Central African Republic: You see how we suffer?
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Friday March 11, 2005 00:30 by Chekov
An Irish anarchist reports from CAR
We had very little prior information about the Central African Republic, commonly known as the CAR. Our guidebook had only a couple of pages about it, most of which seemed to be very out of date, with almost no concrete information. We had heard the tales of the dictator Bokassa who used to publically feed his enemies to his pet lions and crocodiles, who had ordered massacres of protesting primary school kids and who had been rumoured to indulge in cannabalism, but that was in the 1970's
We had very little prior information about the Central African Republic, commonly known as the CAR. Our guidebook had only a couple of pages about it, most of which seemed to be very out of date, with almost no concrete information. We had heard the tales of the dictator Bokassa who used to publically feed his enemies to his pet lions and crocodiles, who had ordered massacres of protesting primary school kids and who had been rumoured to indulge in cannabalism, but that was in the 1970's.
Central African Republic:
You see how we suffer?
I TRIP TO BERBERATI
We had very little prior information about the Central African
Republic, commonly known as the CAR. Our guidebook had only a couple
of pages about it, most of which seemed to be very out of date, with
almost no concrete information. We had heard the tales of the
dictator Bokassa who used to publically feed his enemies to his pet
lions and crocodiles, who had ordered massacres of protesting primary
school kids and who had been rumoured to indulge in cannabalism, but
that was in the 1970's. We had searched for information on the
internet, but we found little. There were some newswire articles
about dire petrol shortages and crime waves but it appeared that this
problem had been solved a few weeks before we were set to travel.
There were some human rights reports of systematic summary executions
of suspected criminals, but tourists are immune from this. We also
found a few traveller's reports from 1998 recounting that all the
land borders had been closed to foreigners due to the high incidence
of highway banditry, but the woman in the CAR embassy in Yaounde had
happily sold us visas, naturally overcharging us, and assured us that
the borders were open again. We also met one Central African refugee
in Yokadouma who regaled us with tales of horror, mayhem and flight
through showers of bullets, but he assured us that the country was
quiet now. Thus, there didn't seem to be any overriding reason not to
go to the CAR, but just in case, we decided that we'd first go to
Berberati, the first town in CAR - just across the border - and test
the water. If things looked dodgy we'd be able to flee back to the
charted lands of Cameroon. Also, since Berberati was a mere 150 km or
so from where we were in Yokadouma, we should be able to get there
before dark if we set out early enough.
We were also running short of money as we had been unpleasantly
surprised to discover that Yokadouma had no means of cashing
travellers cheques. We were down to our last $25 cash, so we had to
try to make it to Berberati as quickly as possible and hope that
there was a bank there. Therefore we arose at the unprecedented time
of 4 am, to make absolutely certain that no bus could escape before
us, and made our way to Yokadouma's small bus terminal. We approached
the ticket office, woke the official who was sleeping inside, and
asked about buses to Berberati. To our dismay we were told that none
were travelling for 2 days. We couldn't afford to wait. The official
explained our options. We could try to hitch a lift with one of the
sugar lorries which take passengers directly across the border, along
unmarked tracks to the village of Yola in the CAR, from where we
could hope to find onward transport to Berberati the following day.
Otherwise we could take a bus 100km North to the main road and hope
to hitch a ride from there across the border. We decided on the
second option and duly climbed aboard yet another cramped minibus.
The bus slowly filled and by 6:30 am it pulled out of town towards
the North. After passing through a few tiny villages we came to a
slightly bigger village with a customs officer and a pole across the
road. He asked us, through the window, where we were headed.
"Berberati" we replied. His eyes lit up and he said "but there is a
vehicle going to Berberati from here today", pointing into the
village, "you see that white one down there". We were slow to believe
him, suspecting a ploy to strand us in his jurisdiction but a number
of bystanders confirmed his story. It was market day here, in Gari
Gombole, and many Central Africans had come across the border to buy
goods and do their shopping, therefore transport was plentiful.
Gari Gombole
We dismounted from our original bus and followed the customs
officer into his office to complete the formalities. This naturally
turned out to be an attempt to charge us $10 for a fictional customs
pass. We escaped by declaring that, given the unexpected fees we'd
have to abandon our trip, and return to Yokadouma. We left his office
and walked directly down the road to find the white vehicle that was
allegedly travelling to Berberati. It was a small Isuzu 3000kg
flatbed truck with a railing around the edge. The owner was delighted
to offer us passage for $8, as long as we didn't mind sitting in the
back "like the Central Africans do", as he put it, with a large grin.
His brother issued us with official tickets and advised us to eat
some food while we were waiting. We deemed this prudent and headed
into a nearby food shack.
Although it was only 8 am, we opted for a large and heavy meal of
the local cassava staple with soup and a lump of meat, accompanied by
a bottle of Guinness foreign extra, to steel ourselves for the
journey. We watched a dozen young men load a multitude of goods onto
the back of the truck: sacks of rice, millet and cassava flour, dried
fish, crates of beer piled high, sacks of vegetables, clothes,
livestock, clocks and stereos. An aged white man with leathered skin
covered in dark blotches emerged from the market throng. He asked us
a few questions about our trip and assured us that it was only 90km
to Berberati, and that we should be there by noon. We took him for a
missionary and thus were sceptical of his estimate since he'd be
accustomed to travel in a modern 4 wheel drive.
As we were finishing our meal, 20 people or so came from nowhere,
scrambled onto the back of the lorry and started to establish places
for themselves among the cargo. We hurried out but were too late to
follow the driver's advice and get a seat towards the front; we had
to make do with squeezing in the back corner. I sat on the railing
and Deirdre sat among the beer crates. Naturally it took the vehicle
another hour or so to leave, by which time even more people and goods
had joined us in the back. There were at least 30 people on the back
as we pulled out of town, in addition to the large cargo. We trundled
slowly to the border, only a kilometre away, enough time for me to
almost do a back flip off the side as the truck lurched sideways,
also causing Dierdre to be partialy buried alive by an avalanche of
beer crates.
CAR - first blood
The Cameroon border post was a little hut set beside a wooden gate
which blocked the road. I leapt off the crowded lorry and entered the
hut, accompanied by the driver. The desk inside was manned by a small
boy who jumped up and went running off to fetch the official. 5
minutes later the official arrived, stamped our passports and
demanded a $5 fee. I succeeded in halving the price by pleading lack
of cash, but couldn't escape having to pay. We were now down to our
last banknote 10,000 CFA, worth about $15. The vehicle continued
slowly on its way for about 10 minutes, then it stopped and 6 young
men emerged from a hut at the roadside, unloaded the crates of beer
and carried them off into the forest. We kept going and sadly the
extra space thus created was soon filled by new passengers who were
waiting by the roadside every few hundred metres, standing beside
large sacks of bulky cargo. After a short while we came to a small
village with a large clearing at its centre. There were 5 or 6
vehicles similar to our one all stopped here, each one piled
unbelievably high with goods fresh from Gari Gombole's market. Some
uniformed customs officials were examining the cargoes, poking and
prodding the bags of goods. A crowd of perhaps a hundred people was
standing around the vehicles or sitting on the grass underneath
trees, waiting patiently. We all dismounted and our driver pointed
out the immigration office where we needed to go to obtain a stamp.
The officer inside was extremely friendly in stark contrast to the
Cameroonians. He asked me about Irish football and Gerry Adams before
explaining the disappointing news that there was a $10 fee to get a
stamp. I explained that I had absolutely no money since I needed to
go to Berberati to change a travellers cheque. He appeared to believe
me but was dumbfounded by the situation. "You mean you've got no
money at all, not even $2?", he said sounding hurt. He shook his head
saying "I can't give you the stamp, you'll have to continue to
Berberati and get it there once you have some money". We had no stamp
but at least we were free to continue. I hurried out to join the
truck, which was once again filled with passengers, all waiting for
me, crammed onto the back of the truck, baking in the heat of the
rising sun. We started out and before long we stopped at another
small huddle of buildings. A fellow passenger advised me that I
should go to the commisariat here, but I declined to follow his
advice. Nevertheless we were far from inconspicuous on the back of
the truck and a prowling policeman soon spotted our white skin and
ordered me to their office. There were two officers in the room. They
examined our passports and demanded $10 to stamp them. Again I
recounted our tale, again they looked flabbergasted. It seemed to be
going according to plan when a very angry senior afficer stormed into
the room and shouted "$15 each, stamp duty". He started interrogating
me and was driven into a rage by my story. The passengers were still
sitting outside in extreme discomfort on the truck and the driver now
entered to try to hurry up our dealings. He appeared to be perplexed
by my unwillingness to pay, negotiated a new price of $8 on our
behalf and offered to loan me the money - in return he'd hang onto
our passports until we paid him back. Since this would leave us with
only $7 left, I was very reluctant to agree but was finally forced to
concede defeat when the officer ordered one of his underlings to
unload Deirdre and our baggage from the vehicle.
We continued on our way, ever fuller as we picked up more and more
people waiting by the side of the road. 4 or 5 young men were
employed to load all the extra goods onto the truck. They hung onto
the railing at the back while we were travelling and entertained the
crowd with their banter. Whenever we were ready to start again after
a stop, they'd shout "fasten your seat belts" to the crowd who
greeted their jests with loud laughter. In general, the passengers
seemed to be in remarkably high spirits considering the excruciating
lack of comfort. They were a mixed assortment of people from old men
clutching novelty wall clocks, to teenaged womens valiantly
protecting tiny babies from the dangers of being squashed by careless
passengers or avalanches of cargo. Here, like in Cameroon, all the
men were dressed in Western clothes. The flowing robes and
brilliantly coloured gowns of West Africa were not to be seen. The
women, for their part did wear the same wrap skirts as in West
Africa, but with second hand t-shirts rather than the bright tailored
tops of West Africa. Still there were some similarities between the
regional clothing - sure enough a small boy towards the front was
resplendently decked out in a complete replica Manchester United
football kit. In general the passengers were very friendly and
pleasant towards us, interested to know where we were from and why we
were here, and above all anxious that we understand the difficulty of
their lives. The phrase: "you see how we suffer?" was one that we
heard several times and indeed we would have had great difficulty in
not seeing it as this most wearying journey wore on. The only
exceptions to the warmth of our fellow passengers was one shifty
looking youth who persistently tried to sell me diamonds and a middle
aged, uniformed passenger who kept advising me to visit the police
station for a stamp in every tiny hamlet that we stopped at.
The countryside which we were travelling through opened out into a
rolling woodland with patches of long, thick grasses. The occasional
villages were small, orderly affairs. The houses all faced onto the
road and were laid out in an unusually formal, ordered way, which
made the villages seem somehow artificial. This could be a
consequence of the forcible population relocations of the mad
dictator Bokassa, who ordered the entire population to move their
homes to the environs of one of the country's exceedingly few roads.
Mostly the buildings were the familiar rectangular mudbrick affairs,
roofed with a thich grass thatch, while a minority of buildings were
constructed entirely of bundles of dried grass and looked very
vulnerable to being blown down by a wolf. Many buildings were
decorated with elaborately patterned woven grass mats and we saw
several old men at work constructing these weaves and large baskets
of a similar style by the roadside. The villages had many seats and
benches fashioned out of cane providing places to sit outside the
houses.
lunch
At about 1:30 we stopped in a village of about 100 buildings, the
largest we'd seen so far. The driver instructed everyone to climb
down, as a lot of fresh cargo needed to be loaded. We watched the
youths clear a space on the bottom of the truck and fill it with huge
bags of grain. The cargo was piled back up on top of these bags, but
the people still didn't get back on board. The driver was missing. We
stood idly about in the meagre shade waiting for him to return. The
local drunkard took this ideal oppurtunity to express his admiration
for France to me. I escaped when the driver appeared from behind a
hut, beckoned for me to follow him, turned around and dissappeared
again. I followed to find him sitting with his family enjoying a
hearty lunch. We had come to this village, which turned out to be a
large detour, so he could eat with his parents. At least they did
offer to share some food with me. They claimed Portuguese origin and
indeed they had unusually light skin. After chatting with them for a
few minutes, I looked up and saw that everyone had got back on the
bus. I hurriedly thanked my hosts and rushed out fearing that I'd
lose my place.
Thankfully Deirdre had heroically defended my spot and I settled
back into my crevice between two sacks of cassava. Deirdre sat on a
bag of flour with her lags dangling over the side. Over lunch some
new passengers had joined us and I counted 48 heads on the back of
the truck as we started up again. We retraced our steps to the
Berberati road, where some women were waiting with 6 big sacks of
vegetables. Inevitably we stopped. I protested to Deirdre that there
was no way that we could fit the extra load. Just then, an
earthmoving lorry rolled into town and pulled to a halt behind us.
Some 15 passengers piled off the back and started unloading their
luggage and transferring it to our vehicle. Sure enough they all
jumped on the back with their sacks of rice and bags of cassava. My
position was becoming extremely uncomfortable, even excruciating. A
tall, well-built man was sitting on one of my shoulders and I was in
constant danger of being swallowed by the sacks of grain. A bystander
took this chance to call out to me that phrase that seemed to be the
slogan of the CAR. "Do you see how we suffer?", he said, "In Paris
you all drive around in your own cars don't you. When you go back,
tell them how we suffer". I was too busy suffering to bother
correcting his misapprehension about my nationality. After the new
passengers had climbed aboard, the driver turned his attention back
to the group of women whom we had originally stopped for. Catching a
look of increduility on my face, the driver explained to me: "it's
the only transport this week. If I don't take them, their goods will
rot before they get to market". Still his concern for the women
didn't prevent him from fiercely haggling over the price they'd have
to pay before being allowed on.
The vehicle continued, ridiculously overburdened. I was in
constant pain. We travelled some distance like this until I finally
managed to squirm my way to a position alongside Deirdre, dangling my
feet over the edge. The cargo now rose well above the railing , so we
had to reach down to hold it and it offered minimal protection
against falling off. However we deemed this position safest as, if
the lorry were to tumble over, which seemed eminently likely as it
lurched dangerously from side to side, we'd be thrown to safety.
Whenever the lorry did lurch towards our side we were violently swung
over the edge, holding onto the rail beneath us like gymnasts on the
parallel bars. The road was fringed with thick bushes and trees. Many
branches overhung the road. One of the workers hanging onto the back,
had the job of warning people when such a branch was coming, but
several people received blows to the head anyway. The mood of the
passengers stayed miraculously good throughout this grueling ordeal.
They laughed loudly at the constant jokes of the workers. They
greeted every violent bump, or sudden, dangerous lurch with
unrestrained mirth and somebody would invariably catch our eye and,
grinning, shake his head - as if to ensure that we hadn't missed the
event. Everyone was very concerned that we should understand what
it's like for the Central Africans!
The afternoon progressed and the journey wore painfully on. We
came to a river which was crossed by means of a hand-pulled ferry. It
took half an hour for the ferry owner to haul the bus across the
small river with a hand winch. At least this did give us a time to
reintroduce blood to our limbs. The crowd's jocularity began to
stretch thin at some stages and allow one to see it for what it was,
that is a reaction to despair and powerlessness. We stopped at a
small village in front of a closed rain gate. Somebody was dispatched
to fetch the official in charge of it. It turned out that he was
eating dinner and would attend to us afterwards. Half an hour later,
waiting crammed onto the truck, he emerged from his house overlooking
the road. He walked slowly towards the gate, then suddenly seemed to
change his mind. He turned around and began walking back towards the
house. As he reached the door, he stopped and grinned at the crowd,
it had just been a joke! He came back towards the gate. The people
greeted this display of arrogance with a loud burst of raucous
laughter. They fell around holding their sides, congratulating the
official on his wit, the only response possible short of total
despair.
arrival
We finally arrived in Berberati at 7:30pm, 10 hours to cover 90
km. Naturally, it was already dark and there appeared to be few
buildings in the town with electric light. The driver, who had
befriended us at this stage, kindly stopped outside the town's finest
hotel and helped us to get our baggage down. Mercifully our room cost
only $4, so after recuperating our passports, we had $3 with which to
feed ourselves. We asked the receptionist where we could find food.
He directed us to the local bakery, but warned us to hurry back as it
wasn't safe to be out late at night. We followed his directions and
arrived in the bakery, the local evening spot. It was a curious
hybrid of a place. One part of it served French pastries, another
part served beer. The decor was dour, reminiscent of soviet-era
Eastern Europe, and all the fare was served in archaic style by
formal waiters with silver trays and tongs. The clientele was all
African, groups of 2 or 3 people huddled quietly over a beer. We
learned to our dismay that beer cost twice the price that it did in
Cameroon but we were still able to afford a dinner of two breadrolls
and a shared Mocaf beer to celebrate our safe arrival in the Central
African Republic.
II A DAY IN BERBERATI
We arose early the following morning and set out to take care of
the pressing matter of our finances. We enquired from the hotel's
gateman and were exceedingly relieved to be informed that there was a
functioning bank in town. He directed us to it, a few hundred yards
further along the town's main road. We promptly followed his
intructions and walked along this undulating, muddy track until we
came to the bank. This was supposed to be the centre of town yet the
buildings were widely spaced and surrounded by patches of greenery.
The bank was shiny and new, with 5 respectably dressed employees
sitting attentively behind desks with modern computers. Not only was
there none of the long queues normal in African banks, there were
absolutely no other customers during the hour we spent there. They
were happy to cash our travellers' cheques but had clearly never
performed the operation before, as they all gathered around one
monitor to figure out how to negotiate correctly through their
computerised system. Eventually we succesfully got our money, and
since it was now 9 am and we had long missed all onward transport
from Berberati, we set out to uncover the delights of Central
Africa's second town.
Berberati is a small town, with perhaps 10,000 inhabitants. The
town is centred on a 'T' junction of two muddy tracks. Near this
junction lie the small bus-park and market, the bank and the few
large buildings; administrative offices, churches, a school, and some
commercial enterprises. The few large shops are big concrete hulks,
obviously designed with defensibility in mind. We visited one to buy
batteries and soap. It was run by an old Portuguese man, with the
tough weatherbeaten face of a frontier capitalist. He asked us the
purpose of our presence in this far-flung corner and when we told
him, he shook his head in wonder and expressed his admiration. Even
more fortified than the shops are the 3 or 4 big diamond buying
centres, with razor wire, high walls and gates manned by at least 4
heavily-armed guards. Otherwise there is little evidence of any
commerce or industry save for a few small, poorly-stocked, informal
shops.
The streets are muddy, uneven and empty of vehicles. In the entire
day that we spent there we saw perhaps three cars, sturdy 4-wheel
drives, driven by white men with tough faces: merchants, managers of
the nearby coffee plantations, or diamond dealers. We wandered
through the market but hurried away, intimidated by the stares of the
gangs of idle youth standing listlessly around. Except for the
curious bar-bakery which we had visited the previous evening, the
only eating and drinking establishment of any kind were a couple of
crumbling 'nite-bars'. These looked like relics of happier days, for
now the walls that were painted with bright pictures of revelry were
dull and flaking. Weeds pushed through the concrete and they had a
deserted look about them. After making some enquiries, we finally
located one, on the outskirts of town, which was still functioning
and served food and drink. The bar was equipped with a television and
a satellite dish and there was a group of burly men watching it over
a beer. We sat in the empty restaurant and ordered chicken, the one
item on the menu. We sipped a beer while we waited. 20 minutes later
a small boy on a big bike arrived with a live chicken and a bag of
potatoes. It was a long wait.
After lunch, since the sun was now setting, we hurried home,
through the slow centre and back to our hotel before darkness fell,
since the streets seemed full of desperate and idle youth. Our hotel
was, like all the other buildings in town, built for security. It was
surrounded by a high wall and a watchman sat in a booth guarding the
gate. We deemed that we'd sampled enough of Berberati's charms in one
day and since we had survived unharmed thusfar, we decided to press
on into the depths of the country, to the capital Bangui. Thus we
told the watchman that we would be leaving the next day and asked him
to wake us in time for the Bangui bus. He informed us that we should
be at the station by 4:30 am to ensure a seat, but since it'd still
be dark at that time, we'd need to bring a security guard with us. We
thought that this advice was merely a means of earning a tip for the
watchman and that the precaution was unneccassary since Berberati is
a small town and thusfar in Africa, we had found small towns to be
very safe indeed, since the strong social structures of the community
guarantee security. Any delinquence is sure to be observed by a
relative, neighbour or acquaintance who will ensure that news of the
wrongdoing is effectively known. Besides what criminals are desperate
enough to get up at 4 am? Nevertheless we agreed to be accompanied
since at least he would be able to show us the correct place to wait
and it wouldn't be expensive. Therefore we arranged for him to wake
us the next morning in time for the bus.
III BERBERATI - THE BUS PARK
Having slept for a few short hours, we heard the appointed
knocking at our door, shortly after 4 am. We dressed quickly and
hurried out to find the watchman waiting for us. He accompanied us
out of the hotel compound, holding our torch for us, and onto the
muddy main street. It was still entirely dark as he led us towards
the bus park. As we approached the 'T' junction at the town's centre,
we could dimly make out the shapes of a dozen human figures, standing
in the middle of the road ahead of us. Their shapes were silhouetted
by the strong moonlight but it was a misty night and the gloom gave
them an eerie appearance, like zombies. When we got nearer, we could
discern them more clearly. They were all young men, standing
moitonless in the road, apparently waiting for some event. They
stared sullenly at us as we passed them, and I was now very glad to
have the watchman with us. One called out a question to me, asking
where we were headed, "Bangui", I replied and hurried on. The bus had
not yet arrived when we got to the bus park. There was a small group
of people who also seemed to be waiting for a bus so we thanked the
watchman, tipped him, found a bench near the others and settled down
to wait. As we waited we were pestered by a young man who appeared to
be trying to get a tip from us for helping us to catch the bus. We
did our best to ignore him, as he offered to do various services for
us.
After 20 minutes or so there were barely more than a handful of
other passengers and we began to question the wisdom of arriving so
early. Then, in a sudden flurry of activity and commotion, a sound of
a heavy diesel engine was heard and became increasingly louder, until
a huge vehicle turned into the yard of the bus park. It was not so
much a bus as a converted heavy-duty goods lorry in which the cargo
container had been converted to take passengers. Holes had been cut
in the sides to serve as windows and benches had been bolted to the
base for seating.
Attack - wave 1
As soon as this 'bus' appeared, bedlam broke out around us. Our
candidate helper began gesturing franctically towards the bus with
one hand while pulling at my backpack with his other. I shook him
off, slung the backpack over my shoulder, grabbed our satchel in my
other hand and charged towards the bus with the baggage dangling from
my limbs. For some reason there appeared to be about 6 passengers on
the bus already as it pulled into the station. Their sillhouettes
could be made out, all standing in the aisle, as the bus circled the
yard and came to a halt in front of us. I raced for the door still
trying to fend off the helper whose hands I could feel dragging at
one of my bags. When I got to the bus, closely followed by the
helper, there was a small bunch of men crowding around the door in
front of me. For some inexplicable reason this group seemed to
mysteriously part as I approached, letting me at the door. I grabbed
onto the sides of the door with both hands, to haul myself onto the
elevated seating area. A guy was standing in the doorway, blocking my
entry and he seemed not to be moving out of my way. I felt something
holding me back and looked behind me to see two hands hanging onto my
pockets. Suddenly everything made sense. I beat the hands away and
forced myself past the guy in the doorway with great difficulty
because I was burdened by two heavy bags. I stumbled forward into the
aisle and felt a hand unzip my back pocket. I whirled around to deter
the culprit but almost immediately I felt the clasp on top of my
backpack being popped open behind me. I tried to make a dive for a
seat, a defensible space where I could have my back to a wall, but
everytime I made for a seat, a large man would suddenly appear and
snatch the cushioned base of the seat away, from right under my nose.
At first I didn't give much thought to this, accepting it as just
another random element of the general lunacy, but when it happened
for the third time in succession, it dawned on me that these snarling
young men who were snatching the seats were claiming that they had
reserved them and were demanding that I pay for the privelege of
their use. Yet I was still under assault by the pack of thieves who
were persistently trying to drag stuff out of my bag behind me and I
was in no state to undertake a fierce negotiation with a seat-bandit.
In no time at all, all of the seat bases were stored in the overhead
luggage racks and a dozen tough-looking men stood around aggressively
guarding their 'reserved' domains. I was at a complete loss, there
was a limit to how long I could beat off the pack of thieves and I
was out of ideas. Then suddenly I spotted Deirdre at the other end of
the bus. She had climbed on the back door during all the commotion.
Since, in Africa, it is almost always assumed that the man carries
the money, the pack of thieves had totally ignored her and she had
even managed to secure a seat at the back of the bus. I made a final
Hurculean effort and broke away from the thieves, barged past the
guys blocking my path, and dived into the seat beside Deirdre. I
struggled out of the backpack's straps and swung it around onto the
ground in front of me. I clasped the bag firmly between my thighs to
protect it and Deirdre similarly protected hers. Next I placed my
satchel, locked with a mini-padlock, on my lap with the strap around
my neck. I closed all the zips and clasps which the thieves had
opened and, having thus made our possesions safe, I assessed the
damage of the initial assault.
A sinking feeling came over me as I turned my attention from the
bags to my pockets. It felt as if they were far less full than they
should have been. In panic I checked my left pocket and was
enormously relieved to find my passport and wallet, with all my
money, still there. My right pocket was empty, but surely there had
been something in it before? I went through the possibilities and
realised that I had put our torch in it before running for the bus.
It was gone. Still, it was a very poor quality plastic torch, made in
China and bought in Senegal for about a dollar. Despite its
sentimental value, having lit our way across West Africa, it would be
easily replaced. Nothing else was missing. I breathed a sigh of
relief at the smallness of the loss. But we were certainly not out of
the woods yet.
Wave 2
As I shifted my attention from my pockets and bags to the
surrounding environment, I noticed that one of the young men was
standing right beside me, shouting something in an angry tone. I
slowly came to the realisation that he had 'reserved' this seat and
was now demanding payment for it. He was demanding $10, a ridiculous
ammount considering the fare was only $15, and he reacted with
aggressive indignation to our offers of reasonable sums. We refused
to be intimidated and despite his rising anger, our offer remained
firm at $1. As this argument went on, I noticed, behind our
tormentor, a familiar face. It was one of our fellow passengers from
our trip to Berberati, a friendly young student with whom we had
briefly chatted during the journey. I thought that this might be our
salvation and called out a greeting to him. He greeted me back and I
said "hey, it's pretty crazy here, he?", indicating our enemy with a
nod of my head. I had been expecting him to come to our aid, but he
only nodded sadly and said: "you see how it is for us". Until this
point I had assumed that all this banditry was aimed at us, the rich
foreigners. Now I looked around the bus and noticed that there were
passengers sitting in most of the seats and every passenger was in
the same situation as us, attempting to fend off one of these angry
seat-bandits. I understood, for the first time, that we were in a
terrorised society where security did not exist.
I turned my attention back to our immediate situation and tried to
press the dollar into our assailant's hand. He refused to take it,
shook his head in disgust, turned away, climbed down from the bus and
walked off. We had survived this first battle but we knew that he
wouldn't give up so easily and we remained in a heightened state of
alert as we sat there.
Wave 3
However, the next onslaught proved to come from a different
source. A scruffy young man, no older than 18, dressed in ragged and
dirty clothes, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to move over.
This came as quite a surprise as myself and Deirdre were squeezed
tightly onto the narrow bench with no room to spare. However, the
young man informed me that here, in the CAR, each bench seats three
passengers, but still I refused to budge at all. He looked far too
poor to be travelling on such an expensive journey and after our
earlier experience we were extremely suspicious and feared that he
might be another thief, especially since there seemed to be plenty of
more spacious spots available elsewhere. Therefore I told him to go
elsewhere, but still he persisted and eventually perched his bottom
on the edge of the seat without our consent. Ten minutes passed in an
undeclared war of attrition between our bottoms as he tried to
squeeze further onto the seat and I did my best to hold firm. My
suspicions of his motives were heightened further when he adjusted
the position of his arms a couple of times in such a way that his
hand brushed against my thigh, as if he was trying to establish where
I kept my wallet. He was on my left side, towards the aisle, so I
switched my wallet from my left to my right pocket, further away from
him, and kept my hand buried in my pocket with a tight grip on the
wallet.
Then suddenly, the owner of the seat reappeared. He was still
angry and was still demanding a ludicrous sum for the privelege of
using his place. Naturally, we still refused to increase our bid, and
he became still angrier. He switched his attention to our new
neighbour, shouting with equal vehemence at him, but since it was in
Sanga, the lingua franca of the CAR, we didn't understand the meaning
of the words. Presently he grabbed our neighbour and started trying
to drag him from the seat. This effort was unsuccesful and he
desisted after a while and turned his attention back to us. Our seat
was the last bench on the right hand side of the bus and the back
door was directly behind us. I noticed that a tall man, whom I felt
certain had been among the pack of thieves, had climbed onto the bus
and was standing immediately behind our seat, observing us. The back
of our seat was a wooden plank and there was a large gap between this
and the seatbase. I realised that he was waiting for me to take my
hand from my right pocket so he could put his in and remove my
wallet. I buried my hand deeper.
By now the seat owner was in such a fury that he was taking swipes
at me, which I was doing my best to fend off with my free hand. He
was screaming loudly, obviously for the benefit of the other
passengers, "give me my money, give it to me". I had been wondering
why this gang hadn't just pulled a knife, a gun, or simply beat me
up, to rob all of our valuables, but this public display made me
realise that these thieves could not run the risk of appearing
publically in a situation where they could be indisputably identified
as the perpatrators of a crime. They had to act in a gang and confuse
the victim so that the individual thief couldn't be fingered or else
their banditry had to operate under the pretence of a legitimate act
like reserving a seat. For a victim, or an observer, had the ultimate
power to point their finger at an individual and shout "thief!" and
from what we had been told thusfar, this would likely lead to a
beating form an angry mob, even a lynching or a summary execution if
a security officer was present.
This realisation, that there were some limits that the thieves
could not overstep, gave me confidence to continue resisting. My
assailant now started threatening to take my hat in lieu of payment -
my beloved explorer's hat. But I refused to take the bait and kept my
hand firmly in my pocket, guessing that this act of open theft was
beyond the limits. I was correct for he hesitated before grabbing it,
allowing Deirdre to swipe it off my head and stuff it safely in her
pocket. I was not enjoying this situation. In front of me the seat's
owner was still making lunges which I was fending off with my left
hand. To my left there was a youth whom I strongly suspected of being
a pickpocket, and just behind me another lingered. The youth on my
left now took a large value bill from his pocket and handed it
theatrically to the seat-owner, obviously trying to exhibit to us
that even the locals had to pay the price he was demanding. He then
turned to us and started explaining, in the friendly tones of a
helpful fellow passenger, that one just had to pay. This convinced us
that the three were acting in league. We told him in no uncertain
terms what we thought of his advice.
Final assuault
Next they tried one last trick to get me to remove my hand from my
pocket. The man behind leaned over our seat, as if to adjust a bag in
the overhead luggage rack. As he did so, he dropped the burning hot
cone from the top of his ciggarette into my lap. This coincided with
a renewed onslaught from the seat owner, but still I refused to
release my hand from my pocket. I bounced up and down in the seat to
shake the burning cone free, and switched to the offensive,
screaming, for all the bus to hear: "what the fuck is this, take your
damn money and leave me alone", and thrust the dollar aggressively
into our assailant's hand. Miraculously it worked, he took the money
and departed with a curse. I looked behind and sure enough our friend
had vanished, only the youth on the seat beside us remained. He
started trying to get into our favours by denouncing the other two as
thieves but we flatly refused to respond. After some fifteen minutes
trying in vain to win our confidences, he confirmed all of our worst
suspicions; from one of his pockets he produced a bible and, holding
it up, asked us if we were interested.
We sat there for what seemed like an eternity, in an extremely
heightened state of tension, watching the restless hands of our bible
wielding neighbour like a hawk, constantly expecting hordes of
thieves to dive in the window or pounce from the luggage rack. But
the bus slowly filled, the seat-bandits one by one came to
arrangements with the passengers and drifted away, and still
ourselves and our belongings remained intact. By 9:30 am the bus was
full, 3 bodies were crammed onto each bench and the aisle was filled
with dozens more bodies and many large, shapeless sacks of cargo. By
10 am when the joyous sound of the engine starting was heard and the
bus finally pulled out of the yard, some 20 more passengers had
joined our merry crew, on the roof.
IV THE ROAD TO BANGUI
The distance from Berberati to Bangui is some 650 km and from the
speed of our vehicle, which seemed to have a top speed of about 35
kph, it looked like being a long trip. At least the traffic was
light, and for the next six hours we passed along muddy tracks
through wild and lush woodlands with barely a hint of human presence
save for a couple of insignificant hamlets, and saw no more than a
couple of other vehicles. However, I had little time to watch the
surroundings as I had to remain constantly vigilant regarding the
unwanted presence to my left who seemed to never tire of moving his
hands to different positions out of my view. Indeed a kind of tension
seemed to hang over the whole bus and most of the passengers seemed
to keep to themselves, clutching tightly to their luggage, all of
which seemed to be padlocked closed. The only exceptions were a group
of prosperous looking, middle-aged men who were swigging bottles of
guinness and becoming increasingly boisterous as the alcohol took
effect. We stopped twice, once at a police roadblock where we all had
to dismount and present our identification to a group of officers
behind a desk. They seemed surprisingly disciplined, with clean
uniforms, bright bearings and upright stances, yet they still
demanded $2 to let us pass. We hadn't the energy to refuse and duly
coughed up. The one Cameroonian on the bus fared even worse. He was
hit for a $7.50 fee to be allowed to proceed. The second stop was at
a large village where we were thankfully able to buy a soft drink, 2
boiled eggs and a cob of corn, the first food we'd come across all
day.
As the afternoon progressed and the journey wore monotonously on,
we became increasingly tired and hungry. Our legs were stuffed
tightly around our packs with literally no space to adjust their
position which became agonising as the blood circulation to our legs
was cut off. We had got up at 4 am and the pain allied with the
constant effort of remaining vigilant was rapidly sapping my energy.
Whatsmore, a boiled egg and a few grains of corn was insufficient
food for such a gruelling trip; the foodsellers who normally line the
roads of African countries were almost completely absent here. On two
occasions we did come across women selling curious looking bunches of
small peach-coloured fruits, but their entire stock was quickly
snapped up, leaving many frustrated passengers. Thus we felt a
tremendous surge of joy when, at around 7:30pm, we pulled into a
small village and not only did we come to a rest outside a shop, but
our neighbour arose, picked up his bag, waved farewell to us, and
disappeared into the village.
Thereafter I found the trip much easier, a packet of biscuits
eased our hunger and our new neighbout, a young woman with a small
baby, was much less threatening than her predecessor. I was able to
relax my vigilance and even allow my eyes to close. We rolled on
through the night, along more muddy tracks which were occasionaly
innundated with enormous puddles, like small lakes, which required us
to drive through the bush around them. I succeeded in catching a few
brief moments of sleep by resting my head on the back of the seat in
front of me while we were stopped at a squalid little village. At
some stage during the night we got stuck in the mud and many of the
passengers had to dismount to help free us, but I pretended to be
asleep. Soon afterwards we arrived at the surfaced road leading to
Bangui, one of only a few hundred kilometres of tarmac in the
country; a very welcome sight but our pace barely increased.
The sun dawned to find us at one of the series of security
roadblocks which line the roads leading towards the capital city.
Again we were too tired and morally defeated to protest the demanded
$2 fee, again the Cameroonian had to pay more. By 10am we had arrived
at km 50, a larger roadblock and again we had to pay. By 11:30 we
were at km 12, the really major roadblock before the city proper
begins. There were a dozen low buildings lining the road before the
barrier, each housing a large number of uniformed officers sitting
behind desks. It was Sunday morning but there was still a large and
busy crowd of vendors, urchins, idlers and voyagers milling about on
the road. 3 or 4 vehicles were waiting to cross the barrier and their
passengers were huddled around various buildings, waiting for their
papers to be cleared. Considering the number of uniformed personnel
and the confusion of the crowd, it seemed that this checkpoint could
prove expensive and traumatic, given our weakened state. Thus we
decided to duck down in our seats and remain in the vehicle. To our
surprise this simple ploy succeeded without a hitch. The other
passengers dismounted, then returned in dribs and drabs until the bus
was once again full. We passed through the barrier without anyone
noticing us, and drove on into the city of Bangui.
Arrival
The only real task that remained was to get ourselves and our
possessions safely from the bus and onto a taxi which could whisk us
to the secure confines of a hotel. This had always been the bit that
we'd been most afraid of. Bangui, along with virtually every other
capital city in the region, has a terrible reputation for violent
crime and the most dangerous moments are, as always, when one first
arrives and is laden down with luggage. After our experiences in the
tiny town of Berberati, we could scarcely imagine what horrors
awaited us here. Our strategy was, once we got to the bus station, to
remain in the middle of the crowd at all times, only leaving it to
make a quick dart for a taxi. However our plans were completely
shattered when the bus pulled over in some scruffy suburb and almost
all the passengers alighted. We were left on the bus with a mere
handful of people, among whom were a group of young men who took a
sudden interest in talking to us, again innocently brushing their
hands against my thigh as they gesticulated.
Finally the bus came to a halt, not as we had expected in a
station, but in a derelict lot just off a quiet street. There were no
taxis around, just 5 ragged youth lounging against a wall. We grabbed
our bags and leapt from the bus, judging that anything was better
than to stay there like sitting ducks. The loungers hurried over
towards us, not as we had feared, to relieve us of our belongings,
but to ask us if we needed a taxi. We nodded assent and one of them
charged into the middle of the road where he forced a passing taxi to
stop by pointing at his skin and mouthing the word "white". There
were people already in the car but our helper's actions must have
convinced the driver that he had greater priorities and his
passengers were quickly evicted before he turned around and drove
over to pick us up. We quickly fixed a price, tipped our helper and
plunged into the safe haven of that wonderful car.