Emmanuel (Part 3)

Emmanuel made the crossing over the Cavalla River near Gnato via a makeshift, ramshackle bridge that locals had improvised to facilitate their coming and going from one bank to the other. It was with considerable trepidation that he set foot on the rickety contraption and inched his way across, urged on by some local teens and adults who offered assistance to the wee lad. They had become accustomed to runaways from the chaos in Liberia and he was just one more refugee making good his escape. It was no skin off their backs to lend a helping hand. They were simple folk surviving as subsistence fishermen along the banks of the river. National borders meant little to them and they seldom interacted with officialdom along this stretch of poorly patrolled border. The nearest official crossing with a semblance of passport control was miles away. Asking for directions to Abidjan was a useless enterprise, as these folk had no clue where that might be or how to get there. On the next leg of his journey he’d have to follow his instincts and hope for the best.

The lone wanderer through the African bush was helped out with a pair of home made sandals, as his footwear had long since expired along the way through Liberia. Bedraggled and clad only in a few rudimentary rags, the locals outfitted him with some self-fashioned pieces of material and skins that would have to suffice to keep the barely ten year old intrepid traveler somewhat protected against the elements in this largely inhospitable terrain. He kept moving, putting one foot in front of the other until he hoped he would encounter other friendly souls or at the very least a pathway through the bush or even a river he could use to guide him to the familiarity of town or city life.

Little did Emmanuel know that his timing for making his way through Côte d'Ivoire was auspicious. This country would soon be wracked by civil war, as was Liberia. Still led by  Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the fellow who led it to independence in 1960, Côte d'Ivoire was at that juncture stable by the standards of West Africa. Abidjan was a large city and an economic hub in the region where a newcomer like Emmanuel could try his luck at getting a few quid and perhaps an education of sorts, hence the attraction of that destination. Yamoussoukro was the political capital of the country where political instability and intrigue would most likely start, so Abidjan held some promise for a lad traumatised by the civil war in his own country. In tatters from the harrowing journey across the sparsely inhabited Côte d'Ivoire bush, his trek came to an end, for the moment, when he reached Abidjan.

Emmanuel’s intuition was to seek out a Christian mission upon his arrival in Abidjan. He had journeyed largely alone and survived only by his own wits. He recalled that his father had led them to the Lutheran Mission station as a possible safe haven back in Monrovia when they were pursued by warlords. He considered this to be a good pointer for his current situation, knowing full well that the church was not to blame for the massacre he had witnessed and experienced in the chapel. Lack of respect for the sanctity of a place of worship was squarely in the court of evil men who perpetrated the most horrendous of atrocities. The ten year old set out to look for a church as a safe haven and happened upon the Union des Églises Baptistes Missionnaires en Côte d'Ivoire (Union of Missionary Baptist Churches of Ivory Coast) that had its headquarters in Abidjan. He had never before been exposed to a mission or learnt anything about the Christian gospel or way of life. His only encounter with Christendom prior to this moment in his life was their flight to perceived safety in the precinct of a mission complex.

The Pastor in charge of the complex was on site at the moment Emmanuel showed up at the front gate. The lingua franca in Liberia is a quaint variant of English, Kolokwa (a type of Liberian Kreyol). In this Emmanuel was fluent. However, he also had a working knowledge of French, although his fluency was somewhat stunted because he had only picked it up in Monrovia from other West Africans who had settled there as the rest of the region slowly drifted into economic chaos. The Pastor had sufficient knowledge of English because of the Baptist links with mission outreach from the USA. Between them they were able to communicate effectively enough for the little chap to be embraced by the fellowship. The Pastor found a family in the congregation who were willing to take him in, in view of the upheaval he had already experienced in his young life. The Baptist Mission went to great lengths to ensure that Emmanuel was fed and clothed. They also saw to it that he was given an adequate education at the local primary school. An intellectually gifted fellow, he rapidly overcame the illiteracy bequeathed him by his humble beginnings, becoming fluent in French and skilled in reading and numeracy in short order. These are the basic stepping stones to a good education – allowing one to educate oneself using books if formal schooling should become impossible at any point. 

Emmanuel would spend the next few years in Abidjan, until after the passing of the founding President and well into the era of President Gbagbo, who succeeded him in 2000. Indeed, the time spent there gave him the grounding he would need later in life. He managed to complete his schooling as well as benefit from the Baptist Christian community who built his character and developed his deep faith that became embedded and a part of his nature. His acceptance and commitment to faith, so nurtured in this environment, would never be disentangled from him. It was with natural ease that he was able to integrate into the generous and welcoming Randburg family, whose chance acquaintance with the young man had remarkable consequences for both them and Emmanuel.

In the Abidjan family and at the Baptist Mission and the schools, he was taught the value of self-discipline. The most effective discipline is not that which is imposed from outside, but which is taught and nurtured as a by-product of sound character. The respect for others, hankering after knowledge and academic achievement in tandem with the faith instilled in him, made him the utterly decent person he became. He had come to this faith after having experienced a brush with the unbridled evil of intrinsically flawed warlords and their henchmen, and being able to compare this experience with the compassion and care exuded by the Faith community that gave him a fresh start in life. He deemed it self-evident that there was a higher hand that was directing his path. Acceptance of the grace extended to Emmanuel, a wounded little boy, changed his very being. It would have been so easy for him to have been given to a quest for vengeance and perpetuation of hatred and sheer evil. However, his encounter with the foundational precepts taught to him through the text of scriptures, and a personal spiritual encounter set his life on a fresh trajectory. He became a living witness that knowledge of science, the arts, culture and academic prowess, can be seated very comfortably alongside faith, conscience and sound character. The quest for knowledge, he came to understand, should be tempered with wisdom which emanates from deep within. 

Having received the grounding that his sojourn on the Mission Station afforded him, Emmanuel, by the early 2000s was ready to embark upon the next leg of his journey. Shortly before Côte d'Ivoire encountered its own descent into civil war and political and economic folly, he set off for Ghana, then Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Congo. It would be a long and eventful passage through Zambia and Zimbabwe, before reaching the ultimate destination in his sights – Johannesburg. In Côte d'Ivoire Emmanuel had in a sense encountered his “destiny”, long before he would reach his “destination”.

©Paul M Haupt

[Next week Emmanuel sets out on the next leg of his journey.] 

Map credit: Google Earth (No copyright infringement intended, hence the credit. This blog is not monetized)