I Am Not Your Slave

by Tupa Tjipombo

  My trancelike state merged into unconsciousness. I remember little else from that night. The drumming seemed to go on until morning, reverberating through my entire body and merging with my dreams, which were filled with dim, fragmented images of the witch doctor stirring his mixtures and the albino staring down at me. At one point, the pain from my arm pulled me back into semiconsciousness, and I remember seeing the other girls sprawled on the ground beside me. They did not stir, and I could not be certain if they were asleep or dead. As I drifted back into unconsciousness, I wondered if I, too, was dying, and felt a sense of warmth that was like relief.

  5

  THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS were fused together into one long drive in the back of the truck, punctuated by quick stops for gasoline, tire repairs, and short breaks to allow us to eat or go to the bathroom. Like before, most stops occurred at night, usually somewhere deep in the bush, where a succession of boys and donkey carts materialized from nowhere with drums of fuel, propelling us forward into the darkness.

  The condition of the roads worsened with each passing mile, while the scraping of branches on the sides of the truck became almost constant. We made our way in a curving, twisting manner that suggested a landscape dominated by thick bush or forest. The driver was forced to keep the truck in low gear as it crawled around obstacles and lurched forward in fits and starts.

  Some things improved: The goats were gone, so we had more space to ourselves, though the truck was still crammed with boxes of electronic goods. And the roads were not as dusty as they had been before; they were wet and muddy more than anything else, which was a relief of sorts because it meant we were not choking on swirling clouds of dust. It was also noticeably cooler.

  Even with these improvements, we barely talked to one another. Mostly, we just slept. When awake and allowed out of the truck, we hung our heads and walked around in an almost trancelike state. No one asked questions or talked back to our captors anymore. Each girl seemed resigned to her fate, at least for the time being.

  It had been like this ever since the morning after the witchcraft ceremony. The government man—the only individual from the witchcraft party who remained behind—gathered us together and made certain we understood the consequences of what had happened to us, including the risks to ourselves and members of our family if we ever tried to run away or defy our “new father.” He reminded us of the mysterious thing on top of our heads, patting his own head and smiling knowingly, as if he could actually see whatever it was floating ominously above us. “He is always watching,” he said.

  But in the end he did not have to worry. I knew that all the girls felt as I did: that we were now living under a curse so powerful that there was simply nothing we could do. I not only believed it but felt it too; it was like a heavy, living mass deep inside me that threatened to grow roots and suck me into the ground. I felt like my body, my actions, my entire being were no longer my own. I was convinced that the effects of whatever they did to me that night were permanent; they would be with me for as long as I lived.

  As I was pitched about in the blackness of the truck, I thought about my grandfather and how, whenever he spoke about witchcraft, he used to say that Africa was the land of no accidents. It was often all he said on the matter; it was enough for him. And I accepted it unquestioningly. For me, witchcraft was real, it was proximate, it was part of my everyday life. I grew up surrounded by witchcraft in one form or another. Zudongo’s accusation of witchcraft against my mother was a large part of why I was here now. When people from my village became ill or suffered some misfortune, the first thing they did was go to the local healer, who never failed to diagnose the cause of their suffering by identifying who was witching them. The whole idea that witchcraft existed was due in large part to the number of healers who so easily identified witchcraft as the cause of one’s misfortune. Healers and witches were two sides of the same coin. The only difference was that while healers were public figures who were widely respected, witches were hard to identify; nobody actually claimed to be one. Even those who were accused of witchcraft were just that—accused. If healers represented the good and public side of the spirit world, then witches were their evil and secretive counterparts. So now, to have seen one like this, out in the open, was beyond anything I could have imagined. It was beyond words. It was beyond life itself.

  I knew Sarah was feeling the same way. As we sat together under a tree during a short break, she confided in me, suggesting that there were only two paths before us now. “One is this . . .” she said, motioning toward the truck but unable to find the words to describe it. “And the other is to kill ourselves. But how can we do that? It is a sin.” As she spoke, she fingered the burn on the back of her arm. We all carried the same crude mark now: a long, wavy line like a snake with three dots below and one above. No one knew what it meant.

  At one point, we stopped at a camp next to a slow-moving, brownish river. We were permitted to bathe, but we worried about crocodiles and hippos and, given the strange surroundings, creatures we might not even know about. As we remained on the bank cautiously splashing ourselves, a second truck arrived, and the men transferred goods into it under the watchful eyes of Bernardo. After that task was complete, he approached our little group and reminded us once again of the consequences that would befall us if we attempted to run away. It became clear that he was passing us on to the crew of the new truck. He made a point of taking me aside and speaking directly to me. “You are not just any girl,” he told me, his twisted face as cold and inflexible as ever. “You are to go to a special place. Do not run again, or I will find you and cut your head off myself.”

  A cold chill ran down my spine as Bernardo turned and signaled his driver that it was time to go. I did not doubt for a second that he was capable of doing exactly what he said. I realized now why I had not met the same fate as the other girl who had run away. Unlike that girl—and possibly everybody else—I had been singled out for this so-called special place. As I agonized over my fate, the new crew, which included one African man and three Chinese, herded us toward the waiting truck.

  * * *

  In some ways, the fact that the Chinese were involved in whatever was happening now was not surprising to me. Chinese people could be found all across Africa these days, especially when it came to business. They had set up “China Shops” just about anywhere you went; there were many in Opuwo and throughout the Kunene. Sometimes the “shop” was little more than the actual shipping container sent directly from China, packed to the hilt with plastic toys, fake jewelry, cheap sunglasses, and knock-off soccer jerseys.

  My uncle Gerson hated the Chinese; he ranted about their poor treatment of Africans and how they did nothing for local communities. Like many people, he believed they were only allowed to enter Namibia and other countries because, over the past decade, the Chinese government had poured so much money into big projects like roads, bridges, soccer stadiums, and government buildings. These were bribes, my uncle argued, so China could steal our most precious resources: oil, trees, animals, and minerals. And girls, I thought. Perhaps the truck I was traveling in now was just another China Shop.

  Of the three Chinese men who accompanied us on the next leg of our journey, only one spoke English, though he did so in a manner that sounded strange to me. I thought I recognized some French words too, but I could not be certain. Whatever language it was, the African man, who called himself Alieu, understood it well enough, though he seemed to find it funny, smirking and tittering at almost everything his Chinese colleague said.

  We resumed a mind-numbing pattern of long, jarring drives punctuated by brief, uneventful stops. By now, we were familiar with the different types of stops and way stations. Fuel stops, for example, always occurred during the day; we learned to anticipate them as the truck turned off the main road and drove for thirty minutes or so on a secondary track, its poor condition making it easy to identify. The ever-present donkey cart waited for us with a barrel full of fuel. It was alm
ost always driven by a small boy who tried not to gawk at us too openly. Petrol boys—as I came to think of them—seemed to know that part of their job was to remain completely silent; few ever spoke unless spoken to first. It seemed like they knew that what they were seeing was not to be discussed. As for overnight stops, most took place in secluded, well-hidden locations that were clearly designed to accommodate small groups of people on a temporary basis. There were usually a few tattered sleeping huts for us girls and a main house or hut for the men. Sometimes we slept on a simple raised platform with a slanted roof made of grass or whatever happened to be on hand. In most cases, a fence of thorn bushes or branches lined the perimeter. After the truck was positioned to block the entrance, two or three individuals took turns as guards throughout the night. One of our overnight stops appeared to be another witchcraft site; it looked eerily similar to the place where we had undergone our own ordeal. It included an oversized firepit, a table made of large rocks, and even bits of animal hide and bones dangling from a nearby tree. Petrified at the thought of being subjected to another ritual, I barely slept that night. I came to the conclusion that some places were specifically designed to serve as special witchcraft sites, where girls were subjected to a ritual similar to our own. I wondered if it was something that every new girl experienced at the beginning, which made me realize that I was now part of a larger and more organized world than I had previously thought.

  During this particular stretch, the truck’s contents underwent constant turnover as cargo was loaded and unloaded at different overnight stops or transferred directly from one truck to another during the day. This included the human cargo as well; girls were dropped off, picked up, and transferred between trucks and locations on a regular basis. I noticed how all the girls were practically interchangeable: they were all very young, in most cases younger than myself, and they were all pretty. They were so similar in appearance that it was impossible to understand why some were left behind, some were transferred to another truck, or some, like myself, remained with the same truck as it drove on from one location to the next. Sometimes, I was joined with as few as three girls. During other stretches, however, the truck was packed with more than a dozen bodies.

  As the days wore on, the landscape changed dramatically. At one point, we climbed in elevation for many kilometers, the truck grinding away slowly but steadily, until we reached a vast plateau, where the daily fuel stops offered a good vantage point of the surrounding countryside. I marveled at the lush, rolling hills and deep valleys. I had never seen such dense growth before or so many different shades of green. It was like a vast patchwork quilt had been laid across the land. Farms dotted the surrounding hills, and thick clumps of trees grew in tight clusters, sometimes fanning out in thin tendrils that wove their way in between the farms. I watched as people walked along a network of footpaths between farms, going about their daily business in a manner that made me ache for home.

  For the most part, the Chinese men ignored us, rarely communicating beyond gestures or simple commands. They seemed intent on getting to the day’s destination as quickly as possible. Alieu, on the other hand, tried to start conversations with me on several occasions, but the Chinese men usually put a stop to it by sending him away to collect firewood, fix a tire puncture, or attend to some other job. Meanwhile, the girls were expected to do all the cooking and cleaning. But our duties were frequently disrupted by illness, which everybody blamed on the cooler temperatures and damp air. Myself, I fell into a subdued daily routine as we made our way over and around the endless hills and passed through long stretches of dense forest that became more and more ominous.

  * * *

  After a particularly long day of driving that lasted well into the night, the truck lurched to a stop and Alieu threw open the door. An impenetrable forest loomed over us on all sides. I had never seen such tall trees before; the tops were invisible as they faded into the humid night. The murky gloom of the forest seemed to bleed into the air. I shuddered as I took in my new surroundings.

  We were on the edge of a circular clearing hacked out of the forest. A few stark, sickly looking trees remained in the middle, stripped of their branches and adorned with three floodlights, which cast a pasty, yellowish glare in every direction. A mass of insects and bats hummed and buzzed around the lights in a frenzied cloud. Peering at us disinterestedly, a man with a rifle sat on a rough platform in the center of the clearing, dangling his legs and smoking a cigarette. The rest of the compound was dotted with bleak tree stumps and clusters of tangled bushes, where stray bits of garbage collected. A long and crudely built brick building with six or seven narrow slits for doorways dominated the opposite side of the clearing. Two more men stood chatting in front of the building, each holding a rifle.

  The three Chinese men set off to their right toward a cluster of smaller buildings and canvas tents. Left alone with the human cargo, Alieu wearily motioned us forward toward the dormitory building. But walking even that short distance proved to be a challenge in the slippery mix of mud and clay that made up the forest floor. I was forced to take my shoes off as I picked my way across the compound.

  Alieu conferred with the two guards before parceling us out into different rooms. I was separated from the rest of the group and directed to a room at the end of the building. I had to duck my head and turn sideways to pass through the doorway, where I was confronted with a roomful of more girls strewn about the floor. I made my way to the opposite side of the room and lay down, falling asleep almost immediately.

  The next morning began early as a large group of girls was herded into two waiting trucks. From my vantage point at the doorway, I counted at least twenty individuals. Each one looked younger than myself. I estimated that at least forty girls remained behind. Of these, about a dozen were so sick that they were quarantined from the others and placed together in a room at the far end of the dormitory.

  Before long, Alieu and one of the Chinese men were making visits to each room, carefully choosing three or four girls at a time and leading them away to a small building garnished with an assortment of satellite dishes and radio antennae. They passed me over with little more than a glance until the very end, when I was finally ushered out and made to join a second girl. I noticed that she was about my age and of similar height and build. We could have been sisters.

  The building we were brought to was sparsely furnished, with a desk, several computers, and a video camera set on a tripod. Another Chinese man, short and heavily muscled, sat behind the desk. He immediately stood up when he saw me, cutting off his companion midsentence and brushing past him to take a closer look at me. I had a distinct feeling he was the big boss, the one who made everybody else I’d met so far seem like nothing. While he was a good six inches shorter than me, he carried himself with such authority that my height only made me feel more exposed. He grasped my forearm and said in perfect English, “My name is Ming. Please turn around for me.” He studied me silently from behind for a minute or so before saying, “Face me, please.” I turned again, and he commanded, “Open your mouth and show me your teeth.” He took a step closer and peered inside my mouth, nodding approvingly. He stepped back and appraised me once again. It felt like a medical exam.

  “How is your English?” Ming asked.

  “It is very good,” I responded.

  “Point to my computer with your right hand while placing your left hand on top of your head,” he said very quickly.

  I hesitated. “Excuse me?”

  Ming simply stared at me.

  Feeling more than a little foolish, I did as commanded. When the other girl looked at me strangely, I realized that she had not understood the man.

  Ming smiled vaguely and said, “OK, fine. I wanted to make sure that you understood my English.”

  “I understood you very well. I told you that I could speak English. Did you not believe me? I speak it better than all these men who brought me here, including your other Chinamen.” It felt good to speak up
to this man who had made me open my mouth and inspected me like I was nothing. And now that I knew he was a man of some authority, I felt somewhat emboldened. Besides, I asked myself, what was there to lose?

  But Ming only nodded and seemed to approve of me even more. I felt the urge to continue and demanded to know where they were taking me.

  The other Chinese man said something in an entirely new language I had never heard before, but Ming shook his head in response, waving his hand dismissively. He continued to look at me approvingly.

  Ignoring my own questions, he asked me how old I was. I told him I was sixteen.

  “Are you a virgin?” he then asked.

  Momentarily taken aback, I responded that I was, adding that I was not some prostitute off the streets. I told Ming I was in secondary school in Opuwo and had plans to attend university. But he simply repeated his question and asked me again if I was certain that I was a virgin, warning me that I should not lie because they would be testing me for HIV.

  “I have just told you that I am a virgin,” I said angrily. “How can I be a virgin and have AIDS?”

  Ming flashed his vague smile before turning to his colleague and speaking again in their strange language. He turned back to me and asked what tribe I was from.