Emmanuel (Part 4)

The period during his teens that Emmanuel spent among the missionary folk in Abidjan was formative for the lad. It was in 2002 that he embarked on the next leg of his journey, with the blessing of the good people of the Union des Églises Baptistes Missionnaires en Côte d'Ivoire. The writing was on the wall in Côte d'Ivoire in early 2002. Emmanuel and his gracious hosts were of the same opinion that civil war was looming, and he had the wisdom not to hang around until it was too late to beat a hasty exit.

In early February he set off along the coast for Ghana. Late March saw the first mass murders occur in Abidjan. By September, when Côte d'Ivoire was split into three warring regions precipitated by a rebellion that flared up in the north and west, Emmanuel was well on his way through neighbouring Ghana. He was not enamoured of Accra, the capital. He found the Ghanaians he encountered there to be somewhat elitist and condescending towards other Africans. He couldn’t pin it down to a tribalist attitude or even a universal outlook of all Ghanaians – it was just an uncomfortable feeling that he had. He put it down to a “snobbishness“ resulting from their history as the first African colony that had won its independence under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah way back in 1957. It was a trifle odd that this perception gripped him, because Ghana indeed had a proud heritage of Pan-Africanism. It was with a measure of relief that he crossed into Togo and headed directly for his next border crossing into Benin.

Emmanuel walked, ran, hitchhiked and gladly accepted lifts on animal drawn carts. The roads left much to be desired. Rain saw him and his various fellow travelers bogged down in mud and slush such as he’d never before witnessed. Asphalt was not a West African “thing” it seemed. Nigh impassable paths impeded the already arduous journey. In Togo and Benin, also French speaking nations in that neck of the woods, he ought to have felt more at home. However, his discomfort in both countries had more to do with his faith than his language and culture. Both countries are largely Christian (more specifically Roman Catholic Christian), but there was a pervasive belief system that prevailed as a subculture. These were the countries in which Voodoo had its origins and many followers of other major faiths had an underlying affinity to the magic, spells and charms associated with it. The Catholic Church in the region somehow tolerated it, as their many adherents coexisted with Voodoo as a sort of cultural heritage. Emmanuel couldn’t get out of the region quickly enough to relieve him of the oppressive spiritual discomfort he felt in this atmosphere.

Nigeria was his next destination that beckoned. He was determined to make it to Lagos, and then spend some time there with some buddies he had encountered en route on the flatbed of a truck that transported and shook the living daylights out of its passengers. At the Nigerian border he relied on the Nigerian companions in the entourage to smooth his path across the political barrier. The Nigerian border officials were unwelcoming and officious. Armed to the teeth, they oozed a belligerent attitude. One was chewing gum as he reclined on an old stool with his boot resting on a rock. The fellow with him was chewing what appeared to be a matchstick, and muttered some instructions to the crew crossing through his checkpoint that he clearly regarded as his personal fiefdom. All the customs officials appeared to be high on KAT, Ganja or something of that sort. Suffice it to say that they were determined to present as great an obstacle to border crossers as they possibly could. His Nigerian buddies understood the scenario and were accustomed to navigating Nigerian officialdom. Greasing of palms with filthy lucre eased the process considerably. 

In Lagos, Emmanuel encountered the full spectrum of what Nigeria had to offer the intrepid traveler. His initiation at the border into the Nigerian  way of doing business had been a good education for things to come. Lagos produced an array of corrupt government agents, scammers, crooks of many hues, drug peddlers and more. There were, however, also fine, salt of the earth Nigerians that were kind and welcoming. They lived cheek by jowl with the dregs of West African society and had learnt to deal with it in a pragmatic way. Their attitude was simply “it is what it is – deal with it.” The nastiness he encountered in Lagos was tempered by the interaction he had with the good and gracious in the community that made life in the city tolerable for this foreigner. It was also good preparation for what he was to experience later upon his arrival in Johannesburg – a melting pot of African society. The cosmopolitan nature of that economic giant in southern Africa demanded of its citizens an ability to survive by one’s wits.

From Lagos, Emmanuel managed to secure transport to Yaoundé in Cameroon. This time he made the trip by bus along some semblance of a road. Bus trips across Africa, especially when they involve crossing national borders, are not for the faint hearted. This trip was no different. Packed like sardines, napping was out of the question. He found himself sharing a seat with two gigantic “Mamas” on either side of him. His slender frame was well and truly engulfed in the ample layers of flesh that surrounded him. Death by suffocation seemed to him a distinct possibility, especially as the people carrier traversed the cavernous dongas that engulfed them as they made their lumbering way along what barely passed as roads. Atop the roof racks were bags of produce heading for a market somewhere in the depths of the jungle. Live goats and chickens were restrained overhead en route to some makeshift slaughterhouse. Freshness of the meat could only be guaranteed if the livestock arrived with a hint of breath in their emaciated bodies – refrigeration was out of the question and the African heat relentless. Humans and animals surviving the journey were truly evidence of the miraculous. Upon arrival in Yaoundé the ghostly forms disgorged from the belly of the rusty chunk of metal that posed as a bus. Breakdowns along the way had provided scant relief for the smothered passengers, as the drivers toiled against the odds to get the aged diesel engine, driveshaft and axles across the hellish twin track paths. Makeshift improvised parts would get them on their way after each glitch. A gasp of humid, dank Cameroonian air provided a blast of relief by comparison to the acrid, thick atmosphere that had engulfed them all over many hundreds of miles and through countless hours of drudgery.

From Yaoundé to Brazzaville in the Congo Republic and thence the short hop to Kinshasa in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), was relatively uneventful. From there to Zambia and Zimbabwe, the journey became ever more tolerable as Emmanuel headed south. Each step of the trip was a trifle easier as the roads inched their way closer to first world standards at the southern tip of Africa. The feeling of relief crept up on him and each group of travelers he met along the way as the infrastructure improved. Zimbabwe, though in the throes of its own political chaos, was a hint of paradise compared to what he had experienced in much of Africa. Only the large metropolitan centres like Lagos, Kinshasa and Abidjan had been centres of relative prosperity. In the deep African jungles, the deserts and the distant rural hinterland, it was as if the calendar had been wound back to the dark ages in terms of human development.

It was in January 2004 that Emmanuel finally crossed Beit Bridge into South Africa. From Messina he caught a long distance bus to the Rotunda in Johannesburg. This leg of the trip was a far cry from the slog through West and Central Africa. Alighting from an air conditioned bus that hadn’t broken down in almost two thousand miles, he savoured the moment as he stepped onto the sidewalk and the start of a new life. 

[Next week Emmanuel embarks on a new life and has a fresh start in the City of Gold.]

©Paul M Haupt