The Desire (3 page)

A
s they got closer to Korah, the driver began to get visibly nervous. Allan noticed Henok was sitting fully back in the seat now, mostly looking out the window. He wore a distant expression on his face, as though seeing different things than what everyone else saw.

“Is there another way in?” the driver asked Henok. “I don't believe the guards will let us in the front gate with these Americans.”

“Yes,” Henok said. “Take a right up here, just past that cluster of bushes. It's a narrow dirt road.”

“More narrow than this?” the driver asked.

“Yes. And you must drive slow, even slower than we've been driving on this road. With the rain we've had these past few days, there will be many ruts and mud puddles. Follow the road around the big mountains of garbage you see out the window. It will lead to the back way. We can sneak these men in there, no problem.”

“Why do we have to sneak in?” Ray asked. “All the people we've met in Addis Ababa have been very nice to us.”

“This is a place of shame,” the driver said. “The government would not want Americans to see this.”

“But every country has garbage dumps,” Ray said.

“Yes, but not like this,” Henok said. “You have never seen anything like this.”

After the driver made the right-hand turn, they saw many people walking on either side of the road, different ages, all dressed in rags. Many were women and children wearing blank stares; most were barefoot. Some carried dirty white bags and sticks with hooked ends. Allan began to see rows of the most pathetic little shacks as the road widened up ahead. He had seen impoverished areas in Africa before, even in Addis Ababa. Those places were like middle-class subdivisions compared to what he saw now.

The strong odor that had been coming in the windows was now almost unbearable.

“How long have these people been living here?” Ray asked.

“Many years,” Henok said. “Since before I was a child. And before we came, the lepers were here. Long ago, a king banished all the lepers to this place. Mainly to die, away from everyone else. They still come here to die. But then this became the place where all the trash was brought from the city. Trash means food for the hungry. So, the orphans and widows began to come in search of food.”

“This is what they eat every day?” Allan asked.

“It is all they have to eat,” Henok said. “Without it, they would starve. You'll see as we get closer. The garbage and dump trucks bring the fresh trash, and the people swarm all over it, picking through the piles to find bits of food and little things they could sell in the market. That is why they carry these bags and sticks.” He was pointing to a cluster of young boys walking by. “They will sort through the garbage for hours, putting anything they find in those bags. When they are full, they will carry them back to their homes—these
little shacks you see—to feed their families.” Tears filled his eyes. “That was me just a few years ago. I was like that boy there.” He pointed to one young man hurrying to catch up with the rest.

“You were responsible to feed your whole family?” Allan asked.

Henok nodded. “Me and my two brothers. There were seven of us living in one room. It's not far from here.”

Allan hadn't seen any strong, older men. “Henok, where are the fathers?”

“There are no fathers,” he said. “That is why the widows and children and the elderly come here. This is their only hope.”

They drove a few moments in silence. Out the side window, Allan saw a little boy maybe six years old sitting against a broken sign. Next to him, a dirty white bag, half full. He pulled something out of it, smiled at the sight, and held it up. It looked like a crunched-up yogurt container. He straightened it and, with his left index finger, began scooping out little bits left inside. His eyes closed as he swallowed the few remaining bites, then he licked his lips. When he opened them, he looked right at Allan and smiled even wider. You'd have thought he'd just eaten a chocolate sundae.

A little farther down, the road narrowed again. They drove past another row of shacks made of mud and sticks with rusty metal corrugated roofs. A woman squatted outside one, arranging bundles of rotten bananas in neat rows. A few still had small sections of yellow, but they were mostly bruised and blackened. Allan couldn't imagine eating even one.

“Pull over here,” Henok said. “We must walk from this point.”

“I will stay here with the car,” the driver said.

As soon as they left the car, they were surrounded by children. All of them smiling, as if they hadn't a care in the world.

“You are like celebrities,” Henok said. “They almost never see a white man.”

Instantly, Ray began touching them. Rubbing their heads, patting them on the shoulders. Allan began to do the same, but he didn't want to. He had secretly hoped they would remain in the car the entire time. He felt a growing revulsion inside and a fear of catching something contagious.
Lord
, he prayed,
help me be more like
Ray
.

Suddenly, Ray bent down and picked up one of the children, a little boy, and carried him in his arms. “And how are you today, young man?” he asked. The boy giggled and smiled.

Other children began lifting their arms toward Allan, wanting him to do the same. A part of him felt intense compassion for them, but another part raised a red flag.
This isn't safe. You
'll catch some serious disease. You don't have immunities
for this place, or these people
. After these thoughts, a wave of nausea hit him. He took a deep breath, but the smell was overwhelming. Allan suppressed all this and picked up a little girl who had been staring at him the entire time. She hadn't said a word.

She had the biggest, brightest eyes, and she was light as a feather. She couldn't be more than three or four years old. “You have the prettiest eyes,” Allan said. He pulled three Hershey's Kisses out of his pocket and showed them to her. She seemed puzzled, so he opened one partway. She smelled it, then opened it the rest of the way and popped it in her mouth.

The look on her face was priceless, and her smile melted his heart.

A
s Henok led them through an opening at the back of the dump, Allan buried his nose in his forearm against the stench. Ray did the same. Henok kept walking forward. As they followed, Allan was certain he'd lose his breakfast any moment, but somehow it stayed down.

Henok turned and noticed the difficulty they were having. “I'm sorry. I forget how it is for those who never come here. We can turn back.”

Allan was happy to hear that, but Ray said, “No, keep going. We need to see this.”

Allan had seen—and smelled—enough.

“Are you sure?” Henok said.

“Yes,” Ray said. He set the little boy down. “I can't carry you anymore. I'm afraid I'll drop you.” They were standing before a massive heap of garbage about thirty feet high, and it was clear Henok intended them to climb it.

Allan released the little girl. The boy took her hand and led her away, but he did not leave the dump as Allan expected. Instead, he led her around the base of the hill several yards away, then they both began to climb.

“What's he doing?” Ray asked.

“Come back,” Allan said. “Don't go up there.” The children looked at them for a moment but continued to climb. “Where are they going?”

“To get food,” Henok said matter-of-factly. “It's what they do every day.”

“Children that young?” Ray asked.

Henok didn't answer. He took a few steps up the base of the hill, then stopped. “We must be very careful as we climb. It is extremely dangerous. Do your best to follow my handholds and footsteps.”

“It doesn't look that steep to me,” Ray said. “If the children can do it . . .”

“That's not the danger,” Henok said. “There are many needles buried in the trash. If you fall, and one pierces your skin, you could catch AIDS or TB or many other bad things. My eyes are trained to spot them. So do as I do and go only where I go. Once we're over this hill, you should be all right.”

The men climbed single file. Allan had a thought and almost said it. How about if he stayed at the bottom of the hill until they got back? But he kept following Ray. As they neared the top, he kept hearing beeping sounds. Lots of them. When they reached the crest, he saw the source. Bulldozers spread throughout the dump were moving massive piles of trash. And garbage trucks of every size were dumping more piles here and there.

They looked across acres and acres of dark gray garbage, as far as the eye could see. The scene on the ground offered little contrast to the overcast sky. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people wandered through the rubble. Children, mothers with babies tied to their backs, the elderly, teens, and lepers, all holding big bags, poked and sifted through the garbage. Crowds were especially thick around the bulldozers and gar
bage trucks. Mingling among the throng were dogs and goats and so many birds.

All Ray and Allan could do was stand and stare. Both had lowered their arms and were no longer covering their noses. The smell was just as nauseating, but it seemed inappropriate to be so obvious, an insult to these poor souls who had to live and forage for their food here every day.

Henok motioned for them to follow. They carefully walked down the hill toward the same group of people the little boy and girl had joined, all of them digging through a fresh pile of trash left behind by a small blue garbage truck. Allan couldn't take his eyes off the little girl. She had squatted down and was imitating everything the boy did.

“Is that her brother?”

“No,” Henok said. “She has no brothers or sisters. But he looks after her when she is near.”

Allan noticed something then. There were no fights. No pushing or shoving. No one grabbed anything out of anyone else's hands. He looked around. It wasn't just with this group. He didn't see anyone acting aggressively anywhere else, either. Back in America, people regularly blamed big-city violence and crime on poverty. But look at the poverty here. It was so much more severe. A different league. Yet everyone seemed almost polite, even the children.

Ray said to Henok, “You seem to know that little girl's story.”

Henok nodded his head. “I knew her mom. She grew up here in Korah. We were . . . friends. One day she was working all by herself, and a well-dressed man came to the dump and promised her work not far away. He said he'd pay good money. I wanted to stop her. I yelled for her, but she was too far away. The man took her to his house and raped her, then he brought her back and tossed her to the ground.”

“That's terrible,” Allan said.

“Yes.” Henok sighed. “She got pregnant from that. After she gave birth, she got sick with TB. A few months later, she died, leaving her little daughter here by herself.”

“She's an orphan?” Allan asked. “No one looks after her?”

“Yes,” Henok replied, “she is an orphan, but she has a grandmother. She lives in another part of the village. I knew where, so before I escaped this place, I brought the little girl to her. But her grandmother isn't capable of feeding her, so she comes here to get her food every day like everyone else.”

Allan walked over to the girl. Henok and Ray followed. She saw him and looked up. He smiled, and she returned the smile. That was when he noticed she had two big dimples. Picking her up again, he said, “I wonder what your name is.”

“Ayana,” Henok said. “Her name is Ayana. It means ‘beautiful blossom.'”

“That is a lovely name, Ayana,” Allan said, gently touching the tip of her nose with his index finger. Instantly she smiled again. She spoke her first word, but Allan didn't understand it.

“She said hello in Amharic. That's the language she speaks, the language most of the people here speak.”

“Can you say it again?”

Henok repeated it. Allan tried to say the word, but judging by both Ayana's and the little boy's reaction, he muffed it badly. But it caused them both to laugh, so it was worth it.

Henok said something else that made Ayana laugh then began a brief conversation with her. “Ayana is very curious about white people. She mentioned her grandmother. I think she wants you to meet her.”

“Yes,” Ray said. “We'd love to. Can she take us there?”

Henok suggested Allan allow him to carry Ayana as they walked to her grandmother's, so they could get there faster. Henok already knew the way. It wasn't far, maybe a ten-minute walk. They came to a small hut, like so many others, made of mud and straw and not much else. But she did have a metal roof over her head. Some of the others nearby didn't even have that.

They stepped inside a single room with a dirt floor, approximately eight-by-ten. The grandmother seemed startled to have company. Perhaps, Allan thought, even more so to see white men. She slowly got up and greeted the men with a typical Ethiopian kiss: once on the right cheek, then the left cheek, and one more kiss on the right. She said something to Henok in Amharic.

“She wants to make us coffee to honor us for visiting her home. It will be safe, the water is boiled.”

The old woman pointed for the men to have a seat on her bed. There were no chairs in the room. She began roasting some coffee beans over an open fire. Once the beans were roasted and put into a bowl, she put a pot of water on the fire. While the water boiled, she ground the coffee beans by hand, smashing a stick into a bowl. After she finished, she served the coffee to the men. Over the next several minutes, she and Henok talked. He occasionally paused to fill them in. They learned she was born in Korah, the daughter of lepers.

“Both her parents were lepers?” Ray asked.

Henok nodded. She told them that life had been very hard. She never knew from one day to the next if there would be enough food. Even today. People from the city treated you badly if you lived here, she said, as though you were no better than the garbage in the dump. Most of her family had already died. All she had left was Ayana, and she was terribly afraid of what would happen to Ayana after she died.

When they had finished their coffee, Henok looked at the time. “We had better get going.”

“Would you ask her if we can take pictures?” Ray said. “Of her and Ayana.”

Allan bent down and playfully swooped Ayana off her feet. “There are those precious dimples,” he said.

Henok asked her about the pictures, and she said that would be fine. It was too dark inside, so they stepped outside to take them. For most of the shots, Allan held Ayana. When they were done, he almost didn't want to let her go. Ray asked if they could pray for the grandmother and the little girl, and she happily said yes.

After the prayer, they hugged and said good-bye. As they walked toward the car, Allan looked back at them standing there next to their little mud hut. This was all they had. All they would ever have. This was their present and their future. It felt so wrong.

Ayana looked right at him. She lifted her little hand and waved.