Idiom/Shot Through The Grease: "Crouching with the Freedom Fighters".

see also: "eating from the same tin cans" & "I had to wipe with leaves".

The heart of the action, the heat of the middle, to at once, go from disinterested observer from the First World, to become, almost part of the story, but definitely close enough to it to get squashed.

"Hanging from the gargoyles among the rooftops."

"To be alive is to be on the wire; the rest is just waiting."

Close enough to smell Trump's Diet Coke, and hear his stomach sounds.  "In the grice" as some of the locals would say, among the very pitch-point screw-stick of the mill, the churning ka-chunk ka-chunk of making one's evening porridge with the aid of old truck motors and some repurposed stuff bought online in the western world.

Or maybe wondering what the heck just frickin' went up the inside of your pants leg.

Maybe even giving the natives granola bars, and building up enough trust to pee with them standing, turned politely away, within view of your eyes, of course, fair Eugenia.

I was reading "Life In The Woods" and it mentioned a despairing quietude experienced roundabouts in the Western World, particular in reference to the British transplant, and so forth, and the first generation Continental, the Yank.  The "despairing quietude" is almost like the "disparaging acquiescence" of certain people with master's degrees in broadcast journalism and diesel repair from Nashville Auto Diesel College.

I didn't sign on for any of this, btw.

NEXT IDIOM IN LINE: "hang your pants on the nail".