Africa Askew

by Peter Boehm

  But then again, that wasn’t really surprising. After all, I’d slept in the open for quite a few nights, and it had sometimes been chilly. So I thought I’d got a cold. But it was malaria. Whether I wanted to or not, I now had to stay in Abéché for a few days in order to recover.

  I settled into the hotel Al Sadakha. The “guesthouse of friendship” – as it translates – was really just a restaurant, where a few people ate lunches of fat chicken or mutton. It only had one room, but you probably couldn’t be choosy in Abéché. After all, it was the best hotel in the place, as the driver who’d dropped me here the previous night had assured me.

  We hadn’t left the border in Adré until the early evening. Because of the heat, and because we had to wait for the chief border guard. He was wearing a tall, sand-coloured turban which also veiled his mouth, a camouflage, flowing boubou robe, and the corresponding cloth trousers. The boubou had a slit at the side, to enable him to move more easily and to sit down more comfortably. The shoulders sported his insignia – three silver stripes, sewn on – and on his turban he wore his regiment’s badge – a camel in an oak wreath.

  Once he’d completed his duties, we left the border post and went into town, where we collected his luggage, as well as his Kalashnikov which his 4-year-old son proudly carried to our bus, stumbling under its weight.

  We didn’t arrive in Abéché until the early hours of the morning, at which point the driver deposited me at the guesthouse of friendship. Before I could move into its only room, however, we had to drive a medium-sized lizard out of it. There were quite a few of them in the garden.

  But I then opened the door and the window wide, let in some fresh air, and now had only sporadic coughing fits.

  At the hospital, I had misgivings when the doctor sent me away immediately, with malaria, rather than admitting me as an in-patient. In Africa, you see, malaria is an everyday occurrence. That’s why no-one loses any sleep over it.

  And besides, he’d given me quinine to take with me. Only that was precisely why I began to worry some more. It was used in Europe long ago. By now it’s long since been replaced by other medicines. However, I trusted the doctor. What else could I do? Looking at the information leaflet in the packet of my modern malaria medicine, which I had with me in my first-aid kit for emergencies, I read that “extreme sunlight should be avoided for about four weeks after taking these tablets.” Very funny!

  So I now became a recipient of white charity myself. My tablets from the hospital pharmacy in Abéché cost less than a pound, and were in a packet with the words “Mission Pharma” and a Christian cross on the front.

  With this I settled myself in my hotel room. I was to spend the next five days here, under the rusty, broken fan – there’d only rarely have been electricity in any case – with two bedsteads and the metallic green walls. I had no books, no newspaper – just my small transistor radio. I mostly dozed, or went for a stroll behind the house to have a cooling shower in the clay-walled latrines.

  Of course, I’d imagined my time in Chad slightly differently. Chad is one of the most remote countries in Africa. The north of the country is entirely in the Sahara. In the late 1970s and for the whole of the 1980s, the country was torn by civil war, with indeterminate fronts and warring parties, with the result that Libya and France were also often caught up in it.

  So I shouldn’t have expected much, but I’d been looking forward to an excursion to Tibesti. Its mountain range lies in the middle of the Sahara, and its peaks reach heights of over 9,000 feet. It was now clear, however, that the renewed civil war in the north of the country made travelling there impossible.

  Really, the excursion to Tibesti was meant to be one of the highlights of my whole trip. In the mid 1990s, I’d seen a documentary by a Belgian filmmaker, who had travelled from South Africa all the way to Egypt. He had to undergo great hardships in order to get to Tibesti. But he persevered, because the previous year he’d worked on a French feature film which was shot in this isolated region.

  It was an elaborate project, with big French stars. Cathérine Deneuve or Isabelle Huppert must have been in it, and the film was certainly the best thing which had ever happened in Tibesti – perhaps even in all of Chad. The filmmaker desperately wanted to see the local extras again, who he’d made friends with at the time.

  I remember that he was as happy as a sand boy when he finally arrived at the village, but his acquaintances there showed no reaction whatsoever. His excitement was clearly beyond their understanding. They stood there, leaning on their fences, as they did all day every day, and responded in a bored manner to his questions about how they had been since then. For them, his visit was as normal as the wind or the rain which followed it. But there was no reason for them to get excited about it.

  That was why I’d been excited about Tibesti. It seemed to promise nothing but peace, utter remoteness, and the most isolated hillbillies. I saw myself roaming over barren, rugged mountain ridges, from where I’d gaze down over forgotten valleys. In the mornings, I’d get up only in order to hear the sound of the wind or the heavenly stillness. I’d be inaccessible by e-mail or phone for weeks. Even letters wouldn’t reach me. I’d have disappeared. And the villagers would ignore me too. I wouldn’t interest them. At some point, no-one would remember any longer where I’d come from, or when. Over time, I’d forget. I’d no longer be a part of this world.

  But now I was stuck in Abéché, and I very probably was part of this world. I certainly had stillness, but I couldn’t enjoy it. I had just one tiny piece of fun in the guesthouse of friendship. The doctor had given me three medicines. I was to take two tablets of each, three times a day. Or at least, that’s what I’d understood.

  On my second visit to the hospital, I discovered that I should actually only have been taking one of the quinine tablets each time. My mistake. That would explain the metallic taste in my mouth, the intense feeling of disorientation, and extreme ringing in my ears.

  When I rubbed my hair with a towel after showering, the noise in my ears sounded as though I’d twanged a metal spring, and electronically amplified the noise with a sound pickup system.

  The music wasn’t pleasant, but it suited the film. It was exactly the right soundtrack for Chad. Rattatazackboingbammgrrrrrrreeeeeerrrrrrkaweeeeee!

  Vehicles in their final stages III (Abéché – N’Djamena)

  After five days, I felt strong enough to tackle the next stretch of desert track. The journey to N’Djamena would certainly be hard – over 350 miles with no proper roads.

  The landscape looked just as barren as in western Sudan – lots of sand, and a couple of bushes which also seemed to be able to survive without water. A seemingly endless dirt road wound its way among them, through an endless and desolate steppe.

  But this time our SUV looked new, and the driver shot away at such a rate that I imagined we would reach the Chad capital the following evening.

  But that’s how it is in Africa – the drivers don’t drive like this in order to go quickly, but in order to drive away from collapse, to escape breakdowns. Because they’ll happen anyway – it’s just a question of when.

  First, however, the young man at the wheel performed a feat similar to ones I’d already seen from Abdullahi in Somalia, on our journey to the easternmost point.

  Abdullahi had seen a small gazelle – one of these tiny knee-high creatures, known as dik-diks – he’d loaded his Kalashnikov, laid it across his lap, and set off across the bush in pursuit. We’d only been able to stop him because Nuredin had made it clear that we didn’t have any knives with us for slaughtering the animal according to halal rules, the correct Muslim way.

  The driver to N’Djamena saw four gazelles in the beam of his headlights, immediately put his foot down, swerved at lightning speed, and tried to run down the animals which had been disturbed by our lights. He then turned around immediately, entered the bush and, at breakneck speed, drove a slalom among the bushes, pursuing the fleeing animals. I couldn’t believe
that he was putting us in danger just for the sake of the few pounds he’d have received for the gazelle meat.

  He’d already almost killed us just an hour earlier, as he’d mounted the steep slope at the edge of the road with the two right wheels, in order to avoid a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction.

  So I yelled at him, telling him to just stay on the road. After all, he was a driver, not a hunter. He laughed heartily, and the other passengers laughed too. But he gave up the chase.

  Just two hours later, however, we were in for the next surprise.

  The vehicle began to stutter, and then stopped. It was three in the morning. The driver took a blanket out of the bus, and lay down on it to sleep, underneath the warm engine.

  We were in a settlement of a dozen huts. We’d passed an outdoor hotel just half an hour earlier. This at least had the short wooden frames, strung with strips of hide. But now we had to sleep on the ground, which was swept by an icy wind.

  The following morning, the driver fiddled around with some repairs under the bonnet, and we courageously set off again. Two minutes later, the car stuttered again. Just like the night before, there was no more acceleration.

  Again, the driver stopped, fumbled around, set off. Two minutes later, the car stuttered once more; once again he stopped and fumbled around.

  He did this five times before he finally decided to make a more extensive repair. This took two hours. Full of hope we got back into the car and set off. Two minutes later we’d stopped again. He fumbled around again, and so on – another dozen times until we reached the next town.

  I lay down under a roof of branches. I’d hardly slept during the night. I was so tired and dejected that I’d given up swatting the flies away from my face.

  An hour later, the driver appeared, ordered us to get up and said, reproachfully, “What’s taking you so long!” – as though we were all in a desperate hurry.

  As soon as we left the village, the vehicle’s convulsions returned. The driver said he hadn’t been able to get hold of the necessary spare part in the town. So he again went to the bonnet, and I now saw for the first time what he was doing there. He was fiddling around with the carburettor, and pumping fuel into it! Fip, fip, fip. Then we’d drive on until the fuel had been used up. Then he’d pump in more. Fip, fip, fip. After the tenth time, he still reluctantly dragged himself from his seat and walked to the bonnet, shaking his head. He still seemed astonished that the vehicle was already stuttering again.

  A good twenty stops later, we found ourselves at a well in the bush. By now it was midday, and it was so hot the sun was sending cold shivers down my spine, and my brain felt like it would soon fry, even through my hat, if I didn’t find shade soon.

  The driver had consulted with a lorry driver, and had exchanged a replacement part. One of the passengers said cheerfully, “That’s Africa for you.” And, after I’d made a sarcastic comment about this, he told me reproachfully, “If you’re in such a hurry, then you’ll just have to get a different bus.”

  In a hurry? Ha! I can’t remember now exactly what I did during the two-hour break.

  We set off again. The driver had forgotten to mention that he hadn’t repaired anything. Two minutes after we’d got on board, the vehicle began to stutter again.

  That’s Africa for you! As soon as you’ve seen a glimmer of hope, it gets utterly dashed again. So everyone knows that it’s best not to hold out any hopes. That way, they can’t be destroyed either. And you save yourself a whole host of disappointments. That’s Africa for you! Everyone knows that – it’s just me who doesn’t.

  The man beside me on the passenger seat turned on the cassette recorder for the first time during the trip. The people in the back chattered good-humouredly.

  That’s Africa for you! The passengers took it in their stride in any case. They didn’t have any problem with the pump-drive-stop, pump-drive-stop ritual. This was characteristic of the people. It wouldn’t have occurred to them to complain about the driver.

  Time was ticking, the heat was increasing, the desert becoming more desolate. Time and space were blurring. I’d long ago given up estimating how many stops we’d made.

  I no longer knew, either, whereabouts we were. Probably somewhere between Ati and Ngoura. It was evening and, for the first time that day, we saw people on the road again – women on donkeys, men on horseback. They’d come into the bush from their villages. The women had pulled down their tops, as if to enjoy the feeling of the cooling evening air on their breasts. Some were suckling children.

  The ride seemed to be purely for pleasure. They chatted and joked with one another and, just as other people go for walks in town parks and forests, they were simply airing their breasts in the evening cool, and suckling their children at the same time.

  I don’t know which ethnic group they belonged to. The men were carrying wooden spears in their hands, with long steel points. They must have been some of the last people in Africa to have not yet moved on to Kalashnikovs.

  It must have been in Ngoura that a truck stopped beside us during a break. As I’d had enough of this pump-and-go, I persuaded its driver to take me with him. In his rickety vehicle he was taking empty beer crates, and a few passengers and their luggage to N’Djamena.

  Soon after, I was balanced on a couple of grain sacks, six feet above the floor of the luggage space. But the pump-and-go driver didn’t want to take my luggage off the roof rack.

  “You’re going to change vehicles?” he snapped. He actually had something resembling professional honour! And I’d injured it.

  Later on, he overtook us, looked meaningfully to the side, and left us in the cloud of dust he’d stirred up. Then he stopped again to pump – fip, fip, fip – and we overtook him again.

  Then he overtook us, to then pump by the roadside – fip, fip, fip. And so on. Until, after an hour and a half, he evidently had to make another more extensive repair, and we were finally rid of him.

  At three-thirty in the morning, we reached the edge of N’Djamena. The lorry driver stopped, laid a blanket down beside the vehicle, and prepared to go to sleep.

  Excuse me?!? He’d said that we’d get to N’Djamena the same day. I didn’t want to spend another night in the open. That was precisely why I’d moved to his truck.

  But he was insistent. He certainly didn’t want to drive into the town at night. Then two policemen found me and tried to compel me, in a friendly manner, to spend the night with them in their nearby police station. But I definitely didn’t want that. I didn’t want to lead them into temptation.

  And then, finally, the following morning I was in a real hotel again for the first time for almost two weeks. Running water, a toilet and a mirror can be wonderful things.

  Take me with you (N'Djamena)

  At last I was back in the Africa I knew. Moursal is in the Chad capital, N’Djamena, but this part of town immediately reminded me of the Congo. Lively Ndombolo music was blaring out of its many bars. There was beer again. There was a charismatic Free Church on every corner, from which loud, rousing sermons emanated at all times of day. And hawkers walked the streets, even at night.

  With the exception of Burkina Faso, where one single ethnic group is in the majority, and Senegal, which tussles with its northern neighbour Mauritania, there’s a north-south conflict between Muslims and Christians in every country in the Sahel region.

  It’s barely less pronounced in Chad than it is in Sudan. But here the northerners are smart enough not to force their way of life on the southerners. That would merely unnecessarily endanger the government’s already fragile power.

  Until the mid 1970s the southerners were in power in Chad anyway. Then various marauding fractions of the rebel movement FROLINAT, originally supported by Libya, moved through the capital city. Today, they provide enough opposition so that the government cannot be entirely certain of its power.

  This means that there is a juxtaposition of cultures in Chad. In N’Djamena, you can see men with f
lowing white robes and turbans which also cover their mouths, alongside people in western clothing. The city centre is dominated by a large market, financed by Saudi Arabia, and a mosque which is apparently the largest in Africa. But on the outskirts of N’Djamena there are districts like Paris-Congo or Moursal.

  In Moursal, I now found myself sitting at a bar drinking beer for the first time in over six weeks. This was a liberation for me. I felt as though a huge weight had been taken from my shoulders. I no longer had to constantly ask myself whether I was actually permitted to do what I was doing.

  In addition, when we’d been sleeping outside during the previous few weeks, the first prayer of the day had particularly got on my nerves. The worshippers would get up and wash before sunrise. The splashing water would wake me up, and I always associated the harmless sound with what was soon to follow. It was seeing these morning prayers that I understood for the first time why “Islam” should be translated as “submission to God”.

  The worshippers incessantly and ardently repeated the words “God is the greatest”. They promised to follow Him throughout the coming day. “Allaaaaaaaah!” During these prayers, their voices sounded so imploring and mournful, and the words were uttered with such strain, with the worshippers’ heads pressed so closely to the ground, and accompanied by such sighing and loud breathing, that I writhed around in my bed and hoped it would soon be over.

  Morning prayers were an everyday occurrence, but it seemed to me to be something as intimate as sex. I found it hard to be there.

  That was why I now experienced this euphoria in Moursal. I was like a withered plant, which has been watered for the first time for ages. This is the only way I can explain why I let the reigns slacken and failed to notice all the warning signals.

  So I was sitting on the terrace of this bar in Moursal, and I saw a boy selling individual cigarettes. I immediately thought that it would be a brilliant idea to write a profile on one of these children, who walked around selling sweets or other knick-knacks. Their stories contained everything – how people scrape by from their earliest childhood, the hardships, how children have to grow up so quickly. They were just typical, genuine Africa.