CHAPTER SIX

Bomboti to Obo--Winter 1991    Central African Republic (CAR) jungle

Somewhere in the 153 miles between Arketa’s hometown, Yambio, and Bomboti, Arketa lost track of things which included the remaining fragments of her flip-flops. Miles, like the names of days, the passage of weeks, phases of the moon, condition of hair, smell of bodies or wounds were unmeasured, unmarked, and unimportant. Calendars, pens, telephones, work schedules, sacks of seed, church clothes, cooking pots, paychecks, laughter, lightheartedness and her eldest child—gone. Organized consciousness—gone; blown away by bombs. Arketa moved along first by the gestures of border police then by instinct, fear, and when she could see it, the setting sun.

 

When the three women and children left Bomboti, Teresa (formerly Angelina) left first, leading Coletta and Bazia, the orphan children of her brother, Puuke. Arketa followed with Timothy, Nathalia, and dead Teresa’s pre-schooler, Rosetta. Behind her at some distance came Lucia with the bigger boys, six and five-year-olds, Angelo and Christopher. 

 

Look to the sun,the women had been told. A man of Bomboti had raised his hand and said, Do this. Raise your hand this far and say, ‘See? Here is the sun. To reach M’boki you walk with the hand to the right of the sun this much.Arketa watched carefully just how far the man moved his arm away from his body. 

“Dah distance to dah right is dah size from my fingers to dah elbow,”she observed. Before striking out for a destination they knew only by name in a country they knew only by name, the Zambakari women compared measurements, and nodded assent.

 

By the third or fourth week of walking, the forest had stripped Arketa down to her bra, panties, and shreds of the sleeveless cotton dress slipped into after church that past November Sunday; the dress that for days caught tears that fell from her thoughts of Elario, that clung to her body when she swam the N’zara river, absorbed her blood in Source Yubu, and captured smears of charcoal wiped off her fingers at the border crossing. 

 

At some point in that month’s walk toward M’boki refugee camp, with who knew how many miles under her feet and how much wound-tending on her left leg, Arketa allowed herself thoughts of Yambio, so suddenly, so permanently abandoned. God only knew whose names crossed her mind—a best friend? A neighbor? Dead? Alive? 

 

At some point as Lucia’s surviving family wandered the unfamiliar jungle with famished bellies, swelling legs, and bleeding feet, Christmas occurred in the world. Arketa had no idea where she was when it did. She knew sorrow and she knew fear. She knew to listen for wild animals, for men with any sort with weapons—whether hunters or fighters, and for the blessed sound of running water. She knew the smell of any fruit-bearing tree, and to look for abandoned home sites where ruined gardens might hold morsels of food. With each step, with each punch of her crutch against the stony ground, she dared to count things she didn’t know. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know the day of the week, the week of the month. She didn’t know who did or didn’t survive the Yambio bombing. She didn’t know what happened to her son, Elario. She didn’t know if any others of her sisters were alive somewhere. She didn’t know if wild animals had consumed the flesh of her murdered family. She didn’t know whether she, her mother, her sister, or any of the children would starve or survive the walk to wherever it was they were going and other than an extended arm against the sun, she didn’t know where that place was. 

°  °  °

Arketa wasn’t traveling by road. In Bomboti she had been told to expect some low hills, some small rivers, and many smaller streams before reaching Obo. Don’t expect bridges or help along the way, she was warned. No one mentioned distance, or that it would be 160 miles or more. Someone advised that shortly before Obo, if they were lucky, they would come upon the path that led into the dilapidated remains of Bazigbiri, Boogura, Rigua; small settlements deserted by citizens who feared Sudanese rebels—places where they might find food.

            

“Eat what you want in those places; pineapple, orange, groundnuts, mango and avocado. The forest is not deep there because people have cleared it and planted tree. But, in the clearing—if you hear someone?” The man in Bomboti saying these things to Arketa pulled on her shoulder to keep her attention, to warn her—good. 

 

“In those places you are close to the Sudan border,” he said. “Leave it all and go. Oh! You think it is the enemy? You leave the way you were going, quickly move back into the forest, measuring with your arm and fingers, following only where the sun is going down.”          

 

How many weeks had passed since Yambio? Arketa tried to remember. Was it still November? In Sudan she knew November by the increasingly humid heat, the decreasing rain, by the smell of dust, by the busy harvesting of millet and sorghum but the seasons of Central African Republic’s (CAR) differed slightly. Rain still fell every few days—hard, like a stream pouring from trees tops. Unfamiliar morning fog penned her down, terrifying her. She didn’t know fog.

            

Did the lion, leopard, baboon, the buffalo, dik-dik, or wild dog pad about in fog? If the green snake slithered to the place of sleeping, who would know? Who would know, until a member of the family yelped and within minutes died. Arketa heard stories of giant gorillas inhabiting this country, in the southwestern part. Where was this southwest? Near? She didn’t know the smell or sounds of gorilla. An elephant’s approach she knew. Even in the fog she would know that.

            

December 20th was Elario’s seventh birthday—or, would have been. Had that day arrived? Had his body been found? Had anyone buried the boy, bothered with his tiny body? Or, did he, like his grandfather, lay in a shallow grave, food for the animals? These thoughts stretched long in her mind as she stretched her arms to flatten waist high grass, to turn, confirming the presence of the children following. She winced from the hair-thin cuts the grass blades delivered.  

°  °  °

Phoenix, Arizona – January 2015

 Arketa lifted a teacup and saucer from a shiny silver tray and set it on her heavily carved mahogany dining table. The ornately embroidered pink cloth from Africa was protected by clear, heavy plastic that draped over the table’s edge. The ever-present tiered condiment tray held crunchy African cookies. The friendship between Arketa and me was familiar enough now that for the first time in the years we had met, Arketa automatically served my tea without offering sugar, without marveling that tea could be taken plain.

 

On the walk to Obo, Lucia was the one who first noticed an animal path leading to stream or river, she said, pulling back into her story.

 

 “Ah! Look!” Lucia said. She gathered the children to see what she saw. “Dah print of dah animal moving down.” She taught the children to see the sign good. This would be a place of rest, but they didn’t rush. They never followed a path “exactly.”

 

Lucia veered off the path short of the water. She signaled the others to stay back while she scouted for animals. She especially watched for giraffes since, if they were seen at all, it was usually near running water. A startled or threatened giraffe used its head like a warp-speed wrecking ball. And if not its head, its swift kick could kill a leaping lion, or a surprised child, before either saw the kick coming. After a good survey, Lucia determined where to settle downwind from where animals drank.

 

At the signal to come, Arketa counted small heads bobbing through the brush after Grandma, painfully moving on swollen feet. Sticks and stones had torn through the tough soles of bare feet. No one was walking straight up. 

 

Slow down! Oh God, do not lose a child in the tall grass! Arketa’s fears bounced through fears—the possible loss of another child, her body—a baby growing in it, the pain from infected burns and cuts, enemies, men with weapons hiding in the very forest Zambakaris traversed; wild animals, poisonous snakes, possible starvation, probable misdirection—the possibility of missing Obo completely.  

 

When running water was found, a fairly well established pattern set in. Everyone drank deeply. They washed bodies, washed remnants of clothing and hung scrubbed things to dry on tree branches. If they were lucky, they found banana trees “planted in dah forest from dah poop of elephants.” Every day, regardless of where they were, sometime before darkness, Lucia arranged rocks to indicate tomorrow’s direction of travel. “Look to dah forest—every corner of it like dah other corner. Turn to dis hand and see what you saw at dat hand. In dah forest, coming and going is dah same—dah forest is just waiting to make you crazy.”

 

At water’s edge, Arketa examined her maimed feet. The bottoms were dry, hard, and deeply cracked like riverbed mud under a hot sun. When she tapped, she felt nothing. The foot didn’t belong to her. But beneath the hard crust, her flesh was soft and critically alive. 

 

“Step down and dah pain say, ‘dis is your foot.’ Yeah. Dah feet and legs of everyone will be swolling to dah knees. Everybody was limping. You cannot make it far before stopping again to let dah legs and feet go down. Maybe two day, three days walking, den, find dah water. Stop.”

 

To prepare the place where they would sleep, Arketa and Teresa swept the ground with sticks, uprooting rocks, flicking away the occasional beetle half the size of a woman’s hand that challenged intruders on raised, barbed hind legs. The women stomped through deep humus, hoping to disturb snoozing snakes or scorpions. For good measure, Arketa banged on the trunk of overhanging trees to discourage visits from flea, tick, or lice-carrying monkeys capable of nasty bites. 

 

Little could be done about termites, driver ants, safari ants, or army ants with jaws so strong some indigenous African people sutured a gash by having the ant bite across it to hold it closed. After the bite, the head held but the ant’s body was broken off and discarded. This natural surgical staple lasted for days. On this trek toward Obo which they were told was near M’boki, the women hoped for nights without wild animals, dung beetles, mosquitos, flies, bats, the common African rats, the grooved-toothed rats, the common, chubby African grass rats—they did what they could by stomping, sweeping, and banging tree trunks.

 

“Dis is dah time when my mom, my sister and I sleep very light. We keep dah ear open for animals. We sleep not all at dah same time, no. Not in dah jungle.” 

 

Somewhere after the seven miles from Yambio to Saura, five more to N’zara, eighty-eight on through the jungle to Ezo before the fifty-three miles to Source Yubu where much of her family now lay buried; somewhere after Bomboti where she pressed her name onto cardboard with charcoal, somewhere along the 110 miles between Bomboti and Obo, with stops for finding food and water, or for resting children’s swollen legs, or redressing her own brutal wounds with tabu leaves, or turning, retracing their way, Arketa lost the cloth for wrapping baby Timothy.

° ° °

The deep, dense jungle of CAR, much of it unexplored and very little of it inhabited, became Arketa’s home for ten years. Reportedly, 1000 different tree species are found in that country. In the southeastern corner where Arketa walked and lived, the giant Sapele, Ayous, Sipo, and the Akua all greedily sought for commercial use.

            

“Ah! Dah giant palm tree (Akua),” Arketa said. She sipped tea, put the cup down and enjoyed a shift in the subject of our conversation. She was ready to leave the memory of misery. She shifted my iPad toward herself and asked me to show her a picture of the Akua tree.

 

 “From dat tall, tall tree, dah local people made very strong beer. And? In dah camp we use dah oil for cooking.” Fortunately, by the time its wood reaches European furniture makers, the bad smell it emits when freshly cut, disappeared. We researched trees of her CAR forest. 

 

It takes years and years for a flowering Sipo, the environmentally fragile mahogany-like giant to reach its 200-foot maturity. It thrives in moist, evergreen forests. Its bark is still stripped, stomped, simmered by local citizens and sorted into multiple household uses. However, once stripped, the Sipo dies as it releases its powerful cedar scent into the forest. 

            

The beautiful dark wood of the deciduous Aboudikro graces the interior of luxury automobiles; luthiers and hardwood floor vendors love it. Its massive trunk soars some eighty or more feet above thick brush and grasses before it branches out like umbrella ribs, sending leafy twig tips far enough apart to qualify for different times zones. 

 

“Dis one is like dah one my daddy traded to dah world, dah mahogany.” Native vines and creepers use Aboudikro branches as latticework, weaving a ceiling against the invasion of sun or stars. 

 

The African Teak hoards the hot African sun. A heavy hunk of lumber, it looms over its tallest neighbors by fifty or sixty feet. It’s a forest linebacker. It even looks tough—its sloppy bark and bulky branches bereft of any real beauty. Its value, however, is amazing. Foreigners want it, plenty of it, for boat building, flooring, and veneers. 

 

From Teak bark, local people pound a powder to relieve coughs, correct heart problems and alleviate mental or physical weariness. Slathered on wounds, teak ash stems bleeding. Latex tapped from its trunk clears away stomach and throat obstructions. Name the affliction and someone with local wisdom boils the right number of teak leaves for the right amount of time for the perfect prescriptive reason. The teak is impervious to the ever-present termites living in jungle mounds large as gas station pumps, mounds around which the Zambakaris walked, mounds from which they occasionally drew a meal. 

 

Arketa and her family members walked over a carpet of protruding rocks under these trees, around these trees, near these trees. Under the giants grew medium and small trees, vines, bushes, great grasses, and termite mounds. 

 

“You see dah big trees good. Now look to dah middle and small trees, under. You can get dah tall one, you can get dah half one, all sizes of dah trees. Dis is why dah forest is dark, why movement is not easy. 

 

“Take the bark of dah Banga or Gero. Scrape it for treating malaria,” she said. “Dat Garo tree?  Huu!Dah Garo, da Bango, dah Ngombe is used as medicine for things like malaria, colic in babies, diarrhea, constipation, pain  . . .” She stopped to laugh. 

 

She sipped her sweetened tea and said, “Dah African doesn’t have dah pharmacy. Everything about dah tree is medicine even if it isn’t, it is. You know dah ash? After dah fire has cooled? Dat is what I rubbed onto my wounds to keep dah flies from touching it. Not just dah teak, no.”

            

“Flies?” I asked.     

 

“Ohhhh, dah big flies and mosquwitos – but what can you do? Huu. Dah insects in Africa; ohhhh . . . dey are happy to see dah people coming through dah forest. Dis is new food for dem! When we was moving in dah forest toward Obo, we don’t make dah fires. Dat’s too dangerous. No warm water, no ash, no protection in dah night against animals and snakes. Dis was part of dah hard time.”

            

Arketa moved to her kitchen, poured ground millet sent from Yambio into a medium-sized saucepan, added boiling water and over a red-hot burner beat the living daylights out of the mixture. She attacked it with the kua baagede, a tool for this very purpose. Put a wooden golf putter in her hand and you have the tool nearly exactly described. The straight top end of the long handle swirled near her face from the action of her hand down by the wedge that beats millet and water into a grey, putty-textured mound of Fu-fu, a starchy bread; the means for transferring food from plate to mouth. 

 

“Dis,” she says of the kua baagede, “comes from only dah korinde bush.”

“The Toothbrush bush?”  

 

“You know dah Vicks?”

 

“Vick’s VapoRub?”

 

“Dis korinde bush tastes a little like dat. You chew dah end of dah short stick, make a brush. Use it. Dah teeth stay good. Dah people of Central African Republic where we was, don’t use it. You look to dahr mouth? Oooh, dah teeth was gone or rotten. Dey say ‘no’ to dah brush, saying it will take away dah meat in the mouth.” 

 

Arketa’s impatience with such ignorance floated in the tone of her voice. In Arabic it is Miswak or siwak and it is true that Africans who use it usually have beautiful, healthy teeth. The Toothbrush Tree contains an antibiotic that keeps the mouth clean and prevents decay. 

 

“If you are looking into dah trees in dat forest,” Arketa said, delivering steamy Fu-fu to the table, “you will learn soon of dah B’kewee tree.” She dished up African tilapia, head and all, simmered in onion and jalapeno peppers. No flatware here.

 

Arketa indented a small, hot wad of Fu-fu with her thumb and flicked it into the broth on her plate, capturing a mouthful. I watched and attempted to mimic her. Arketa captured another spoonful. I tried.

            

“Oooohh,” Arketa said, cornering onions and seeing an image on my iPad. “Dat is dah B’kewee.” B’kewee” was how she spelled out the word but she spoke it as ‘Ca-way. We each licked our fingers and pressed on seeking more photos, hoping to see what Arketa described. Arketa stopped the exploration with a shout when the African Thorn Tree popped up. 

            

“Ah! See dat?” The meanest non-sentient life form I’ve ever seen was on the screen. The entire tree, trunk and branches, bore huge, long, hard thorns protruding every which way. “Don’t run to dat tree. No! Dat is dah tree to tear dah clothes right off. It will grow together like crowded cows in dah pen—close. Dez trees was covering land as faaar as you can see. Dis is dah tree with thorns long as my foot a-l-l-lover it. 

 

“Dah local people tell you, ‘Do not go dat way, no. Dah B’kewee is dehr.’ It is all sharp thorns. Not even the smart animal can pass without being torn apart. If dat tree happens upon you with no notice? Dar goes the shirt or the dress. Arms and legs are bleeding now.

 

“Da Gorondema is dah other bush with hooks but dat one is not so big. It has good fruit, like grapes. Dis is dah one with smaller thorns. If you hear dah voice of dah gun, you will enter dat place. You will crash through it, looking for dah place of safety. You don’t mind dah thorns coming with you, no, because you are hurt but you are safe.

 

“We like dah fruit of dah Gorondema but it is not easy to reach. Only dah ant gets to it easy. Dah elephant likes dis fruit, too. But, it doesn’t like dah ant who fights dah elephant by crowding on his nose.” Arketa laughed and laughed. “Dat was dah only food you find in dah wild forest unless dah elephant plants dah banana seed and a tree grows. 

            

“Bananas, oranges, mango, po-po, pineapples? Dos grow only where dah people was once living. When we grow close to Obo? Many of dah people living near was gone from dah houses because dey heard dah rebels was fighting near dah border. When we get dahr, we don’t ask any one, ‘Can we eat dis food?’ Dah houses was empty. We don’t want dah children to die. We find food. We eat.”

 

I had managed a good swipe at tilapia juice with my Fu-fu and asked, “Arketa, did you have the Red Stinkwood tree in that forest?” I had read about this African tree.

            

“You call it what?”

 

“I’m not sure in Central African Republic, but it is sometimes called Ngwabuzito, mkomahoya, ngombe. Or the French, I think, is halzé. In English its called ironwood. I’ve read that it is a forest tree with powerful medicinal uses. In fact, it has been nearly eradicated in Africa by the abuse of its bark for making charcoal.

            

“Da bark is brown? Spotty?”

 

“It is!”

 

“I don’t know dat tree, no.”

I laughed hard, and closed the computer. The element of surprise was never far from Arketa’s lips.

° °  °

 Central African Republic History

CAR once had the third largest area of rainforest cover in Africa but much of it has been stripped by commercial greed or local desperation. Look to CAR for poor people, poor living conditions, poor chances of a long life, poor management of resources, a history of violence and corrupt leadership.

 

In 1894, this territory was the French colony of Ubangi-Shari, partitioned among commercial concessionaries. No benefits from this arrangement reached local peoples. Forced cultivation of cotton, forced labor to build the Congo-Ocean Railway, and forced work in mines had Africans dropping like flies. Between 1920-30, violent protests erupted. In 1946, in an effort to quell unrest, France granted the country some representation in the French parliament but soon wearied of difficulties and in 1958 granted CAR self-government. Two years later—CAR was granted independence; and with that, the right to abuse the population shifted to African strongmen.

 

Two years after Arketa’s birth in Sudan, in CAR, Jean Bedel Bokassa (who yet holds the distinction of being one of Africa’s most brutal post-independence leaders) overthrew the ineffective but firmly established totalitarian government of Davi Dacko (1966). Six years later, Bokassa named himself president for life although that was apparently not quite elegant enough. In 1976 he proclaimed himself Emperor of what he called the Central African Empire. A year later, he used a third of his country’s annual budget, as well as and all of that year’s aid money from France to finance a coronation ceremony costing $20 million dollars. For that occasion, he wore a five-million-dollar diamond-encrusted crown. His throne was carved into the breast of a massive, two-ton gold eagle with wings stretching upward, as if to lift the leader to the heavens. Bokassa wore a uniform designed after that of his hero, Napoleon. By this time, most of the world thought the man was crazy. By this time, his countrymen knew to fear him. 

 

No question about it, the forced labor of his people was needed to extract the country’s significant mineral deposits, diamonds, gold, crude oil and lumber. An Empire calls for fine things, after all. Yet, while the Emperor was bloated with power and wealth while his people remained uneducated, under-served, underfed, uncared for. In the absence of infrastructure, his people had depended on the trees for fire, for heat, for medicines, and protection but Bokassa had stolen even those away. 

            

Bokassa became great enough an embarrassment to France that in September 1979, they arranged a military coup to re-establish David Dacko (whom Bokassa had ousted in a military coup). Bokassa was charged with murder, found guilty, briefly jailed, then freed to live in Paris and in Bangui off embezzled funds providing nicely for his 17 wives and 50 children. 

            

In a 1981 military coup, Andre Kolingba replaced Dacko. Through the tangled ways of politics and power, this man still ruled the country when Arketa entered it. In a free election a year after her arrival, Kolingba came in dead last among candidates. No matter. He carried out a constitutional coup d’état, extending his term until utter chaos led to the 1993 election of Ange-Félix Patassé, a man able to orchestrate his own brand of brutality.

 

It is no surprise that CAR is among the poorest of countries in the world. By 2013, using statistics measuring life expectancy, education, and income, the Human Development Index ranked CAR 185thout of 187 countries. It is no wonder a UN worker described the country as “sous serum” –hooked up to the constant IV feed of foreign aid. It came as no surprise that while they welcomed the Sudanese as refugees, the people of M’boki could offer no aid. Arketa ventured into a situation where local people were nearly as bereft of essentials as the Sudanese people pouring in.

°  °  °

The Trek

In and out, not walking straight—as if straight were an option—between Bomboti where names were recorded on cardboard and Obo which the women hoped to find by keeping their arm bent about that much to the right of the sun, was a solid expanse of deep forest. Occasionally they came across a road and walked on it, then ducked back into the bush, just by the direction of the sun or by how the shadows fell, when they found such things as sun or shadows. This was, of course, how so many Sudanese got lost or lost their lives, thinking they headed the right direction only to discover somehow that they were traveling in circles. “Ah, dat fragment of dah blue shirt . . . my shirt! I was here before!” Such stories got told again and again once M’boki was reached. 

 

From Bomboti and nearly to Obo, the Zambakari women mostly walked separately. “Tonight, we will meet at dat big tree we see ahead,” Lucia directed. “Dehr, we will put dah children down to sleep.” 

°  °  °

            As I watched, Arketa stood from her dining table and walked a few steps away. Her face grew solemn, like that of a person feeling deep compassion. She stretched her arms out in a soft butterfly stroke, pushing aside tall grass. I saw the motion but Arketa was seeing the grass. She bent, holding strong grass back with her hip and left hand and placed a child there. “Down.” 

 

She slowly lifted her finger to her lips, leaning over the child saying, “Shhhhnow, no voice in dah night.”

 

She pushed the tall grass back up around the child, then took a few steps away and repeated the process. A second child, several feet from the first, lay on leaves and heard the warning, “Shhhhh.” A third child, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and finally, she leaned against the tree with baby Timothy nestled on her belly. From there, Arketa watched though the night. 

 

I could barely hold back tears, watching my friend plant children on stony ground, protected by tall grass, by a warning to be quiet, and she hoped by the providence of God. What was I doing in my safe California home while she suffer and struggled to survive? What were my petty complaints while she prayed to come upon food or water; to avoid the leopard or the green snake. Maybe I had heard of Sudanese people suffering. Maybe. But now I saw that suffering demonstrated by a friend, a survivor, and my heart broke.

 

After many uncounted days, the character of the forest changed. Expect that, they had been told in Bomboti. You are nearing Obo, capital of Haut-Mbomou prefecture. They came upon old, old houses, tukuls, deserted by people fleeing gunfire. The Zambakaris disturbed nothing but ate all they could find growing in those places. 

 

Finding one of a growing number of streams feeding the great M’bomou River, they stopped to rest for four or five days. They needed the break, and they needed to shake fear. They now faced a great obstacle: this stream was narrow but the water was high. It ran fast. It could not be waded across. 

            

The M’boki River near Obo would have a bridge for crossing, the women had been told that. But here, by this narrow stream where they rested, the only crossing was a felled tree stretched between banks upon which locals, rebels, or hunters walked. It was not the first time thoughts of turning back got voiced.  

 

After unsuccessfully scouting the stream bank for an alternative route, what had to be done was done. The women drew supple vine from the forest and lashed the group together. Better, they believed, that if one fell, all fall. Better that none be swept away or that none survive without the others.  

            

“If your mind go back to dah border, to what happened to dah family in Source Yubu, you don’t mind death. You will go on dah tree. Together. You will live?  You will die. Together. Yeah.”

            

Lucia stepped out first, five-year-old Christopher beside her. Grandma demanded courage, then showed him how to grasp the scramble of vines and branches above the tree, above his head, how to walk making his hands and feet secure. He was not to look down. Grandma would smother him with kisses on the other side. Lucia, children, Teresa, children, and finally, lame Arketa with three-year-old Nathalia beside her and toddler Timothy tied to her back.

 

Obo, they hoped, was near. After another day or so, these survivors of forest, shallow fords and swift streams walked into an area of groomed garden plots protected by barriers of thorn branches built to ward off animals. As they approached, a few local people emerged from the small settlement. They had nothing to offer, no language to share, but Sudanese refugees had become familiar. They pointed toward Obo. 

            

Arketa did not know what day of the week it was, what week of the month, what month of the year when they reached the small Obo mission but she saw the bridge and the missionaries’ zinc roof beyond it. Ah! Smoke from the compound’s fire. The smell of it was heaven. She hadn’t seen or smelled fire in  . . .how long? It felt like a lifetime. 

 

Lucia hid her family in the forest, demanding silence with a finger to her lips and a harsh shuush. She went “slowly, slowly ahead, across dah bridge,” to be sure no enemy was there, to be sure it was safe to walk into this place. She saw white people, “Dah missionaries who come from all over dah world.” When a missionary saw her, Lucia made the sign of the cross and explained, “We are refugees. We are coming from Bomboti.” She pointed to the forest, saying, “We have children.” She made the sign of small, small children. She did not speak Songo or French. They did not speak Balanda, Arabic, or Zande, languages familiar to Lucia from Sudan. But they all shared a few English words. The missionaries gestured for her to bring everyone. Bring everyone to “dah big, big, big space under Mango tree where, my goodness, a-l-l-l dah Sudanese was gathering.” Hundreds and hundreds of Sudanese.

            

After weeks of walking, seven naked Zambakari children tucked themselves tightly against their near-naked keepers, startled by crowds of people at Obo, all looking for M’boki. Rumors flew around the place. Sudanese soldiers were near. Gunshots could be heard. For safety sake, missionaries said everyone needed to leave quickly. Even they wanted to leave, to travel back to their base in Kenya. The best way to quickly move the refugees was to transport all the children by pickup truck. The adults could follow on foot. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” they were told.  The older children will care for the younger ones until you arrive. Assurances poured forth.  

 

“Bring us your children! Start walking!” Missionaries used every possible language and every imaginable hand gesture to convey the message of urgency. “Go! We will bring the children, truckload by truckload. You will join them in M’boki.” Time was of the essence. Obo was dangerously near Sudan’s border hot with violence. 

 

A white woman came to collect the Zambakari children. Lucia said, “Look to my daughter, look to her leg. Can she go with the kids?”

            

“No,” came the answer. She made it from Bomboti, she can make it to M’boki.” This woman saw that Arketa was mobile and compared her need to those around her with broken bodies, severed limbs or disease; much worse off than Arketa. She was sorry, but, no. 

 

Spear at the ready, Lucia said, “These kids cannot’a go by themselves. It’s okay. We will all go on, walking. Ourselves.” Separations terrified her. If they were to die, they would die together—on the walk, on the tree crossing the river, in the territory of rebel gunfire.

            

Arketa watched the missionary woman walk away then turn back. “Okay, she said, “the small grandma can go with the kids. She is the elder.” In her mid-forties, elder Lucia climbed into the open bed of a green pickup packed with black-bodied children, some screaming, some crying, some quiet as pile of leaves. Arketa stood back from the truck and looked to the children, to the eyes of Christopher sitting quietly in the truck’s bed. They are looking tired, she thought, not sick. Tired. The missionaries had put some clothes on them, even offered small toys, but nothing seemed to matter. Each child was given a drink of water and a hard African biscuit.

“You know like when you do bad to dah dog, it is quiet?” Arketa asked. “Dat was our children. No noise, no wanting anything, not hungry, just tired. Tired by life, by dah deaths. Dis was very sad to see.” The truck pulled away. Arketa and Teresa drank water and on swollen feet, struck out once again.

 

“We walk on the rocks of dah road until nearly dah sun goes down. Dah swelling of my leg is what make us to have a night between M’boki and Obo. Dat night. Oh! We sleep! We are not guarding children. We slept in the road, just next to dah tree. On dis day, dah road was packed with Sudanese. All of us looking carefully for dah sign of M’boki. Looking for dah roof of dah marketplace. For dah place of dah gendarmerie, dah church or dah U.N. office.”

 

Arketa suddenly laughed so hard after saying this that she dribbled sweet tea to her chin.

 

“Let me tell you about reaching M’boki,” She said. But, she couldn’t stop laughing.

~  ~  ~

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Sneak peek: CHAPTER SEVEN –M’BOKI 1991

January M’boki Refugee Camp, Central African Republic

 . . . “River. You cross. M’boki,” said people in Obo. Missionary fingers walked that message across the palm of Arketa’s outstretched hand. She got it. The river. The bridge. M’boki town. She prayed as she walked. 

Please let us find our family and people we know. Let us find the house we need. The Mosquito nets, the cooking pot, the school, work, maybe even a generator. Please let the children be free of malaria. Let us first go to the church and give thanks. Let Teresa remember that God is great. 

 Such thoughts occupied Arketa’s mind while sharp rocks stabbed her feet. She wanted to complain, but alongside her, before her, behind her, walked hundreds of others whose feet bled, who carried their dead, whose limbs were missing or infected or broken. Hundreds of refugees moved along with her now; those who paid the price for still being alive. Who could say it wasn’t better to be among the dead, among bodies strewn along the way, those unable to fight off malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, gangrene, snakebite, wild animals, or gunshot wounds. Who could say?