134. Rescue

134.

My guides roll out a mat for me to sleep on and I lie peacefully on my back watching the stars.

A woman who lives in the village knows my guides and offers us a room to sleep in—on the sandy floor of her mud house--so we move inside, but there are more mosquitoes indoors out of the faint breeze. Repellent does not deter these insects! My sleeping bag is too hot to sleep in so I roll and slap out of cover all night long.

We are up and ready to move before dawn. I fix more tea for we three travellers and we’re off!

Here’s a village where the women go topless and wear a fringe of braided hair on their heads. We look each other over with curiosity.

Onward!

These two walkers never slow down. Only nineteen kilometers to go; I hike nine with the sun getting hotter and hotter and I see no other humans on the road—no vehicles either—nothing.

My fellow travellers are waiting for me in the middle of a new concrete bridge.

Blisters on my back and both feet are slowing me down. I gather a bottle of chalky water from the swamp under the short bridge, boil the daylights out of it, make tea and share it with my good-humoured buddies.

They soon hike off again at their usual break-neck pace calling back encouragement to me, but now I am definitely slowing down.

I pass kilometer posts marking the distance to the border—seven, six, five…everyone is out of sight again.

I crash on my back against kilometer post four-- too exhausted to even unbuckle my pack.

I close my eyes There is a noise. I open my eyes.

A black Arab in white robe and turban, riding a spotted horse has reined it to a halt in front—almost over me. He has a rifle in a scabbard and a neat moustache. We stare at each other for a time. Then he dismounts and rummages in his saddlebags. He produces a small can of condensed milk, two small loaves of bread and a handful of doughnut-like cookies and gestures for me to take them as a cadeau.

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