Exhausted by her labours, she foraged around, and was relieved to see more of the ‘safe, succulent, plants’ as she thought of them. The ones left in her rucksack had shrivelled up and didn’t look edible any more. In the cool of the evening, she found the energy to climb a little way up into the tree, dragging the rucksack with her. She was tempted to leave it on the ground, but was afraid an animal might find it and destroy it.
She slept fitfully that night, waking every few minutes with cramped arms and legs, or feeling sore where the tree trunk or the bag was digging into her. I’m getting weaker, she thought. Several weeks of prison food had not exactly equipped her for long treks, and she knew her spirits were sinking lower and lower. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on. She had no idea how long she’d been walking, or where she was, or how much farther she had to go. She hadn’t thought beyond getting to Ruanga, and she had no idea what sort of reception she might receive there, or how she would get to the capital and contact an embassy or … Let me get there first, she thought, just let me get there.
As soon as it was partially light, Amie slid down from the tree and went to examine her homemade still. Lifting the corner of the plastic very carefully, she could see a few drops of water run down the underside towards the waiting bottle. She gave a whoop of joy, but when she’d removed all the plastic, she was dismayed to see there was maybe two tablespoons of water in the bottle. It didn’t look particularly clean and it certainly wouldn’t be enough to sustain her. Nice idea, Amie, she said to herself, but you will just have to walk for longer and faster each day, rest up for less.
It was a stupid decision.
Even though she knew how hot the sun could get, and what effect it would have on her hydration levels, Amie had underestimated the extent to which it would affect her sense of direction and her will to continue walking.
That day she covered a lot less ground, and with a sense of dread, she sipped the last few drops from the water supply she’d brought with her from the Lodge. She found she was wandering, weaving from side to side, and losing focus on the range of hills which sometimes appeared to be ahead of her, and sometimes to her right or her left.
Her mouth felt dry and her tongue several sizes too large. She ached all over and it was becoming harder and harder to walk. The gash on the back of her leg was throbbing, and she thought it was probably infected. Several times she stumbled, she’d lost the energy to step over obstacles, and had trouble focusing, as she tried to weave around the shrubs that suddenly sprang up in front of her.
Her headache got worse and worse and she wanted to vomit, although there was very little in her stomach. She picked some more leaves and squeezed the liquid out of them, catching the meagre amount of sap in her mouth.
But she was not as careful as she had been before, she couldn’t concentrate, her vision was fuzzy, and she chose the wrong plants.
15 THE LITTLE PEOPLE
There was a loud roaring in her head and a tickly feeling on her cheek. She could hear scuffling nearby in the dark. She gasped and tried to curl up as tightly as she could, only to find her back was wedged against something solid. She kept trying to roll out of danger but there was nowhere to go, and she didn’t have the strength. She lay still for several moments, trying to gather her wits about her. She was just too scared to open her eyes, but they seemed to be covered anyway, and she didn’t have the energy to move.
She began to understand why life was cheap in Africa, the cards were stacked too high. If it wasn’t tribal feuds, or becoming a victim of crime, there was the rawness of nature, the scorching sun, the lack of water, or the savage, wild animals. At that point, Amie discovered a whole new admiration for those people who had survived for generations in these conditions. She was ready to accept her fate, and reasoned that in the state she was, it would be a blessing that her misery was about to end.
The tickling began again, and was she imagining it, or was that giggling? After a few moments of near lucidity, the fog closed in again and the darkness returned.
The next time she woke she could see shafts of daylight through the gloom at the edges of the covering over her eyes. She tried to pull herself up, but it was just too much of an effort. She tried to focus on the light. The African sun was always bright and shared its heat, but here she was cool and comfortable. She realised her head was no longer aching, her legs weren’t cramped and for a change, the world stayed quite still. She closed her eyes again and the tickling on her cheek was repeated. There were more noises, a scuffling, a few sharp squawks, and the sound of a slap. A couple of wails, which quickly faded, and then there was silence.
As Amie drifted off once more it was beginning to dawn on her that she’d been found and taken somewhere, and she was no longer in danger. Comforted, she fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.
When she came to again, she found herself flanked by a row of smiling black faces. She stared at them in amazement. They were not like the Africans she’d known in the city, these people were not Kawa, or Luebos or Tsaan. These people had lighter skin, and looked to be quite small. Their hands and feet were delicate, and they appeared relaxed and friendly.
Looking round, Amie saw she was in some sort of grass shelter, lying on a bed made of leaves and rough matting. She struggled to sit up.
The lady closest to her held out a gourd and indicated she should drink from it. The liquid was white and a little creamy, just the sort of drink she should avoid, according to Dirk, but there was no reason not to trust these smiling people. When she sat up and grabbed the gourd with both hands, they all clapped, and the ladies ululated softly. The drink was very bitter and Amie gasped trying to give it back. The lady closest to Amie shook her head and looked stern, she refused to take it, making her gestures quite clear, Amie was to drink all of it.
As she slowly swallowed each mouthful, Amie’s mind was spinning with questions. Where was she? Who were they? But it was unlikely any of these smiling people would have one word of English between them. The three people closest to her were women, and they sat patiently on the ground, never taking their eyes off her; Amie was a source of fascination to them all. The one who looked most senior, had on a clean, but torn, white school shirt and a skirt that had once been bright and colourful. Two of the others were bare-breasted and wore skirts of faded material wound round the waist. They all sported jewellery made from seed pods and other natural materials.
The elder woman indicated Amie should lie back down, but she was anxious to get up and explore where she was. She shook her head and waved her arms to show she wanted to go outside.
The elder woman shook her head quite firmly, then hesitantly, she put out her hand and pushed Amie quite firmly back down. Before she could object, Amie saw the world go round, fade and then, once again, she remembered nothing.
Amie had no idea how long she lay in the hut. She was aware that each time she opened her eyes, there was always someone on duty who handed her the gourd and insisted she drink from it, and each time Amie blacked out again, even though she fought to stay awake. She wanted to remain conscious, but she didn’t have the energy or the will to resist them. It was pleasant to float away, with no worries, no pain and no responsibilities.
Eventually, the little people, as she thought of them, decided her recovery was complete, and when she woke, they allowed her to get to her feet. They led her outside the hut to sit for a short time in the late afternoon sunshine.
Amie noticed that wherever it was that she’d ended up, there were more trees than out on the savannah, and here and there, small patches of woodland had been cleared and planted with maize. The haphazard collection of huts was hardly a village, Amie counted only five other dwellings from where she sat, but there were maybe thirty people altogether, and they were all quite short. At first, she thought some of the women were large children, but from the wrinkles on their skin and the grey hair on others, she saw they were fully mature. There were four young children who were very cute but shy. They ran
about in the clearing, hiding behind trees and peeping out at her. They giggled every time she looked in their direction, and when she put her hands in front of her eyes and then suddenly removed them saying “boo,” they dissolved into peals of laughter.
Whoever these people were, thought Amie, they were happy and content. They probably lived off the land, in harmony with nature, and I thought there were no more communities like this left anywhere in the world, except for maybe the Amazon basin.
That evening, they brought her what tasted like maize meal porridge mixed with small pieces of meat on a large leaf that served as a plate. It was a bit tasteless, but Amie smiled and nodded and chewed and chewed the tough meat chunks hoping it wasn’t anything too disgusting. What I don’t know, won’t worry me, she reasoned; anything was good and lifesaving.
The days fell into a comfortable, lazy pattern. Everyone arose with the sun, and after a meagre breakfast, most of the men picked up their bows and arrows and melted away among the trees. Amie was amazed by their ability to appear, or disappear without seeming to move, one minute they were there, the next, they were gone.
The women spent part of their day tending the few crops they grew, and pounding the ripe maize in the traditional African way. Holding long, smooth sticks, they stood in pairs, taking it in turns to crush the dried maize in the large gourd at their feet. But most of their day was spent foraging among the trees for roots, berries, nuts, tubers, and mushrooms.
During the first few weeks, Amie was left very much alone, except as an item of curiosity for the children. Most of the women were away for a large part of the day, and whether from a sense of boredom, or a willingness to join them, Amie indicted she wanted to help.
The chief woman appeared to be rather reluctant to include her in their daily foraging, but when Amie persisted in following them into the wooded areas, watching what they picked and then copying them, she smiled and made no more objections. They gave her a basket made of stripped tree bark roughly woven together, to show she had been accepted as one of the gatherers. Not that Amie was much use. During one hot and exhausting morning, she had only gathered a handful of plants and roots, and when she showed them to the chief woman, she smiled kindly and shook her head. She took two leaves out of Amie’s basket and threw the rest away.
To Amie’s horror, they also collected caterpillars; Mopani worms and termites. Her stomach heaved at the thought of eating such fare, while rationalising she had probably been eating them for days.
Collecting water took up much of their time. It was quite a walk deep into the woods, to a large depression in the ground. Here it was cool and moist, but every day, the women had to dig deep into the leafy forest floor to reach the water table. Using small wooden ladles, they carefully spooned the water into the large gourds, until they were full to the brim. While the outward-bound journey was fun, the return one was hard work. Amie had complained to herself about the weight of less than a dozen plastic bottles of water, but the full gourds were much, much heavier and they were difficult to carry, slippery and awkwardly shaped. For part of the journey back to the village, the women carried the gourds on their heads, but where the trees grew closer together and nearer to the ground, they had to carry them in their arms.
On her second trip to ‘help,’ Amie slipped on a tree root and dropped the gourd, watching in horror as the water spilled out all over the ground. She looked up fearfully, unsure how angry the women would be. There was a brief, tense silence, then first one and then the rest of the women all burst out into peals of laughter. They put down their own containers, rushing over to help her up, poking and prodding her to make sure she was not hurt. I don’t think I would have been so forgiving, thought Amie, after all that hard work, but the women still smiled, and with much clucking and clicking, assured her it was all right.
Preparing the food for the evening meal also took a lot of time, as the women scraped, peeled and boiled whatever they had managed to find. The women used natural tools made from bone, stones and pieces of wood, but Amie noticed there were a couple of blunt, rusty knives among the kitchen implements. So, there is some contact with the outside world she thought, but somehow, for the moment, she was in no hurry to re-join it. Life here was so peaceful, so relaxing and Europe, the city, and even the suburbs seemed fraught with danger.
Over the following days, Amie learned many words from the tribe. To herself she described them as pygmies, simply because they were so short. She had never felt so clumsy before, but none of them, not even the men, came up to her shoulders. They had a simple grace, like forest dwelling ballet dancers, as they negotiated the narrow woodland paths, skirting fallen tree trunks, leaping over large boulders and weaving gracefully, to avoid low hanging, overhead branches.
It was easy to learn the words for concrete objects like maize, hut, individual plants and names. The chief woman was called E'lft and her man was X’ome, as best as Amie could pronounce it. In time, she learned all thirty names and was amused to see, that even here, in a primitive society, there were many similarities with people anywhere else in the world. There was a hierarchy, although it was fairly fluid and everyone seemed to be involved in decision making, or so it looked. It was very difficult to make out what was going on when they all got talking together.
Her closest friend was A’ncah, a girl about the same age as Amie. She would sit patiently and teach Amie how to prepare the pumpkins, how to make the potent homemade beer, and how to adorn herself with the seeds they fashioned into jewellery from the plants that grew nearby. A’ncah had an almost uncanny way of reading Amie’s mind, and often brought her a drink when she was thirsty or food when she was hungry, even outside meal times. She would accompany Amie to the water hole when she wanted to wash herself, and keep watch for marauding animals in the undergrowth. The two women grew very close.
But it was a lot more difficult for Amie to discover the words they used for work, or go, or other verbs. If she pointed and waved her arms to indicate ‘to go’ she was never quite sure if they were telling her the name of a tree in the same direction, or if they really understood her at all. She shadowed one of the smaller children and tried to work out what the adults said to him, but even when she heard the sounds, they were almost impossible for her to pronounce. On the other hand, they also had problems trying to say ‘Amie’ and their attempts made her laugh. Generally, it was frustrating and Amie missed being able to talk and exchange ideas.
Amie also felt guilty about taking up space in one of the huts, sharing it with seven other people. She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to such intimate community living, for they had no concept of privacy. She tried to get across the idea that maybe she should build her own hut. However, either they didn’t understand her, or they simply did not want another hut in the village. Amie gave up and waited until she was alone before performing, what in her culture, were nature’s more private tasks.
Every now and again, the men did not go hunting, but sat around in the village while they prepared their arrows. Amie could see the arrow heads were made of metal, and wondered where they’d got the metal from. There was no evidence of any type of mining, yet the arrows were well formed and very sharp. On one occasion, she bent down to pick one up, but X’enu shouted at her and she snatched her hand back. Had she broken a tribal taboo? Were women forbidden from handling the weapons?
X’enu clucked at her. He pointed to the arrow head and then drew his finger across his throat. Amie understood. The arrows were tipped with poison. She shuddered to think what might have happened if the men had not been there to guard their arrowheads.
All the members of the tribe seemed to be very healthy. There was the odd cough or cold, and occasionally someone gashed an arm or a leg, but there was always a leaf, a tree root or the sap from a plant that was used to aid the healing. Even when little K’ungu got bitten by a snake, the nearest woman picked him up by his arm and swinging him onto her back, disappeared among the trees. When they returned a short tim
e later, she had plastered a thick paste over the bite and bandaged it with leaves. By the end of the day, K’ungu was running around with the other children with no apparent ill effects, although the women shouted at him when his antics threatened to dislodge the leaf bandage tied on with thin lianas.
The children belonged to everyone in the tribe, going from one to the other for cuddles and attention. If they misbehaved, they were smacked quite hard, and their wails ignored until they did as they were told. Amie noticed too, even the smallest child was expected to help. There were small brooms made of grass for them to sweep inside the huts and around the village. They were sent to gather stones for the fires and when everyone went into the forest to collect wood, they were expected to pick up small pieces to be used as kindling.
Amie was surprised at how few children there were, and wondered how many died in childbirth. Some of the women didn’t look as if they’d had children, and she watched M’agha with interest. She was at least six months into her pregnancy when Amie first arrived. Yet when her time came, as happens all over the world, the elder women took her into her hut and shortly after, appeared with the new-born wrapped in bark cloth. Amie had been at the hospital when Sam had had both Dean and Jade, and there had been a lot more commotion than this! How much she admired these stoic forest dwellers.
The women were adept at making fire too. Ruefully, Amie remembered her Girl Guide test when she couldn’t even light a fire using matches. Here, a few minutes with a couple of flint stones, and the kindling burst into flame. Amie grew to have a great respect for their way of life. If only we could all live in such harmony, she thought, but there are far too many of us on the planet for that now.
The men would return in the late afternoon with a variety of the game they had hunted, never too much, for the food would waste very quickly in the heat, so it had to be hunted most days. The dead deer, especially the small duikers didn’t bother Amie too much, but the day they brought back two monkeys appalled her. Eating deer was one thing, but monkeys? That was as close to cannibalism as you could get! That evening, she pushed the overcooked meat around her plate, wondering how many times in the past she’d happily eaten one of her closest cousins without realising it; but she dared not throw it away. It would never do to insult her hosts or to attract unwelcome visitors by leaving food lying around.
Amie in Africa Box Set 1 Page 31
