by Terry Morgan
CHAPTER 20
Benjamin Simisola always assumed that adapting to change would be easy but nothing had prepared him for working in forty degrees of heat and a wind filled with thick dust trying to build the tiny school. Was it worth it? Should places like this be just abandoned as unfit for human life? Such thoughts increasingly consumed his day to day thoughts.
An orange sun was sinking towards the flat horizon as he sat alone on the hard, red earth. Today he had had only two helpers, an old man with grey flecked hair called Mohamed and a woman he assumed was his wife. The couple had arrived at midday when it was even hotter and they'd sat in the shade before carrying a few concrete blocks to where Benjamin wanted them. Now they were gone, back along the dirt track towards the few trees that clung to life and the cluster of mud and straw huts, the tiny vegetable plot and the few cows they called home.
It was Solomon who had convinced him that education, especially for the girls, was as important as water supplies and electricity. And it was Solomon who had sent the money. "Over one hundred children will walk to school every day," he'd said. "It will be a big success."
"Yes," Benjamin thought as the sun sank further. "I suppose one day we might finish it. Then we'll need a teacher, books, pencils - and it'll need protecting or it'll be burned to the ground in an hour."
He struggled to his feet, fell into the dusty seat of his old Toyota truck and drove away still thinking about Solomon. "There are charities that help with building schools in Africa, Ben. But first we must show them what we can do with our own resources."
So, it was Benjamin who had made six journeys to Zinder in this old truck that sometimes failed to start to buy and bring back the concrete building blocks, the timber and the sheets of corrugated roofing. So far, all Benjamin had to show for his work were the foundations - a shallow rectangular trench dug into the hard earth, a concrete base and one layer of blocks.
When he arrived back at the compound he was exhausted, coughing and barely able to breath because of the dust. He went straight to the drinking-water station, used a cupful to wipe his dirty face and turned to one of the men, a Kenyan, fixing a water pipe. "Where's Bill?" he asked.
"They'll be back later."
"And Halima?"
"On the computer."
The camp's computer sat on a rickety plastic table with an uncomfortable wooden chair and a noisy fan that blew warm air at knee level. Halima, Benjamin noticed was engrossed in something, leaning towards the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Something interesting, Halima?"
"So much is happening in the world, sir."
"We can all know everything that happens by the click of a mouse, Halima. Sometimes it is best not to know but whatever you see and read, think about it, learn from it but treat it with caution."
"Will Mr Gabriel and Mr Solomon visit us soon?"
"I hope so."
"Do you want to use the computer now?"
"I'm too tired. Perhaps tomorrow I will have more than two old helpers who only hide from the sun."
"Do you want me to help?"
Benjamin didn't answer. Every day Halima looked taller, older, more mature. Her eyes looked brighter, more intelligent and her growing confidence in speaking English was obvious. Desperately in need of a shower he turned to go.
"Mr Benjamin, sir. Today I found many web sites of charities. They help to build schools, find teachers, help with energy from the sun and find water."
Benjamin stopped. "There are many but most are very small and, like us, they all need more money."
"Why can't your Government help?"
"Why indeed."
"Do Mr Solomon and Mr Gabriel ask for help?"
"All the time but it is not easy persuading others to part with money."
"Is that why they are so busy?"
Whether Halima saw him nod his head Benjamin didn't know, for he was standing in the entrance, just a dark silhouette against a deep red evening sky, feeling even more deflated.
"Delicious, Halima. Spicy, just as I like it. Where did you learn to cook suya like that?"
"My mother, sir." Halima smiled, bowing her head shyly but proudly "Tomorrow maybe I will cook miyan kuka. It is soup, sir, made from baobab leaves and okra. A man called Abu comes past the gate every day to sell meat and peanuts. I talk to him. If Ali agrees, tomorrow I will make tuwo shinkafa, sir from rice."
Breakfast was later than usual. Bill Larsen had only returned to the camp an hour before and it was now mid-morning, hot and dry with a stiff wind again swirling dust. For several days, the only way to breathe had been to wind a cloth around your mouth and nose. Outside, a group of his men worked, scarves over faces, fixing a truck with its engine running. Inside, Halima was clearing dishes, lingering, taking her time, looking at Bill Larsen. "You want to say something?"
"No sir."
"You sure? Ben tells me you spend a lot of time on the computer."
"Yes sir."
"Tell me."
"I am learning about charities, sir. I have sent emails to ask them for help."
Larsen, being almost computer illiterate, was unsure what to say.
"I have watched Pastor Gabriel's videos, sir, and I have read news." A look of worry spread across Halima's face. "He has many problems, sir."
"Why do you say that?"
Halima shuffled her bare feet and put the pile of plastic dishes back down. "Pastor Gabriel is a good man, sir, but I am afraid for him and Mr Solomon."
Bill Larsen wiped dirty beads of sweat from his face, put a desert-booted foot across the opposite knee, leaned back, bare, sun-burned arms behind his head. "Sit down, Halima," and she sat, nervously, on the edge of the vacant chair.
"What do you know?"
What Bill Larsen heard was a short but accurate description of Gabriel's problems.
"I do not understand, sir. What has Gabriel done wrong?"
Larsen got up, strolled around the tent and returned to his chair. Halima's eyes followed him. "In my opinion, he has done nothing wrong. But it is not my opinion that matters. It is the opinion of others."
"I think Gabriel needs to listen to young people, sir."
"Doesn't he already?"
"He is too busy, sir. I think the world is in danger. But it is not our fault."
"Do you think he doesn't understand that?"
"Maybe he does."
"What would you say to him if you saw him?"
A short pause. "I would say to him that he should be President, sir."
"You think he wants that?"
"Maybe not, sir."
Bill Larsen prided himself on sleeping anytime, anywhere. He'd slept undisturbed in the open on the cold, wet windy mountains of Wales, in hammocks in jungles and on hard wooden boards in Afghanistan. Normally he slept well on the canvas bunk but right now he tossed, turned and sweated even with the fan wafting air.
Larsen rarely gave thought to emotions and private matters. He'd been a professional soldier since he was eighteen years old, committed to it, travelled, got into scrapes, but survived. Leading other men was what Larsen did best. He'd never done family stuff, relationships, domesticity, the nine to five and, anyway, one minute he'd been in Germany, next minute Afghanistan, then Iraq. Then it was the SAS, Libya, Somalia, Kenya, Sierra Leone. Starting 'Specialised Tasks Africa' had been a new challenge and exciting. Opportunities for STA had come thick and fast, so fast he knew he wouldn't cope unless he focussed on one thing at a time. Then he'd met Gabriel.
The trouble now was he felt increasingly unsure whether his decision to commit STA to working with Gabriel had been a good one. Yes, building the camp on Gabriel's land had been the attraction, the relationship with the Niger President and Prime Minister had been vital and, with his increasingly skilful team and growing confidence he'd ventured further afield to deal with problems like Ouagadougou.
But Gabriel's plans seemed to be increasingly in turmoil, contact with him and Solomon was difficult and information vague. Benjami
n was feeling the same way and he'd suspected problems even before Halima's information.
And Halima? Talking to her was like talking to a fellow officer, an intelligence officer who provided a new and perhaps more accurate perspective on things. He had just watched her on the computer, searching the internet, reading news, checking things on Wikipedia, cutting and pasting snippets into a Word file. And all that after she'd helped Ali prepare a meal for thirty men, serve it, clear dishes and wash up. Bill was a one finger typist who had never come to terms with computers, but he'd watched Halima using eight fingers, even her thumbs. And all that skill acquired in such a short time.
"You see, sir? This is a report in an English newspaper of a man who was found shot dead. The man's name is Kenneth Eju. Mr Eju worked for Pastor Gabriel and Mr Solomon. And this, sir, is a website showing many Nigerian newspapers. The Daily Post has a report on an arrest warrant for Pastor Gabriel and about the police closing down Mr Solomon's business."
She was right. Larsen could see it.
"But I do not understand, sir. Why do they hate him?"
And Halima's eyes filled with tears so quickly it was as much as he could do to stop himself putting fatherly arms around her to comfort her. Bill's emotions, hidden from view and pushed out of sight because strict army training and self discipline ran through his veins, were all over the place.
His thoughts wandered back to his divorce, ten years ago, another subject he avoided thinking about because he'd hated the arguments, the irrationality, the rancour, the accusations. He'd signed papers that arrived with his eyes closed, posted them off and then forced it all from his mind. Forgetting had been easy because he'd been busy and preoccupied with other things.
He'd not seen his own son and daughter for years because he'd felt they were better off in England, even with a history teacher as a stepfather. But since Halima had arrived he'd thought about them a lot. Karl, eighteen, a young man and Emma about the same age as Halima.
It was Halima's energy he liked. It was her spirit, her interest in what was happening and her natural commitment to whatever she put her mind to. He wondered if Emma was like that and, somehow, he doubted it. English teenage girls from what he knew seemed to grow up too quickly into modern Western women, demanding and getting everything without ever experiencing the hard times.
He wondered what Emma would think about Halima for demanding nothing but answers to questions about what was happening to the world. About Halima from a family of poor subsistence farmers living in a mud brick house with a straw roof in a bleak, flat landscape whose first duty at daybreak was to check the cows and help her mother pound millet before walking a mile to a school - a school that had been burned to the ground by terrorists and then shoddily rebuilt with whatever materials still lay around. About Halima, comfortable in her oversized army uniform, her hair tied with an elastic band and bare feet.
Over breakfast one morning he'd asked Halima about her school.
"Well, sir. It is on a hill. I wake up to help my mother light the fire, sir. It is always dark but it is a good time because it is cool. I wake my sister, Lara, and we take dried grass to the cows. Then I help my mother until it is time for school."
"Where is your school?"
"It is one hour away, sir. We walk with other girls - Kemba and Chiamaka. It is a Moslem school, sir, far away along the stony road but we see other houses, other people. the cows, the fields where we grow the crops when it rains."
"How many teachers do you have? How many books?" Larsen who'd lived around villages like this for years knew the answer but he asked it anyway.
"One, sir. Her name is Nabila."
"And how many children go to your school?"
"Sometimes fifty, sir. Sometimes none. Sometimes they are sick, sometimes they are working. But I go every day. sir. Education is important if I want to go to university one day."
Yes, Larsen decided, Emma and her teenage friends should definitely meet Halima.
