. As you can clearly see from this picture, at one time there was no such rule. It is just one more depressing sign of how the USA has changed since I left.

Note to Rob and anyone else who is worried that I somehow hurt this girl.

Please feel free to write to the owner of the Hostel in the Forest. I am pretty sure his name is Tom. It shouldn't be too hard to find on one of the hostel sites. Send him my picture. Ask him if he remembers me or if there was ever any problem with me raping and killing little girls like the one in the pic. Or you could write and ask if it is true that people quite commonly go skinny dipping there.

A pic of the kitchen

.....

Lots more pics here. It is a really interesting, very special place. I've been to a lot of countries now and have never seen anything quite like it.

Here are some more links

http://www.43places.com/visit/The-Hostel-In-The-Forest-Brunswick-Georgia/568594

Note about the little girl - I forgot to mention that the mother of the little girl is from Germany. I don't know if Rob has many friends from Germany, but they are not as paranoid about nudity as Americans, generally speaking of course. I encourage Rob to ask some Germans if it is more likely for a German to go skinny dipping with his or her friends, or an American. I am guessing Rob really doesn't have much inter-cultural experience. So I encourage him to do a little more research at the very least, if not traveling. S. Hein. Dec. 9, 2005