Breaking Free

by Jeffrey Vonk

  After this, we head to his home in perhaps the poorest village of the country, bordering one of the arms of the nation’s largest river. In Ebo Town the roads solely consist out of sand and dirt, puddles of stinking mud are everywhere. Poorly constructed houses and shacks that are nearly falling apart is the normal state of affairs. All homes are unnumbered and kids seldomly attend school. Something hard to miss is the intensity of their skin, they’re not just a bit dark, neither colored or brown skinned, but they are seriously black, contributing to the diversity of this amazing world. No one cares about the nonchalant donkeys, too skinny for western standards, that mindlessly chew the garbage while partially plucked chickens run around; seemingly afraid it might be their last day. Occasionally you hear dogs barking. Speaking about dogs, there is not a single bitch that hasn't got a string of those droopy teats hanging out, as they let nature run its course, without any intervention.

  The compound of my host is made up from concrete cubicles with cracked corrugated sheets, while pieces of rebar are jacked in the windowpanes. None of the structures have gutters due to the chronicle absence of rain. Lamin’s wife, who is much younger and very beautiful, is preparing a meal in the kitchen. I chuckle as they take the concept of an open space kitchen very literally over here. Fragrances from the fire with pots and pans hanging above it make the whole family on the inner court hungry. When I throw in some of my Mandinka, their tribal language, it seems to amuse everyone. Especially the children, mesmerized by how I look so different from them they are curiously pinching my alabaster skin, at least in comparison, feeling my blond hair and pointing at my blue eyes. They are not letting the chance slip away to touch me and study me. Hence, I find them crawling on my lap, my feet, my shoulders, and the ones incapable of climbing on me are glued to my side. By now I am encompassed by focused glares from a multitude of dark eyes. Uncles, grandmothers and neighbors visit as I am the first foreigner to ever set foot in their compounds, which is absolutely an honor to me as it’s a sign that I earned their trust and respect. Relatively often people ask me if it isn’t boring to travel by myself. Rest assured, it is precisely by traveling alone that you embrace situations such as this. Some of the younger ones, barely able to walk on their own, look startled and start to cry. For they have truly never seen a white person before. If that doesn’t make you feel like one of the seventeenth century explorers, I don’t know what will. I have become a living theme park in a place where I wanted to stay incognito.

  Meandering the perimeter, we are confronted with harsh living conditions. What reminds me about certain places in Asia is that women will do all the work around here. They have taken the responsibility upon themselves to cook, clean, do the laundry and the groceries, take care of the children, sustain the vegetable garden and a thousand things more, all while their husbands are out smoking weed daily, occasionally hassle tourists pretending to be looking for work. It really is a vicious circle. Therefore, it is pleasing to the soul to be able to provide a little bit of help. For less than the quantity of money I can make in a single day back home I get them provisions. It is hard to carry the huge bags of rice that will easily last for a month for the entire compound. I also try to buy a big piece of fresh fish but they purposely charge too much. Not knowing Lamin and I are there together I give him cash out of sight from the salesman and he gets it anyway. Later that day, one more time going back and forth to the market I get something that’s definitely not redundant. Handing over some large thick blankets for them to sleep on, my hosts assure me that a concrete floor is pretty bad for the joints.

  As days progress we meet up with an old crippled imam and some friends of his, but the thing that will stick with me for a lifetime is when we reach a milestone of poverty. In the middle of a more or less abandoned street, actually being a dirt road, a young woman comes up to me and delivers her newborn child into my arms. “Take him with you!” she yells as she walks away. Okay. I guess now I am the owner of a brand-new black baby. Imagine being so desperate as a mother that you’ll give away your own son! There is a thin line between being irresponsible and simply hoping for a better future for him. One thing is certain, without using contraceptives they are popping out kids that they cannot support. While wondering what to do I keep on going with that baby in my arms until I find someone willing to take care of it. It remains unknown to me if the child was ever returned to its rightful owner.

  On my way back to the jungle of Kotu I hit upon a true junkyard. It’s definitely the biggest I have ever seen. It is miles and miles in diameter. Pillars of smoke arise from small fires with unbearable scents of burning piles of plastic, melting rubber and murky putrid disposal. Wild cows are chewing rotting waste, magpies fight over crumbs of utter shit, and rats feast upon anything they can possibly find, even on each other if they have to. There’s actually quite a few people scouting through the rubbish. Collecting whatever they can find in order to hopefully earn enough money to make it to the next day. A heartbreaking and a worrying sight, and hard to believe too but nowadays it has become so large that it extends all the way to the suburbs and residential areas right next to it. You would not grant these conditions to your worst enemy.

  Precisely because of the destituteness all around the country, several foreign nonprofit organizations attempt to provide a helping hand, or so it seems. At the location of one of these organizations, that so happens to be quite a famous branch in Germany and the Netherlands, things seem a bit out of the ordinary. At least I do not see any reason why you would wash fancy Land Rovers all day, instead of feeding orphans, educating children and providing the help you are known and praised for. After inquiring for information and a tour around the compound I’m kindly asked to leave the premises. The craziest thing of all is that I do not see children anywhere, and that is supposed to be the target group. When the Dutch girls from the same resort go there with pencils, balloons, and backpacks full of good intentions they have similar experiences. This raises serious questions about the integrity of people working there, collecting hundreds of thousands of euros through fundraising. If it wasn’t for an elderly German woman that I met in Egypt a year prior I might have doubts still. However, she had worked for many of these non-profits throughout the continent of Africa and was shocked by what she discovered. While camping out in the desert for a night I listen closely to all she has to say in the dimming light of the bonfire. Because I had seen the facility with my own eyes, and witnessed the deficiencies thereof first-hand, her claims of ninety-nine percent of them being a total scam was hereby confirmed for me. It even gets so ugly up to the point of them handing out free drugs to the kids, right before some delegation or interest group would visit the place. Now that it seemed most are indeed addicted, the funds will keep coming in. Clever move, but sickening to the core.

  Besides meeting the German woman who revealed many shocking details about African non-profit organizations, some more things happened during my stay in Egypt. For one, traveling there in time of war, aka the Arab Spring, I was awarded with visiting the Pyramids of Giza all by myself. This hotspot is normally weighed down under the crawling masses of tourists, yet now it is completely deserted. Imagine that, as if no one in the world had yet explored the ancient wonders. And it did not end there. Later on during that trip I got rejected at the border with Saudi Arabia, followed by a police officer that brought me to his station, close to the Gulf of Aqaba, to try to sell me a humongous bag of marihuana. This not being my field or anything but having seen some weird things when I was younger I would say it had an estimated street value of two hundred thousand dollars at least. If that wasn’t enough I met a homosexual over fifty who claimed to have given a blowjob to Elton John back in the days whilst he was touring. Now ask yourself, how often do you meet a person that had the penis of a celebrity in his mouth? To close it off, I received a phone call from a Dutch producer telling me that I made it to the last thirty people of a television show, that I signed up for. Knowing, that I was handpicked from
out of four and a half thousand candidates, she basically told me I had a green light to participate in a lengthy reality show with the chances of winning a large sum of cash. After receiving further instructions, I declined because I felt they had lied about the terms and conditions. You are a man of principles or you are not. The moral of this short inserted story about Egypt, is that of all the wondrous things that happened over there, the thing that the elderly German woman told me about the wrongdoings in Africa stuck with me the most. For that reason, I never give anything to charity. It amazes me that no one catches the giant red flags when CEOs of non-profit organizations are driving in hugely expensive cars.

  Time is spent meeting people, drinking lots and lots of tea, and of course, no adventure can be vacant from it - with women. I am not talking about the ones you have to pay for in the touristy areas, south of Kotu. Where clubs and bars lure you into an intoxicating nightlife, forcing you to make shady deals, not leaving the country before you have one of the many STD’s, or even AIDS. Statistics about these afflictions are absolutely shocking. Unfortunately, nobody is doing a darn thing about it including the government. It seems illegal prostitution is just another way of life. Even if you try to avoid it, you are confronted with it one way or another. Guys approach me in the streets up to several times a day and without shame they ask if I’m interested in a girl. Apparently, they can arrange anything from old to young, and when I don’t show interest in payed sex they usually have a spare sister or cousin they try to haggle. If I had responded to all the requests, my dick would have fallen off by now. However, there are others that do respond. With appropriate bias just not the type of people you would first expect.

  Whereas in countries like Thailand for instance you can see overweight balding men going out with younger girls, or even very young ones, here the exact opposite is the case. Ugly saggy white women, way passed their expiration date, a lot of them coming from northern European countries, are not in the least way embarrassed to hook up with young boys. Those young black boys with slender bodies always claim to be in their early or mid-twenties. Though it is no exception they are somewhere between fourteen and eighteen. In general, men get the blame for everything but I think we can all agree this is outrageous and should not be allowed. As of yet, this way of extortion and the grooming of children is grossly ignored by the world. In the event that such issues emerge into the limelight, they are instantly nullified and branded as a mere incident. I can assure you this is a false narrative and an ongoing trend to this day. It is truly astonishing to see those kids fucking anything with a heartbeat, or at least anything with the slightest vestige of body heat, with the hope of getting something in return. Twisting the romance of a healthy relationship it is cringeworthy to watch them go hand in hand through the ankle deep billows during sunset, little boys with fat selfish white women with varicose veins that could pass as their grandmothers.

  * * *

  Okay where was I? Right, spending time meeting people, including women. Not far from my resort, I purchase a bowl of delicious fruit on the beach. While enjoying small talk in the shadows of palm trees, the wig wearing stall girl suddenly grabs me by the hand and parades me around. Cunningly, so that everybody can see. Next thing I know I find her tongue in my ear and right after in my mouth. Not that she tries to kiss me, for Gambians do not know how to do that, but just her tongue in the back of my throat. Interestingly, the consequence of that action convinced her that we belong together now. Studying the nation, I think it is safe to conclude their way of thinking is quite primitive when it comes to male-female relationships. The overall behavior is no different than jealous pubescent teen girls. When they have spotted you first you’re not allowed to engage in any type of conversation with anyone else. Because of this, for just talking to other girls, I am labelled as a cheater in no time. Unbelievable.

  To illustrate this further, the two blond Dutch girls I met are labelled as sluts by everyone I talk to, guys and girls alike. Only because they chat to different guys who upon their turn approach them instead of the other way around. In fact, most of the time it’s them getting harassed. Ah well, I suppose ‘Life is life you know’, as is another one of their infamous tacky slogans.

  The real fun starts when I find a handwritten note in my bedroom between my fresh towels from a girl working at the restaurant. Although we only talked once for about three minutes I am glad to find out that she ‘misses me’. Besides her, I already have a date with another girl, coincidently from the same restaurant. This one is stunningly gorgeous, and to see her in something else than her waitress uniform is a present I couldn’t have asked for. With a shy stroll holding hands in another neighborhood, transients are shouting: “Hey lucky man!” and the envious ones go like “Hey, lucky woman!”, wrongly thinking she hit the jackpot or something. Persistently stoned as everyone is, hardly anything escapes anyone’s eyes. After some tropical nights on an isolated moonlit beach, she takes me to meet her family in Banjul, the capital of the Gambia. In these communities, the families are usually huge. I could have known this one is no different. Like now as in many times before elsewhere I am one of the few white people to step over the threshold, making it a meeting to remember for both parties.

  * * *

  In the short time I travelled the slim country I met an outlandish amount of people. My unquenchable thirst for the unknown has once more demonstrated that it is hard to say no. However, I’m slowly improving my abilities to not go into everything. A trait that is most necessary for me to learn. You see, in the final days of being in the village of Kotu I realize I had spent all my money on trying to help others. Indeed, it gets so tight I can no longer afford to properly sustain myself. Thus, finding myself at a local refugee center for a few nights. There I stand in line with a plastic plate waiting for a free meal. Oh the irony. Judging from the look on their faces the Christian volunteers have a hard time believing me. Thanks to their big compassionate hearts, they serve me anyway.

  Being here due to my predicament it seems as if more good things come out of it. Through a cousin of one of the brothers from the jungle I previously met, I encounter this fine young woman. She is about to go home when we give in to an unresisting instant attraction. Her slim body of forty-five kilograms moves enticingly close to mine, still buffed up from the wrestle training sessions. With natural full lips, long braided hair and dark chocolate skin, she’s a real beauty. When her taxi comes rolling by she orders the driver to wait for a minute. With the sound of the engine running in the background, we hide behind a small concrete ledge away from the lights, cutting through the dark, and have some free-spirited sex amidst exuberant vegetation. Not rushed but quick enough for the driver not to grow impatient. That certainly smacks of a summer fling at the last moment. In the next few days, we get to know each other better in a hotel room donated by a mutual friend.

  It’s here I found out the hard way that she belongs to the Mandinka tribe. Well, the hard way, more like the intriguing way. With my head between her thighs, I conclude that she is missing that one vital part that I was sort of down there for in the first place. Namely, this tribe has the old habit of mutilating the genitalia of their daughters, due to female circumcision she does not have a clitoris anymore, which makes it somewhat impossible to concentrate. Just when you think you have seen it all eh? Literally and figuratively speaking a small reminder of the hidden gruesomeness of the country. Looking at things from a positive perspective, as we would say among men in construction, innocently unaware of any form of sexism, at least the inner tube was just as pink! It’s nice to be nice!

  8

  Jordan

  Little aerodynamically shaped swallows fly ecstatically back and forth. Soon the nippy whiff will turn into warm waves of air. Curious rays of sunshine appear in the early heavens, causing long shadows to fall off the battlements of the old city wall. It’s summer in an awakening Jerusalem, becoming more apparent every minute. The small hand of time barely reaches six when, at th
e Damascus Gate, on the north eastern side, salesmen are setting up their market stalls. Persian rugs are laid on the stone steps, while fresh fruit and new shoes are carelessly placed next to each other. There are strong scents of bread and spices, yet the smells of the triumphant morning prevail.

  For the past seven months I’ve been residing in Israel, in both the capital, on the Mount of Olives, as well as in Jaffa, a cozy harbor town at a walkable distance south of Tel Aviv. I don’t have time to get into it now, so hopefully in the next book I can elaborate more on things like the hours-long interrogation upon entry, how I almost got seriously injured by a group of young Palestinian men, my experiences at hostile check posts, disturbing refugee camps, the ancient biblical sites and the exhilarating daily life in poor Ramallah, late Yasser Arafat’s city. And of course much more.

  For now, the focus is on the present activity: my hike towards the border, armed in white linen and equipped with backpack and a pair of Nordic walking sticks. You’re allowed to laugh, I don’t care. I happen to like those sticks that give a tremendous support to the body. In any case, when Mother Nature exhumes the battle axe almost immediately the suffering begins. Water is scarce and every green leaf has long been scorched by the increasing heat. Moving forward through loose sand is tiring, as well as hiking through fields of cluttered tennis ball-sized rocks. Once in the dry hills I meet barren places with amber shades. Here I’m getting ambushed by a surprise.