Posted by "popular" request (well, someone asked for it yesterday evening):
April 1987. We were in Nyala in the west of Sudan, having just returned from trekking in the Jebel Marra area. “We” were Hänse, my Swiss friend, Nicola, friend and colleague, and myself. Nicola was to return to Khartoum and then home to England but Hänse and me wanted to find a lorry which would take us to Bangui in the CAR. This was Ramadan time, and food during the day was impossible to find, but at sunset we ate heartily, and at our hotel (basic to say the least) we fell into political conversation with three Sudanese university graduates who shared their food and illicit (but relatively widespread) araqi with us.
It took quite some searching and negotiating to find a suitable lorry but eventually we were successful and began the journey. The truck was loaded mainly with onions and garlic as well as other fruit and vegetables, and there five Western travellers on top: Hänse, Liz (an English teacher), Dalton and Lisa, an American couple; and myself. There were also a few others: a couple from the CAR with a young baby, and a few merchants. The first stage of the journey was from Nyala to Um Dafuq. This was a border town with a lively market where we managed to purchase tea and fruit and rice for the remainder of the trip (the length of which we had no idea).
At Um Dafuq I had some trouble with the local health officer who demanded 25 Sudanese Pounds for a yellow fever certificate; I had one but evidently it was the wrong colour. An argument ensued and I was threatened with a stint in a police cell, already crowded with local smugglers. I resisted until resistance was futile and ended up paying, but only after I was promised a new jab with one of the many syringes floating in a bucket of not very clean water.
Our next destination was Birao in the CAR. Google Maps says it doesn’t have a route for this journey. But there is one, and very bumpy and potholed it Is too. I collected a few bruises as we were thrown against the sides of the lorry and tossed up and down onto the sacks of onions.
In Um Dafuq we had already seen some signs of the differences between Sudan and the CAR but in Birao these contrasts became more pronounced. Music from Zaire replaced the Arabic sounds; the hairstyles were spikier; the women wore kitenges and were more open, drank beer, danced with foreigners. Obviously more French (and local languages) was heard. The climate was more humid. Humidity has an effect on onions.
Linguistically it was something of a challenge for me. I had been teaching myself French in preparation for the trip but my level was no more than mediocre. (Five years of studying the language at school had done little for me.) Liz and Hänse were both pretty fluent; Dalton and Lisa spoke no French at all and needed everything translated for them.
Where did we sleep at night? By the side of the lorry in sleeping bags. I was used to rough sleeping and as ever the stars were in their thousands and beautiful and inspiring.
I began feeling a bit ill. Sniffles and an earache. But I was more or less okay. We cooked rice and chicken (using wood fires and killing our own fowl). We drank beer with some local soldiers. There were French soldiers too, and an Israeli businessman, looking lost and stupid.
My diary then takes a week-long break. When I was up to writing again, the following is what I recorded:
“Hello again! The long gap is because I’ve been ill for a week with a number of things. I went to the hospital at N’Délé where the doctor told me I had a fever and prescribed chloroquine and tetracycline. I’ve also had a nasty cough, complete loss of appetite, nausea, the shits, a cold and now deafness in in the right ear. Hänse has been syringing it out with salt water and telling me that loads of shit came out, and there’s more to come. The lorry ride hasn’t helped – the heat, the bumping. I’ve spent half of my time crashed out, sometimes half-hallucinating. The others have been great, practically doing everything for me. Now I’m improving, although when I had a temperature of 38.8º I felt like death.”
Looking back, it was surely malaria. We ended up in a place I recorded as Kapu Bandaru, but haven’t been able to locate since then. No doubt the illness was still scrambling my senses. While arriving we witnessed water hippo, antelopes, monkeys and wild boar. Slowly my appetite returned: cassava, roast meat. I also managed a pineapple and a bowl of rice. No onions, though. The traders had sold most of these but those which remained were now super-pungent.
At another town whose name I unfortunately omitted to record. There was a nice if rather dirty river where people were bathing. There were canoes, topless women, and lots of young boys jumping about wildly. I was on the mend. I listened to the FA Cup Final on the BBC World Service; Coventry’s magic day. Hänse, Liz and me planned to leave the lorry here.
April 1987. We were in Nyala in the west of Sudan, having just returned from trekking in the Jebel Marra area. “We” were Hänse, my Swiss friend, Nicola, friend and colleague, and myself. Nicola was to return to Khartoum and then home to England but Hänse and me wanted to find a lorry which would take us to Bangui in the CAR. This was Ramadan time, and food during the day was impossible to find, but at sunset we ate heartily, and at our hotel (basic to say the least) we fell into political conversation with three Sudanese university graduates who shared their food and illicit (but relatively widespread) araqi with us.
It took quite some searching and negotiating to find a suitable lorry but eventually we were successful and began the journey. The truck was loaded mainly with onions and garlic as well as other fruit and vegetables, and there five Western travellers on top: Hänse, Liz (an English teacher), Dalton and Lisa, an American couple; and myself. There were also a few others: a couple from the CAR with a young baby, and a few merchants. The first stage of the journey was from Nyala to Um Dafuq. This was a border town with a lively market where we managed to purchase tea and fruit and rice for the remainder of the trip (the length of which we had no idea).
At Um Dafuq I had some trouble with the local health officer who demanded 25 Sudanese Pounds for a yellow fever certificate; I had one but evidently it was the wrong colour. An argument ensued and I was threatened with a stint in a police cell, already crowded with local smugglers. I resisted until resistance was futile and ended up paying, but only after I was promised a new jab with one of the many syringes floating in a bucket of not very clean water.
Our next destination was Birao in the CAR. Google Maps says it doesn’t have a route for this journey. But there is one, and very bumpy and potholed it Is too. I collected a few bruises as we were thrown against the sides of the lorry and tossed up and down onto the sacks of onions.
In Um Dafuq we had already seen some signs of the differences between Sudan and the CAR but in Birao these contrasts became more pronounced. Music from Zaire replaced the Arabic sounds; the hairstyles were spikier; the women wore kitenges and were more open, drank beer, danced with foreigners. Obviously more French (and local languages) was heard. The climate was more humid. Humidity has an effect on onions.
Linguistically it was something of a challenge for me. I had been teaching myself French in preparation for the trip but my level was no more than mediocre. (Five years of studying the language at school had done little for me.) Liz and Hänse were both pretty fluent; Dalton and Lisa spoke no French at all and needed everything translated for them.
Where did we sleep at night? By the side of the lorry in sleeping bags. I was used to rough sleeping and as ever the stars were in their thousands and beautiful and inspiring.
I began feeling a bit ill. Sniffles and an earache. But I was more or less okay. We cooked rice and chicken (using wood fires and killing our own fowl). We drank beer with some local soldiers. There were French soldiers too, and an Israeli businessman, looking lost and stupid.
My diary then takes a week-long break. When I was up to writing again, the following is what I recorded:
“Hello again! The long gap is because I’ve been ill for a week with a number of things. I went to the hospital at N’Délé where the doctor told me I had a fever and prescribed chloroquine and tetracycline. I’ve also had a nasty cough, complete loss of appetite, nausea, the shits, a cold and now deafness in in the right ear. Hänse has been syringing it out with salt water and telling me that loads of shit came out, and there’s more to come. The lorry ride hasn’t helped – the heat, the bumping. I’ve spent half of my time crashed out, sometimes half-hallucinating. The others have been great, practically doing everything for me. Now I’m improving, although when I had a temperature of 38.8º I felt like death.”
Looking back, it was surely malaria. We ended up in a place I recorded as Kapu Bandaru, but haven’t been able to locate since then. No doubt the illness was still scrambling my senses. While arriving we witnessed water hippo, antelopes, monkeys and wild boar. Slowly my appetite returned: cassava, roast meat. I also managed a pineapple and a bowl of rice. No onions, though. The traders had sold most of these but those which remained were now super-pungent.
At another town whose name I unfortunately omitted to record. There was a nice if rather dirty river where people were bathing. There were canoes, topless women, and lots of young boys jumping about wildly. I was on the mend. I listened to the FA Cup Final on the BBC World Service; Coventry’s magic day. Hänse, Liz and me planned to leave the lorry here.
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