The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods (22 page)

At around midnight, they reached another village. Risto’s and Merci’s feet were sore and swollen. In this village, people always walked in pairs at night, but as they were only three, they walked in a horizontal line to prove that they were not intruders. They quietly crossed the village to the main road where they waited the rest of the night for a pickup truck. The police had not yet arrived when a loaded truck came by. Mendes refused any gift or payment; he waved to the boys as the truck raced away down the dusty road.

Later that morning, at around 10am, the driver dropped them at a parking place where they waited for a truck to Nampula. From there, the Nampula refugee camp was just a few miles, they were told. At this point there was no more Swahili; everybody was now speaking Portuguese. Any other language attracted curious eyes and the risk of police arrest.

Thirst and hunger made the world around Risto and Merci spin. A beautiful white painted house stood in between low brick walls at a street crossing; the two boys approached it. Risto gazed down at his filthy clothes and old sandals; Merci could smell that his clothes were stinking. It was as if they came from another world, that of dirty pigs. Right then, survival was crucial; water at least would keep them alive until the day of a proper meal, if they ever had one again. A beautiful girl with long black hair appeared after they knocked. She was brown and barefoot, with honey lips. She spoke words that immediately vanished from their heads; it quickly changed their perception that Portuguese was a half-brother of French. Risto gestured.

‘Agua,’ he said.

‘Agua!’ repeated the girl.

Her finger went straight, pointing to an open market. Risto gestured that he had no money. The truth was that they were afraid of meeting police. The boys sat at the entrance without speaking until the girl came back with a bottle of water and a pencil and paper. They clapped their hands.

Suddenly, a car stopped in the main road, running footsteps vibrated; a police car stood not far from them as a couple of men in uniforms chased some young men who looked like foreigners. Risto and Merci kept standing with the girl to avoid attracting suspicion from the police. With the other foreigners escaping, and the police car still standing there, they thought they would be the next target. Police meant death to Risto, so they begged their legs to be strong. The girl stood in shock with her mouth wide open, still holding the bottle in her hand, as the two boys ran away at top speed.

The open market was a few metres away; ahead was what looked like an informal parking lot. According to the itinerary that Mendes had explained to Risto and Merci, this was the place where they would be able to get a truck or bus to Nampula. Nampula had the biggest refugee camp in Mozambique; it was also the only open refugee camp, meaning it was the only one that was still taking in new refugees. Risto and Merci believed that the camp was the only place their dreams could flourish – once they could breathe peace again.

A big bus stopped and people got off. Four young boys lurking round a corner glanced at the bus, and then went back to their corner. They were the same youths the police had been chasing earlier that morning. They looked foreign, as if they came from the horn of Africa – Somalia, Eritrea or Ethiopia. When Risto and Merci approached them, the boys ran away. Risto and Merci retreated back to the hiding place they had found behind an empty container. A few minutes later, a policeman on a bike drove around; it was known as a place where illegal immigrants hung around looking for transport.

Later that afternoon, a truck stopped, and all six refugee boys presented themselves in front of the driver, each with the same plea, while eyeing the others, hoping to frighten them away. Unbelievably, Risto heard one of the four talking to the driver in a language that sounded like Swahili. He squeezed himself into the conversation, but got cut off by one boy, who looked Somali. He fell silent when Risto approached, giving him a look like he was ‘mixing in their business’.

Risto persisted. ‘Hello!’ he said in Swahili.

‘Where are you from?’ asked the driver.

Risto painted a fresh smile on his tired and hungry face.

‘I am a refugee, Congolese,’ he replied, seeking sympathy with the word ‘refugee’.

‘Are you with these guys, are they also refugees?’ the man asked, pointing to the Somali group.

‘No, I am with my brother over there,’ said Risto, indicating Merci.

‘I am not going to Nampula; but I can drop you in Namialo, and from there you can take a truck to Nampula.’

The metical exchange rate was still beyond Risto’s understanding. He could only think in shilingi and American dollars. The transport fees the driver asked for took every cent he had except for about twenty dollars in meticais. In a country where the laws of the road were above the laws of the state, Risto’s payment was barely enough for two people. All six boys jumped into the rear of the truck and lay under a tarpaulin cover.

The heat was awful. Within an hour, the air under the cover had turned from a hot bath into a boiling pot. Before long, they were sweating like athletes running the Olympics in the Kalahari Desert. The Somali group had some water in a two-litre bottle, but it had heated up in the burning conditions. Yet they treasured that hot water. Everyone got a sip just to soften their throats. That bottle of water brought the two groups together; for the first time, they began speaking to one another.

The boy who spoke Swahili was called Amidi. He confirmed that they were indeed all Somalis, and in search of a refugee camp. Risto told him that they were Congolese refugees, also looking for a refugee camp. Amidi showed great interest in Risto and Merci’s journey and background.

‘Where did you learn Swahili, then? I thought people speak French in Congo?’

‘Yes, French is the official language, but Swahili is one of the national languages. Actually it is one of the most widely spoken languages in the country,’ replied Risto.

‘I never knew that. So … Congo-Brazzaville or Congo-Kinshasa?’

‘Kinshasa,’ Risto answered, taking off his shirt because of the massive heat under the tarpaulin. ‘I didn’t think Swahili was spoken in Somalia. How did you learn it?’

‘I’ve lived in Kenya. I was a refugee there for a few years.’ Amidi carried on with his questioning: ‘Is the situation in Congo as bad as it is in Mogadishu?’

‘I don’t know how it is in Mogadishu, but yes … things are bad in Congo … wars and stuff.’ Risto didn’t want to be specific; it might lead to more personal questions.

‘So, guns all over, like in Somalia? Shooting, burning of houses, and so on?’

Risto didn’t like the way Amidi asked questions, as if he was investigating something. He knew Amidi was just asking out of curiosity, but Risto found it uncomfortable. Nevertheless, they talked of their difficult journey to an unknown destination and the problems they had encountered. They even laughed at some of the funny things they had seen.

In Mozambique, a country still recovering from a long civil war, any unidentified person represented a threat to the young government. They could be rebels or spies. Roadblocks were everywhere; here the police scrutinised every passenger’s identity documents and every single item being transported. But just as not every sheep listens to the voice of the good shepherd, some policemen had made their own laws, and these reigned over the state’s laws. The amount of money held out in one’s hand determined to what extent people would be checked.

The truck carrying the refugees passed through the first roadblock. The driver spoke to the policemen and the truck went unchecked. From roadblock to roadblock, the boys in the rear of the truck lay still, trying not to breathe. Between roadblocks, the driver drove fast. He didn’t have any time to waste, he said. He even refused to stop when one of the Somalis, almost crying, asked for a toilet break.

The truck stopped at yet another roadblock. This time the driver spoke to the police for almost a quarter of an hour, but they would not let the truck go. In the back, the boys smelled trouble, and indeed there was real trouble coming. The policemen climbed onto the truck, stepped on the passengers’ heads and toes under the tarpaulin, trying to trap them into moving. When they lay still, the police repeated their stepping game, as if it was funny. The uneven shapes of their bodies betrayed the boys, and they were taken out from under the cover and lined up on the ground. No one had a passport or a valid
ID
.

The police asked questions about their mission in Mozambique. Through the mouth of the driver, the only translator, they explained that they were refugees looking for camps. Now came the time to be thoroughly frisked. The police went through their clothing pocket by pocket, then their shoes, one by one, even their underpants; all got searched thoroughly. Any note or coin found was taken. The Somalis cried out to the policemen in strange tongues; they replied with a strange form of Portuguese, difficult to understand.

Merci and Risto’s clothes were torn and stinking. When one policeman gathered up the great courage to search Merci’s smelly shorts and found that all the pockets were torn, he didn’t bother to check Risto. When they were told to get back into their truck, Risto celebrated silently for still having a few notes. He knew he had been lucky. The police saw no point in arresting the refugees while they were looking for a camp, especially as they were not found with any contraband. Their presence in the country was illegal, but it wasn’t the job of the police to deport them.

It was dark when the refugees were dropped off at the Namialo business centre; the wait for sunrise felt like a whole month. Risto changed his sleeping position on the pavement outside a shop hundreds of times. At first the dirty ground felt cold and bumpy; later it was as warm as a bed, and for short periods, he slept deeply. They no longer feared the police, as there was no more money to lose, no belongings to be taken away. In fact, Risto thought that an arrest would be a good thing, as it would save them from hunger and thirst. No one wanted to think about how they would get to Nampula or Maputo; they waited for the advice of the morning breeze.

The trip had become a pilgrimage; it had changed their hearts and strengthened friendships. Among the boys, there was neither Somali nor Congolese anymore. They had become one in the fight for survival; they had the same prayer, one that sought a common answer. Despite the torment of the journey, sharing their fears and believing that they would find peace had kept each of them strong.

Amidi had spoken of his previous journey from Sudan to Kenya. He explained how, in the absence of food and water, he had ended up eating leaves from unknown trees and even drinking his own urine. Even with no money, Amidi remained optimistic about the trip, and the chance of reaching a refugee camp. They were not in a desert or jungle, he said, and where there are people, there is always help.

Amidi thought about going ahead on foot; surely Nampula was not so far. But Risto and Merci had learned the hard lessons of going on foot in an unknown place. They had walked for more than fifteen hours in the forests of Mozambique at great risk of death from thirst, starvation and wild animals. They did not want to repeat such an adventure, and they refused to walk, better for the police to capture them than to walk hundreds of kilometres on a journey that would end in tears.

Risto, who was able to draw the entire political map of Africa and locate every capital city, was unable to point to Namialo or Nampula on the map; he had never heard of these towns before this journey, and could not say how far it was to Nampula. No one could decide what their greatest priority should be: searching for water and food, or seeking transport.

In the awakening town, a few cars were starting to move about, and two young men approached them. Maybe this unusual gathering of youths in the early morning had captured their attention. The refugees’ hands waved, asking for water, but the men had none. Amidi showed them his shoes, then asked for money. The two men walked a few steps away and then came back. Amidi engaged them in vigorous discussion of price with his body language; he had an idea of the worth of the metical, at least. Finally, the two men gave him money and the broken shoes belonging to one of the Mozambicans in exchange for his shoes. Another Somali joined in the trading. Eventually, five Mozambicans were buying shoes, trousers and shirts from the unusual travellers. Two Somalis were left barefoot and dressed only in shorts, having sold everything. Merci wanted to sell his torn clothes too, but those to whom he showed his rags left laughing.

Risto yelled ‘Nampula?’ in the ears of the Mozambicans; at first they ignored him. He pulled at one man’s shirt and gestured ‘Where is Nampula?’, then screamed ‘Refugiado!’ Their eyes widened and they looked at each other in amazement. One of them answered in Portuguese, then wrote on the ground with a stick: ‘+100 km’. Risto asked ‘Maputo?’ Everyone laughed, then a fearful silence hung in the air. The faces of the youths went soft. One of them wrote ‘+ + + + 1000 km’, and then suddenly they all left without looking back.

The refugees rushed to the first pick-up truck of the day.

‘Nampula!’ they called.

‘No, no,’ said the old driver.

The second pick-up truck driver yelled a few angry words in Portuguese until they fell back.

The boys wandered around until they reached a petrol station where a huge truck stood. The driver was distracted, deep in conversation with a beautiful girl. The back doors of the truck were held together by a wire, and the boys managed to open it and climb in. The truck soon drove off, past villages and farms and patches of bush. They looked through a tiny window in the back, wishing to see Nampula written somewhere, and soon Amidi announced that he had seen a sign that read: Nampula 80 km. He and his fellow refugees all rejoiced, believing that soon they would be at peace; hope was stirring in their hearts. Freedom was in the air; there were no roadblocks, no men in uniform to search the truck. Their hearts nearly stopped beating when they saw a passing police car, but the truck didn’t slow down.