The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods

by Jamala Safari

  An hour in the boat felt like a whole day. Heri sang to make his passengers forget about the boredom of the crossing. It usually took half a day to reach the shores of Tanzania. But something was happening to the lake; it seemed to be rising, growing. Heri said that maybe it had rained on the Tanzanian side. The breeze had changed into a wind; it became stronger and carried drops of water from the sky.

  Within half an hour, things changed completely. Children were crying and women praying. The lake had grown restless and the wind stronger, as the boat moved like a wounded man walking on very sharp stones. It was now jumping on mountains of water. Heri prayed for the spirit of his father to come to the rescue. Next he threw the Nanga, the big rock used to stabilise the boat, into the lake, but nothing changed. There was already water in the boat. Risto took a bucket and helped the other crew members who were throwing water out of the boat. His shoes and clothes were soaked, but he didn’t care, even though they were the only ones he had. He only tried to protect his money.

  It was so easy to die on the Tanganyika. They were in the middle of the deepest lake in Africa, far from the shore. There was no rescue team; it was just a question of whether the boat would be swallowed by the water. Heri’s eyes seemed to suggest that they were in really big trouble. He kept moving around in the small boat like a fly caught in the web of a spider, but there was no solution. The waves struck harder than before. A woman was screaming for her child, swept away by the swift waves, and a crew member jumped into the wildly undulating water to save the child; another lady’s loincloth was already brandishing in the dancing water, she was half naked. Risto held onto his trousers tightly; life without his money was death.

  It wasn’t long before the plank boat started coming apart; Risto held firmly onto one plank and screamed as loudly as he could. There was a disarray of voices, shouts and screams blending with the angry sounds of wind and rain. A light approached, a torch shone upon him. He moved and screamed. The light drifted, the slow-moving boat changed direction, a few men jumped into the lake to save others, but they forgot him. His shoes fought with the water, he held tightly onto the waist of his pants, and his mouth called the names of unknown crew men, all the Tanzanian names he knew. The boats were pulling women and children from the water; then a hand touched Risto’s head, and he stretched out his hands. It was all like a dream or a movie. They pulled him into another boat. People were counted, and by some miracle, no one was missing. Women and their children sat sobbing. Three passengers were vomiting water. A crew member said they were safe now; the boat was strong enough to resist the waves. Risto questioned his credibility, as the boat was still jumping hills of waves, and water was still washing in and out. The wind was the captain that night.

  Later that night they stopped off the Burundian coast, seeking safety. Heri and Derrick had been talking for more than half an hour. They kept on looking ahead as they spoke. The boat moved like a tortoise. At last, Derrick announced that they were approaching the shores of Kigoma in Tanzania. One woman stood up and praised the Lord. Heri advised that they should rather pray to God not to be caught by the police. The woman replied in dismay that they were refugees in quest of safety. Heri’s answer shocked her even more; he said that whether a refugee or not, any person on Tanzanian land or waters without a valid document would be arrested. Refugee status did not count; that person would go to jail, and it could take a long time to decide his or her fate. They could be placed in a refugee camp, but a frightening alternative was human trafficking.

  Getting the passengers onto land was a simple game that Heri had played many times before. Everyone hid behind containers on the boat, while the captain moved swiftly towards the port, then made a sharp U-turn towards the shore to elude soldiers and local people. The game involved dropping off their smuggled goods and passengers before returning quickly to the port. On a hill near the coast, a tiny village of maybe forty small houses emerged from behind the shade of coconut trees. Derrick shouted a few names and a couple of young guys appeared from nowhere. They ran to offload the illegal goods – pagnes from Congo, which were very expensive and prized in Tanzania – and the passengers, who were taken inside a small house and told not to go outside, no matter what happened.

  A bus arrived at dawn to collect the goods and the refugees; it came early to avoid contact with policemen. It already had a few people inside; most of them seemed foreign. All the pagnes were packed onto the bus, and then the women rushed to get on, but the driver explained that things were not going well in the camps. Tanzania had started a campaign to return refugees back to Congo. People on the bus confirmed that the camps had been closed, with new arrivals being deported back to their countries. They confirmed that the first group of Congolese refugees had already been returned home; it was just the beginning of the operation. The story of a peaceful Democratic Republic of Congo had travelled all around the world after pictures of a truce between rebel movements and the national government and news of a possible power-sharing deal had been published in newspapers everywhere. The world now believed that peace was being rebuilt in Congo, even while the Congolese people continued to live in terrible and chaotic times.

  Risto could not believe this news, and his insistence made a man stand up. He confirmed that he was in the next group to be returned to Congo. But the women were tired of staying in that small room; they believed that it was for the police to listen to their story and sympathise with their pain, not passengers in a bus.

  The bus driver advised Risto not to take any chances; as a young man alone, with no luggage, Tanzanian police would have no mercy for him. They would take him for a rebellious teenage boy, even a criminal; they might not even open their ears to listen to his story. Heri agreed; he advised Risto to stay with him and plan something else.

  It seemed that Tanzania had its angels and its devils; death and happiness could easily come in the same package. Risto was ready for both. At around four in the afternoon, Heri came to Risto’s small room with a plate of fish and rice. They ate slowly. Heri stared at Risto as if wondering who this young boy really was. Finally he broke the silence with many questions. Heri wanted to know all about him; which part of the Congo he was from; why he was in Tanzania; and where he was going exactly. Risto stopped eating and looked Heri in the eyes.

  ‘You know, Heri,’ he said, ‘I know you see a young man leaving his country for a foreign one, with no documents, but yet you haven’t understood the reason that would push someone to do this. I am from Bukavu; that is where I lived and grew up. I am running away from the war in my country.’

  ‘Does it mean that all we used to hear about Congo is true?’ Heri kept asking.

  ‘Most of the things that you hear about Congo are true. Of course some of them might not reflect the full truth, but “there is no smoke without fire”. People are being killed in Congo.’ Risto didn’t want to reveal that he had been a child soldier, forced to commit atrocities by foreign rebels, but he went on to tell him the stories of young girls like Mina, the young mother he had met at Panzi hospital, caring for a small child of a militia she hated, whose dreams had been stolen by wars.

  ‘Listen, Heri,’ he said finally. ‘When you hear that people were buried alive in Congo by the rebels or a militia movement, know that it has happened. If you hear that an entire village was killed, it means that men, women and children were massacred. If a few managed to escape, then it would be just by the grace of God. How often do you listen to the radio or watch TV or read a newspaper?’ he asked.

  Heri laughed, ‘There is no such thing on the lake.’

  Risto tried to explain how his country, Congo, one of the richest countries on the planet, was a victim. The wealth of his country had awakened demons of greed within superpower countries and global corporations. He gave him the example of coltan, the mineral used to make vital parts of cell phones, computers, and so on. Of all places, it could only be found in Congo. The search for coltan had become a trail of blood, and the mines where it w
as found had become the graves of many men and their dreams. Congo was a victim of wars it had never wished for. He saw that Heri’s sentiments about Congo had changed; his compassion towards Risto was visible.

  ‘And where are you going then?’ asked Heri.

  ‘I don’t know where I am going, but I am looking for a place where I can feel safe. A place where I can sleep without fear of raids at night, sleep without nightmares of unknown spirits trying to strangle me. A place where the noise of guns or stories of rebels won’t exist; just a place that will allow me to dream again.’

  They took a small canoe and paddled close to the coast towards Kigoma, as if they were local fishermen, so that soldiers would not suspect anything. The skies were clear as they reached Kigoma. They landed and walked slowly without talking to each other. As they walked through the town, an unknown voice behind them called ‘Uncle’ in French. The voice kept calling, and a French-speaking person in Tanzania meant a brother to Risto, so he turned round. It was a policeman, who gestured to him to stand still. Heri was a few steps ahead, and didn’t hear Risto calling him.

  The police had a lot of questions. First they wanted to see his passport; he had none. Second, they asked for his visa; he wondered if they thought his visa would have been stamped on his hands. He was a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo looking for a refugee camp in Tanzania. This didn’t matter to the police; he was arrested for entering Tanzania illegally, which meant six months in jail with a fine of thousands of shilingi. Worst of all, he risked deportation to Congo after serving his sentence.

  Risto could see Heri looking at him from afar. Risto’s hands and feet were free; so far, it was an arrest in words only. He waited for the right moment to make the biggest decision of his journey, praying for his feet to be strong. He was standing between two policemen; they chatted in Swahili, one patting his palm with his baton. It was time. Risto jumped like a mad cow escaping from an abattoir and ran. The policemen chased behind him. Risto had the legs of an Olympic medallist; he couldn’t believe his strength.

  He yelled Heri’s name as he passed him on the corner, and raced into the open square of a nearby mosque, running into the prayer room. Here he stood like a lost goat in an unknown house. A man came forward and rebuked the policemen, who were trying to enter. With his angry voice and wise beard, he told them to go away, the mosque was a holy place and open to everyone; the police couldn’t come to look for people in a mosque. He told them to wait outside in the street and not in the holy place.

  This man’s name was Omar; he was a friend of Heri’s. Heri had followed Risto into the mosque, and was pleased to see his old friend. Omar offered them shelter for a few hours, until the police got bored and left. In the meantime, he listened to Risto’s story. He suggested that he should rather try to get to the refugee camps in neighbouring Mozambique.

  The following afternoon, Risto hugged Heri and Omar at the train station in Kigoma. His seat was number 175, right next to the window. His neighbour was a woman in her late forties. She had a small boy, no more than ten years old, sitting next to her. After almost twenty minutes of shunting, the long, old train was on its way. It was packed, with many people standing. Their voices were like the clamour of singing parrots. Within a few minutes, a dispute broke out. A woman was said to have bought a stolen ticket, and now the owner was there with his friends, not to collect the ticket, but to demand the price of an emergency ticket in cash – twice the price of the ticket to Dar-es-Salaam. The owner of the ticket, a man in his early twenties, wanted reimbursement. It was a difficult dispute to resolve. The woman had bought the ticket from a young man outside the train station early that morning. There were no more tickets available from the cashier; she had no other choice. But in fact, Omar had advised Risto to be careful not to buy tickets from anyone except the cashier. There was a scam where someone would buy a large number of tickets on the first day of sale. Later, when the tickets were sold out, that person would open a private stand outside the train station with higher prices than normal. The salesmen would sell these tickets and then follow the customers onto the train, accusing them of stealing their tickets. This was exactly what Risto witnessed now. The ticket had a mark on it to prove that the robbers were the owners. This was a regular Kigoma business, and it happened because there were no police on the trains, leaving people vulnerable.

  So the dispute carried on until the security guard came to handle it. The woman was told to pay only 15 000 shilingi, the price of a normal ticket. But strangely enough, at the following train station, the owner of the ticket and his two friends got off the train and didn’t return. They had probably gone to another coach to extort a new victim.

  The journey continued. Each train station became the set of a dramatic movie. The tired and sleepy bodies of the passengers would become electrified at the magical sight of the open markets at the stations: craft vendors, people frying chicken, singing and dancing boys and girls with half-naked bodies wishing travellers a peaceful journey. Passengers had to beware: sweet talkative Tanzanian youths sneaked onto coaches empty-handed and got off at the next station with heavy bags. It was most unfortunate for anyone who was a foreigner, as some of the youths had police IDS. Questions would be followed by a heavy fine if the traveller had no papers. To avoid being spotted, Risto pretended to be sleepy and sick, and swallowed without a word the pain caused by a fat lady who had imposed herself between his legs. He only breathed at the stations. When the train moved on, the crowd stood singing like friends saying farewell to a bride.

  The sunrise didn’t bring joy to Risto; instead, it came with thorns in its rays. His eyes were about to explode in his head. He couldn’t see properly; all he wished was to soak his entire head in icy cold water. Many of his shilingi had gone into bottles of water that he had poured over his head, but in vain. The uneven movement of the old Tanzanian train worsened his torment. By 10am, he thought he needed to write a will for his remaining money; death was close by. He was unsure if it was him who was lost in a dizzy dance, or whether he was feeling the shaking movement of the train. He asked his neighbour to be his keeper; if the worst happened, she should take him to her place. If he died, he begged her to bury him and tell his family in Bukavu. The gracious woman handed him an aspirin. The pill called death closer; his head became a burning stove.

  Morning gleams confused the public lights of Morogoro. Risto realised he had lost an entire day. Through the window, he watched a seemingly confused boy of almost his age drifting around; he looked like a child lost in the jungle. He had a Congolese face, a Congolese hairstyle, and his clothes said it all. With his blazing head, Risto got off the train and approached the boy, who moved away. A greeting in the Congolese Swahili slang couldn’t buy him; Risto continued in French.

  ‘I am your Congolese brother; I need help, I am sick. Don’t be afraid. Please help me. My name is Risto. I am from Bukavu.’

  ‘My name is Merci. I am coming from Uvira.’

  ‘Do you stay here in Tanzania? I mean, where are you going?’

  Merci stared at Risto and kept quiet.

  ‘I am going to Dar-es-Salaam,’ Risto said.

  ‘Yes, I am going there too,’ replied Merci.

  It wasn’t easy to win a stranger’s trust just because one spoke his language.

  ‘Merci, I think it is God who wanted us to meet. You know, you are my only brother here; no one else knows me. I am very sick. I have got nerve problems and my head is about to explode. I will take the bus with you, but please don’t leave me if things get worse. You are my only brother in this strange country,’ Risto’s words came softly.

  Merci nodded, then looked Risto in the eyes: ‘Since when have you been sick?’

  ‘Yesterday early morning.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ his new friend assured Risto.

  The bus left a little later that morning, with both boys on it.

  . Chapter 14 .

  Risto and Merci arrived in Dar-es-Salaam at around 11am. Nei
ther of them had spoken a word on the bus. Omar’s deep voice echoed in Risto’s boiling head. Trust was the word he had repeated several times: ‘Never seek help from a young boy; do not trust anyone, even drivers who seem to be very friendly and helpful. Some policemen are robbers in uniforms; do not trust them either.’ This was a very difficult and strange journey, one that needed a lot of prayers and wisdom. Dares-Salaam was like hell if one didn’t have valid documents. The eyes didn’t want to see shilingi.

  In Dar-es-Salaam, known by its inhabitants as Dar, the buildings confirmed the supremacy of this city as opposed to other Tanzanian towns. The traffic was intense and the vigilance of the police was tight. Risto needed some rest with a dish of pills, or maybe a quick injection, and then to carry on the journey the following day. Merci had another idea; he wanted to head south and approach the Malawian border as fast as he could. He thought he could find refuge in Malawi. He took a bus to Kariako market in Dar, leaving Risto behind, still on the main road where the bus had dropped them that morning.

  Risto waited for the angel’s call; his head was on the verge of exploding – in fact, he was certain he could feel it disintegrating. Merci was his only chance of rescue, and he had gone. His only fellow countryman had left him half-dead in a foreign country. The first eye that would see him would be the early bird to take the food, the few shilingi he had on him. He crawled to a corner where an abandoned house stood, went inside the broken-down walls and lay in a corner. He took out the three remaining pills the lady in the train had given him, and gathered spit in his mouth to swallow the bitter pills. His eyes closed. His head had no room for thoughts; it shut down, waiting for death to come.