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139.
Several men are resting beside the road in the shade of a shelter they have built of branches.
I ask in gestures if I could join them and they kindly make room for me. One of the men even sends a child into the village and the kid returns soon with a pillow for me! I close my eyes and sleep peacefully surrpumded by these men for the rest of the day.
I wake in the late afternoon, thank my benefactors and hike off. I walk until I can no longer lift my feet then pause for a solitary meal of bread and sardines sitting beside the vacant road.
Good heavens! Here comes a big truck going my way!
It’s the first vehicle I have seen moving since crossing the last border. The laughing driver stops at my frantic waving and, with his buddies from the cab, helps me clamber into the huge empty dump-bed. For me it’s as good as a Rolls Royce limo! I am pitched around the steel bed like a loose pebble as the driver navigates the ruts but we soon arrive at a bridgeless broad brown river--the end of the road. The trucker refuses to be paid! (Hooray!)
Dozens of empty canoes line the shore and clamoring boatmen wanting to ferry the tourist of the day across besiege me but the biggest and meanest puts me into the boat of his choice and in a few moments I am poled across the water.
Alerted by the commotion on the farther shore, a policeman is waiting on the river bank to greet me, confiscate my passport and welcome me to Chad.
...
138.
Nightfall.
I am alone on the road. My clothes and body are filthy. I bathe in a shallow, warm rain puddle.
A bull wanders over to check me out. I guess I am OK since he wanders off again.
I continue down the road passing villages of half a dozen huts with radios blaring. Between the villages the frogs are loud.
I lay down in the empty road to rest but the roaring sound of thousands of mosquitoes swarming close to the ground scares me back onto my feet to continue pacing. I walk until moonset.
There is plenty of starlight to continue but I am too weary.
I cover myself with my plastic poncho sheet but it is so hot I must leave my head exposed with one exposed arm beating off the mosquitoes. A dog trots by snarling, but does not investigate more closely. Some smaller creature scurries across the plastic sheet. Exhausted, I sleep.
Dawn: the blisters on my feet and back have burst.
I stop at the first village I come to and ask with gestures for water. A woman brings a small pail full while some men gather to watch me as I boil water on my little gas stove and prepare tea.
The village bully soon arrives. He looks at my open backpack and gestures for a gift from me. Then he grabs a package of dry macaroni from my pack. I tell him in gestures that I can’t spare anything since I have no idea how long I will be walking. I put my tea things away and get ready to fight for the food. He is about my size but looks strong and in top condition. I will undoubtedly lose a fight with him but I believe I must keep the few provisions I have if I am going to live through this miserable passage. To my great relief the other villagers convince him to return the package.
I pick up my pack and march off feeling kind of jittery. If he follows me into the desert I may die fighting for a stupid package of noodles. Luckily no one follows me. ...
137.
The road is bordered by flat land and shallow swamp from all the recent rain.
Nothing moves.
Grey heron-like birds and little red and black birds sit on roadside shrubs gazing at me as I pass.
When the sun is high I flop under a scrawny tree reading another of Robin’s books: “The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born”, a story about an honest man trying to make a living in Ghana, a country where everything runs on bribery and corruption.
His wife and children suffer and his mother-in-law cries that he is less than a man because he doesn’t know how to “play the game of life”.
There it is again.
Sometimes the rules we are taught to live by seem only fairy tales whereas real life is a game of brute strength, bribery and murder; but then some angel on horseback comes along with the gift of life--a smile and some kindness…
I walk all afternoon. It's very hot. The road seems drier....
136.
Cameroon Border: I sleep fourteen hours in the mud room of a “hotel” and wake a bit stiff. There are no banks here but the owner of the little “hotel” I am staying in wants thirty US dollars to send to the Malta National Lottery so he exchanges some money for me.
This hotel owner is an “Ibo” which is some kind of tribesman. He says he and his family, two wives and six children, were hunted through the bush where they had to live “like monkeys” in Niger. Eleven months ago he crossed the border into Cameroon and invested his life’s savings in this miserable hotel but the title was not clear and he expects to lose “everything” shortly. He considers a win in the Malta National Lottery his last hope.
Walking out to find a market to buy something to eat, I meet a young man who offers to help me. He speaks some English and says his name is Tom. He says he hates Frenchmen because they sleep with black women and then beat them instead of giving them money.
He likes Americans because they are generous. This particular American is unfortunately too poor to be very generous but he says its OK because he just wants to practice his English anyway. Tom’s brother, who lives in Lagos, is a general and is famous for killing Ibos. The roads east are closed from flooding and it is almost seventy miles to Fort Lamy, Chad. I don't want to stay here so I guess I’ll walk it.
I buy some canned sardines, bread and canned milk and set out before dawn....
136.
Speaking halting French, my benefactor says his name is Azarak Byriam and he is from Miriam, Cameroon.
He wishes me a good day and rides away.
In a daze, I drink the milk and eat the food, and soon feel marvelously refreshed.
I have just finished the snack when a Land Rover pulls up going my way. Would I like a lift to the border? No payment. For free.
Saved in the very nick of time by these two miraculous occurrences, I accept the ride but am damn near overcome with emotion.
I ride into the border town, gulp three bottlers of orange soda pop and walk across the border. I am two days late on my transit visa but am the first person to cross in the weeks since the floods closed the roads west. The understanding border police let me cross with no argument. ...
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. ...
133.
While I wait in the shade, the chief of the village walks by accompanied by a few dignified men dressed in long white robes. Their party is going to a small river nearby to bathe. When they find I plan to walk after dark the chief strongly advises me not to do it since wild animals and bandits make the road far too dangerous. As we discuss this, two merry men approach walking in the direction of the border. The chief discusses my problem with them and they agree to allow me to accompany them since they are walking to the border too. The chief says he vouches for the honesty of the two and since there is nothing else offered I go with them.I have called these men “merry” and they do seem to really enjoy themselves and having me along as a kind of “mascot”. Like me, they know a few words of French, and they cheerfully encourage me to keep up but they do set a blazing pace. I start carrying my backpack on my head the way they carry their rolled-up parcels and it seems to make walking somehow easier, maybe because the spine is not constantly bent under the weight. I soon almost master the knack of balancing the load. Nightfall—no rest. My companions insist that I use their flashlight though I don’t really need it since there is plenty of starlight. About ten pm we stop at a village where my guides are known. I can buy gas for my stove here and I boil up some sweet tea for all of us.
A few stranded truckers sit around campfires talking quietly and listening to their favorite African music on portable radios. ...
