by R E Kearney
Dag clears his throat before asking, “Are there any people that you and the Righteous Rightists don’t hate and want to destroy?”
“There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus,” Evoil pronounces.
“Well that leaves about six billion people that you and Abaddon have declared as your enemy, then. Do you plan to kill all of them yourself or will you require assistance?” Dag teases.
Evoil never answers him. Until they near Jimma, there is only silence. But, Robert notices Balaam repeatedly turning and glaring at Evoil. He does not know how well or how much English Balaam understands, but the heated hatred his eyes shoot at Evoil requires no translation. Robert holds no doubts that if given the opportunity, Balaam would eliminate Evoil with extreme prejudice. The number of kill-scars his face proudly wears tells a tale of many murders, which Robert imagines that he committed painfully and without remorse. Robert predicts that if Evoil is not vigilant and wiser about what he says, he will soon be transmuted into one more kill-scar on Balaam’s face. His fate may already be decided. Evoil may already be a dead man walking.
Chapter 25.
Jimma - Bonga
As the convoy climbs into the highlands approaching Jimma, Komfort transforms into a tour guide. “Now, you may not believe it when we pass through it, but Jimma is western Ethiopia’s largest city and growing bigger. I understand that it’s swelling with climate change refugees. It’s also the home of Jimma University and the Jimma University College of Agriculture. I spent two weeks working at the College of Agriculture with a group of SPEA researchers. We sampled and studied the local soil and plants attempting to develop some drought and heat resistant varieties. We keep trying, but we’ve had limited success. It just keeps getting hotter and Ethiopian farmers are too poor and farm too little land to afford the equipment and seeds they need to survive the heat. That’s why we established our Arabica coffee plantation. If we didn’t grow the coffee, nobody could and it would have died out.”
Pointing through her window and sweeping her hand across the dusty, brown land, she continues with a tone of sadness in her voice, “University professors told me that Jimma used to be rich and important. According to them, for centuries, a powerful Oromo monarchy ruled, what were then fertile highlands. At that time, this region owed its wealth to its abundant crops and to its location at the center of several major trade routes.”
She advises Robert and Dag, “Now, it’s struggling. Well, the whole region is struggling, actually. So, the town is full of Non-Governmental Organization workers and charity workers laboring to feed and help the displaced farmers and herders crowding into the city’s slums. Of course, that food is drawing more and more poor, starving and desperate families. Now, Jimma is bursting with angry, hopeless, unemployed young men. It’s become rich recruiting ground for criminals and rebel groups and, especially, ARTAS. ARTAS has more money than any of the other groups, so the poor line up to join it. It’s all about the economics of survival.”
“Survival Economics. That’s the story of the world now, isn’t it?” Robert comments, “So why are you leading us into the middle of this hornet’s nest?”
“Actually, I’m warning you. We have no choice. But, we’ll stay on Highway Five until we switch to Highway Six for our next leg to Tepi. First, though, some food at a place I know called the Honeyland Hotel.”
Entering Jimma, Dag and Robert cover their noses and shade their eyes to escape the dust shrouding the highway. In Jimma, only a few main roads are paved. All of the side roads they pass are dry, powdery dirt. Dust constantly boils up and chokes the sky.
Highway Five winds past the climate refugee camps and ramshackle squatter shacks and into the neighborhoods surrounding Jimma University. As the dust settles, a massive traditional Ethiopian coffee pot rises from the center of Jimma’s main roundabout. Just past the world’s largest coffee pot sculpture, they arrive at the Honeyland Hotel. Aged, round and seven stories of bluish glass, the Honeyland Hotel is a popular foreign visitors’ hotel sitting at the edge of Jimma University.
“I recommend the barbecue muhahaha or the fish meunière,” Komfort announces as she bounces out of the Rover and hurries into the hotel.
Dag and Robert climb out and stretch. Dag scours the sky for the following aerodrone. When he does not find it, he follows Komfort. Robert leans against the Rover waiting for Evoil and Balaam to disembark. Petulant, as usual, with a scowl on his face, Evoil climbs out of the Rover and ambles toward the Honeyland.
With Evoil gone, Balaam exits. He nods toward Robert, before joining the other drivers smoking and chatting near the front of the first truck. As he walks away from the Rover, Balaam starts talking on his PCD. Robert cannot pinpoint it, but something about Balaam’s manner disturbs him.
After studying the drivers for a minute, Robert scans the sky. He spies nothing unusual. He glances at the drivers and discovers them scrutinizing him. Uneasy and concerned, he waves and hurries into the hotel to eat.
Inside the hotel’s dining room, the environment looks inviting with the menu consisting of pages and pages of exotic foods. However, only two or three of them were available. Unfortunately, the waitress does not know which they are and has to ask the cook each time. After ordering six different dishes which are not available, Dag and Robert follow Komfort’s suggestion and order barbecue muhahaha. To their mutual disappointment, barbecue muhahaha is a chickpea salad, not meat.
When the waitress delivers their food, Robert questions her concerning their menu problems. Speaking in broken English, the waitress explains that the cook has been unable to buy the ingredients he needs for the dishes. She repeatedly describes the shortages with the statement that it is too hot or too dry or too hot and dry for that particular spice or vegetable to grow.
Sitting alone and separate from the others, Evoil points at the menu to order fish meunière. The waitress shakes her head no, before struggling to explain at length how Ethiopian dams on the Omo River and drought in northern Kenya is killing fish in Lake Turkana. But, the dying fish is only part of the restaurant’s supply problems, according to her. The man who catches and hauls the fish to them was found murdered in his truck, last week. The fish he was bringing them was stolen.
Confused by the waitress’ story and left with no other choices, Evoil settles for the barbecue muhahaha. Although sitting alone, he still complains with each bite, but in the end he cleans his plate. Robert decides that Evoil thrives on being permanently unhappy and dissatisfied.
All of the drivers sit waiting in their trucks when the quartet return from their repast. Hovering high above the coffee pot sculpture, Dag spots the aerodrone. Across the highway, Robert notices a parked Russian UAZ Hunter filled with men staring at the convoy. Although he is not certain, because of the distance, Robert thinks one of those men resembles the man who attacked him in the Merkato. He alerts Dag. After a quick look, Dag agrees with him. He, too, recognizes one of the men as the Merkato ARTAS kidnapper.
“Hey Mugavus!” Robert calls. “Will you record a visual of Dag and me over here with the coffee pot in the background?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now. We won’t be back this way, so it’s now or never.”
Away from the driver and Evoil, acting as if they are giving her directions, Robert and Dag explain the dangers they see. They confer, but they develop no solution. Staying in Jimma is impossible. Nor did they trust the local authorities to help them. They will have to take their chances out on the highway. And they must start without additional delay. Time is growing increasingly precious.
Appearing to chat jovially for those observing them, the trio return to the Rover. Komfort opens the Rover’s rear compartment and removes three blue Tactical EMT First Aid Emergency Medical Kit Concealed Carry Bags. She hands one bag to Robert and one to Dag. Continuing their ruse of delivering medical supplies, when they open the bags, they find bandages, bottles of antiseptic, scissors, scalpels, cleansing cl
oths, and other emergency medical treatment supplies.
“Don’t look now, but underneath the medical supply trays, you’ll find non-lethal weapons recently developed through SPEA franchises. In your bag Robert, you’ll find a high temperature laser emitting ray gun. Dag, in your bag is a long range acoustic device or LRAD and, of course, you have your pistol, too. I have a Z-RO that, I’m told, scrambles fluids in a person’s eyes and blinds them for ten or fifteen minutes. All three are easy to use, but they’re only effective at close range.”
“Is this one for Evoil?” Robert points at a fourth bag still sitting in the Rover.
“Yes but, I don’t trust him. If we actually do get into a scrape, I’ll give it to him, but not before. He probably wouldn’t be happy anyway, since it only contains a SALT gun that shoots powdered chemical bullets and not real bullets. It only causes temporary debilitation without any permanent harm. He’s only happy if he can kill.”
Robert clutches his bag, “Any objections if I carry my bag with me? I don’t trust our drivers any more than I trust those men lurking across the street. I’m convinced Balaam’s told them about Evoil’s delusional ravings and enraged them against all of us.”
“Probably a wise decision. That man creates more enemies faster than anybody I’ve ever known. Besides, always prepare for the worst, especially with him around.” Komfort closes the Rover’s rear hatch before joining Dag and Robert inside.
Holding their EMT bags on their laps, the trio ride through Jimma uncomfortably, aware of their vulnerability. Evoil’s irrational racism and bigotry is endangering them. His actions surround them with enemies.
Dust from the roads boil into thick dirt walls blocking their vision beyond the edges of the Highway. Near the center of Jimma, Highway Five splits left into Highway Six. Demarcating the fork dividing the two highways is a massive, rust-colored and dust-covered trapezoid.
As they pass the marker, beneath its thick coating of dirt, Robert reads aloud the words, Ethio Africa. Millennium 2000.
“Does anybody know what that means?” he asks.
Komfort nods her head, “It is part of the unique contradiction that is Ethiopia. It commemorates the fact that Ethiopia is seven years behind the rest of the world according to their traditional Amharic calendar. That monument was actually erected in 2007. Also, Ethiopians celebrate the beginning of their thirteen month year on September twelfth. That’s their official New Year’s Day. It’s just one more example of Ethiopia’s split personality. It’s a nation where half is stuck in the past and half is struggling into the present.”
“Actually, Ethiopia is no different from the rest of the world these days where half is stuck in the past and half is struggling into the present,” Robert reflects.
Highway Six crumbles into pot-holed, packed dirt, as it departs Jimma. Down through a dry stream bed, the trucks rattle and shake. Close above them a commuter airplane coasts in for a landing at Jimma’s Aba Segud airport. Squeezing both sides of the road, separated by scrubby trees and patches of weeds, clean, well-kept houses intermix with small, dilapidated houses and collapsing shacks.
An airplane climbs into the air to their right, as they travel parallel to the airport. Small fields supplant the houses. Jimma disappears behind them while the countryside engulfs them.
Turning sharply to the left, pavement replaces the packed dirt. To the road’s left, a village of round, woven-stick, casa tipica shacks sitting on crooked stilts emerges out of the bush. Naked children play in the dirt surrounding them. A rusting arrow-shaped sign points the way toward the town of Bonga one hundred kilometers ahead.
Robert peers over his shoulder as the last of their trucks roll around the corner. Because of the distance, he is not certain, but behind their last truck he believes he sees the Russian UAZ. He nudges Dag and jerks his thumb backward over his shoulder. Dag shoots a fast look to their rear and then nods his head in agreement. He sees them too. The five ARTAS men cling close on their tail.
Sections of Highway Six are a highway in name only. Just beyond the village of Diri, Highway Six shrinks to little more than a rutted dirt road wandering through the Ethiopian highlands. It is rough and hard and crude and the soul of southwest Ethiopia.
For more than eight miles, trees and scrub brush crowd so close in spots their limbs rake both sides of the convoy’s trucks. Hamlets of round, woven-stick, tukal style houses appear and disappear out of the brush. Climate refugee shacks cluster in the cleared areas around each cell tower. Long legged, skinny, young women hauling huge burlap bags on their backs trudge the roadsides. Men drive donkeys with their backs piled high with baskets. Occasionally, they meet another vehicle forcing them into the scrub.
Between stands of trees, the road curves to the left and then to the right. Clear of the screening trees, directly ahead of them, the road is blocked. Behind a barricade and a detour sign, a construction truck straddles the road. A scar-faced man wearing a safety vest with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder directs the convoy down a narrow, tree-choked path.
“We’re in big trouble here, Robert,” Komfort whispers, as she twists and turns and strains to see the following trucks of the convoy. “The Russian UAZ is right behind our last truck. It’s a trap. Get ready.”
Silently, the trio sneak their weapons from their EMT bags and into their laps. Resolutely, Balaam steers them farther away from the main road and deeper into abandoned, drought burned fields and scrub brush. Farther and farther they lumber into the bush and away from the road.
Popping out of the stunted trees, they face the cocked and aimed weapons of six surly, scar-faced men. The tallest of the men thrusts his hand, palm out, toward the Rover. Balaam slows to a halt, killing the Rover’s engine.
Zip. Balaam jams a revolver against Evoil’s temple. Glaring at Evoil, in broken English he snaps his orders, “You three stay here. Do not move!”
Punching his pistol barrel against Evoil’s head, he snarls, “Get out fat man! Time we learn you about my people. Time you feel our pain.”
Zizzle!
“Aaaah!” Balaam screams dropping his pistol onto the floor.
Zizzle! From beneath his shielding EMT bag, Robert zaps Balaam’s right hand a second time with his laser heat ray.
Screaming in pain, Balaam lunges toward Robert with his left hand. Komfort raises her Z-RO, aims at his eyes and fires. Shrieking, he clutches his face. Komfort leaps out of the Rover, yanks open the driver’s door, grabs the blinded Balaam and heaves him onto the ground. Stepping on his head, she hops into the driver’s seat and punches the start button. The engine roars to life. Slamming the Rover into gear, she charges toward the six ARTAS gunmen. They scatter. She hurtles into the trees. Behind her, wild shots rattle into the brush, stripping leaves from limbs and ricocheting off trunks. Ping! One random shot pierces the Rover’s roof.
Bouncing, banging, rocking and shaking, Komfort races south, away from Highway Six. With no road, she wrestles the Rover across abandoned fields and rocky pastures. Swerving and veering, she races through groves of trees and thickets. Robert, Dag and Evoil crash into the side walls, fly into the air and slam into their seats. It is a wild, rough ride.
After beating and bashing her way through miles of brush and brambles, Komfort rumbles onto a well-trod foot path heading in the direction of Bonga. Feeling safer, she slows. Tracking the narrow, but smoother pathway permits everybody to take a breath, reseat and re-establish themselves. Robert and Dag retrieve and stow the equipment containers tossed and scattered around them.
A scattering of conical, round, woven-stick houses and small garden plots squat aside the pathway. A man plowing his small, rocky plot with two oxen and a wooden plow stops and stares at them. At the next round house, an elderly woman weeding her dozen coffee plants gawks at this mechanical invader. Rounding a corner, they surprise a goat herder, who rushes his goats safely out of the way of this strange vehicle barreling toward them. Each considers the other a strange and alien si
ght. The now passing the long past. Many feet and hooves trod this dirt path over the centuries, but few, if any, vehicles.
A rust-stained, corroded, ancient sign proclaiming, “Welcome to Homeland Coffee. Kaffe Sheka”, announces their arrival at the edge of the village of Bonga.
No longer a thriving coffee and tea growing and shipping hub, it now relies on the harvesting and sale of wild honey for money. Bonga’s organic honey is brewed into an Ethiopian mead drink called tej. But, all is not sweet in Bonga. There are only so many free bees to produce a limited amount of organic honey and without them, it is an economic desert.
Bonga is dying by growing. Teeming with starving, futureless, weather refugees and refugees fleeing weather caused conflicts, Bonga is surrounded and strangling in spreading, rings of rot. Illiterate and ignorant, they are the poorest in a backward region of extreme poverty. Like leeches, they are sucking an already ailing Bonga dry.
Splashing through an open sewer ditch and a fog of flies, Komfort and her crew enter the first refugee ring of the town. Giggling, half-naked, skinny children hop and skip through the flies, swatting and swinging at them for play. Rattling past one dirt street and sewer ditch after another dirt street and sewer ditch after another and more, they finally intersect with Bonga’s paved main street. Komfort steers their stinking, sewage dripping Rover into the Coffeeland Hotel parking lot. A strong stench of urine assaults their senses.
Grabbing equipment, Dag and Komfort escape into the hotel’s courtyard. Robert loiters when he notices Evoil lagging behind. After climbing out of the Rover, Evoil bends and searches beneath his seat. Robert detects him stuffing something into his pants. When Evoil turns toward him, Robert notices a bulge in his left pocket and a dark wet spot on his pants’ crotch. Evoil had wet himself.