That only gets his smile to widen sympathetically. "My father had the last say on teaching me. And when I was a child he would head back early when the two of us went camping to see if I'd learned the skills he taught me. Sometimes halfway through a trip he'd leave me with some people in a village we were passing through while he went off to do something. Knowing where either my father or I was has never been an easy thing."

"I'm sure my mother would love it if I told her where I was all the time," he offers as consolation. "She'd be very reassured."