Calabar, Nigeria

Calabar

I stood still where the heavily armed guard directed me to stand while the “judge” announced his decision about the charges against me. He sat at his makeshift judicial bench in his silly looking gray wig and judicial robes and smirked at me while he announced his decision. He addressed the nearly empty room as if he was the Pope delivering an Easter sermon to a crowd of adoring worshipers instead of the jerk he really was speaking in a room that was empty except for the young guard and myself. He looked around the room with his hands folded reverently, his eyes fixed and his head bobbing as if he was silently acknowledging invisible accolades. “This court finds you guilty as charged for the high crimes against our country and our people. For the crimes you have been convicted of today, this court now pronounces your sentence. You will be executed at dawn tomorrow morning by firing squad.” He then looked directly at me and flashed a purely evil smile at me before he quickly stood and left the room. A door slammed behind him.

The words reverberated in my brain without sinking in. How could this be happening? It couldn’t be true. Lynching no longer exists. The only difference between this execution and a lynching by the clan back in the days was the clan wore white gowns with pointed hats and this guy wore a black one with a gray wig. This is nothing short of a lynching except it is by a firing squad instead of a noose. The guard shot me a sheepish apologetic look as he nudged me with his rifle barrel to get me walking and then led me out of the room in silence at rifle point. The guard looked to be very young. Too young to be carrying a weapon and leading people to their executions. He glanced up at me with more nervous sheepish looks as if to say I am sorry. I understood him. He was just doing his job. There was nothing he could do to help me at this point. He wasn’t responsible for this atrocity happening to me and who knows how many others that were murdered by this madman. Guards just doing their job and following orders need to start accepting responsibility for their actions at some point and despite his young age my guard knew I had been shanghaied by his C.O. so he should have done something besides shrugging to prevent the execution of an innocent man. Now it looked like I needed a miracle to save my life.

Nigeria can be a brutal country. The Biafran war was a good example of pure human cruelty. Reliable estimates are as high as three million casualties including both the military and civilian population. It started from a dispute that was basically just about the distribution of oil money to different groups of people that were not getting along. It escalated rapidly into a death zone, mostly for young children and poor defenseless people that starved to death due to a blockade of supplies. It only lasted a few years and then just as quickly as it started it suddenly ended. I entered the country just three weeks after the official end of the war. I expected to see a country in ruins and the people full of animosity. Instead for the first part of my journey I saw a bustling energetic mix of differing ethnic people getting along and going about their day to day lives with little signs of the recently ended war except for some blown up bridges and occasional blown up tanks or military trucks along the sides of the roads. That is until I went to the Southwestern corner of the country where I was arrested for spying.

I was a couple of days out of Lagos walking along the road to the last place I wanted to visit in Nigeria, the small town of Calabar, which is close to Port Harcourt and Ikang in the Southwestern corner of the country near where the Biafran war was mostly played out. I stopped for a cup of tea and a sandwich from a roadside café. The café was a typical palapa for a roadside in Nigeria, just a rough, hand sawn plank for a counter and a couple of more planks propped up on blocks for tables all under a simple thatched roof. The tropical hardwood the café was made from would have been worth a small fortune back in the States, but here it was just cheap practical wood. The customers just stood up or sat at the tables family style. I ordered my tea and sandwich and instead of sitting on the ground, I stood up leaning again the tree growing in the middle that supported the simple thatched roof. I was enjoying the showmanship of the man pouring the tea while he held the pot and the cup as far apart as he could stretch his arms. He never spilled a drop. He enjoyed showing off his talents as much as I enjoyed watching him perform. He was all smiles and positive energy. Then I heard a vehicle pull up out in front of the café and I slowly turned my head in the direction of the entrance when all of a sudden everyone in the café disappeared including the young man operating the café. I was alone in the café as a tall, large and very imposing Nigerian soldier stepped into the scanty shade wearing the imposing ostentatious ribbon and medal covered military uniform of a high ranking officer. He looked at me looking at him and he instantly pulled out his very large chrome pistol and fired directly at me. I had no time to move or anything. The large caliber bullet struck the tree I was leaning against about two inches or less above my head and wood splinters showered down on me. My ears were ringing and my brain was racing trying to figure a way out of this situation I was suddenly thrust into. My tea and bread were full of splinters and it was too late to run. I reached up and calmly and casually brushed the splinters out of my eyes and off my face. Fully expecting another shot to ring out and take me down, I decided to just keep drinking my tea. I had to sip the black tea, sweetened with condensed milk, between my teeth to filter out the splinters. The soldier didn’t shoot but instead went around the counter and poured himself some tea without taking his glaring dark eyes off of me or lowering his pistol. The hate he exuded was palpable. He was tall and heavy without being overly fat. It was obvious that he was very arrogant and loved to bully by using his power over weaker individuals. I briefly thought about running but he would clearly have been able to shoot me before I could get away and being the only white person for a couple hundred miles didn’t help me either. He came around and stood right in front of me glaring with a furrowed angry brow and snarling with the corner of his mouth. What an asshole is all I could think. His reputation clearly preceded him the way everybody ran off into the jungles.

Finally he spoke. “What are you doing here in Nigeria?”

“I am a tourist.”

“There is a war going on. There are no tourists here, only soldiers and spies. If you are not a soldier then you must be an Israeli spy.”

“No I am neither a soldier nor or a spy. I am an American and the war has been over for several months now.”

He was just being a jerk. “Where is your vehicle? Where are your supplies and radio?”

“I don’t have a car. I am walking. The roads here are very dangerous in cars ever since they changed which side of the road to drive on back on Easter Sunday. I prefer to walk. It is safer than riding in a vehicle. I don’t have a radio or supplies of any sort. I only have my one bag here and nothing else.”

He just grunted like a wild pig. It was obvious that my casual insubordinate responses were not what he wanted from me. There probably was no response I could have said to appease this bully. I was not going to show weakness because that too would have infuriated him and encouraged him to stomp on me. I briefly thought about cracking some kind of joke to try to break the icy standoff between us but decided this guy had no sense of humor with anybody at any time. When he finished his tea and some already made sandwiches he found on the counter, he ordered me at gun point to get into his Jeep. I calmly complied by finishing my tea in a gulp and placing the tea cup on the counter with the money to pay for it, before lifting my pack off the floor and following him to his Jeep. On the walk to the Jeep, I had to spit out the wood splinters I got in my mouth from gulping my tea.

He drove south at breakneck speed. I had to hold on tightly or be thrown out of the vehicle. There were often farm animals and kids on the little used but rutted dirt road we were on. He never slowed down when they were on the road ahead of us. He just plowed through at high speed. Luckily he didn’t hit anyone or anything but only because they all ran or jumped out of the way. I could hear their obviously profane screaming at him as he proceeded on, oblivious to the dangers he presented to others. He didn’t care about anybody that was obvious. It took us about 45 minutes of driving in silence to get to his military compound.

The military base was out in the jungle away from any civilian buildings. It was enclosed by a high fence made out of stout hardwood saplings woven tightly together. There was a clear area with no trees or any other obstacles and finally a cluster of adobe buildings in the center. A soldier swung a gate open with a salute and we entered as the gate swung shut behind us. I thought about the compound in King Kong as the guard slipped a large log into a slot in order to lock the gate. The officer parked the Jeep, drew his pistol and at gun point ordered me out of it. I complied as calmly as I could under the circumstances.

He took all my things away from me and went through my pockets and cuffed me behind my back with some old rusty handmade hand cuffs. I wondered if the cuffs were left over from the slave trading days, they certainly looked old enough. As he went through my things he made comments here and there like, “Why do you Americans treat blacks in your country so badly?” Or like these, “How many blacks have you helped to lynch?” “Why do you work for those Jewish madmen?” “What were you spying on in my country for those stupid Israelis?” “We will find your vehicle very soon.” “How many of you are there out there?” I said almost nothing in response to his idiotic statements. When he finished rifling through my things, he left me with the guard then disappeared for about twenty minutes. When he returned, he looked ridiculous. He no longer was dressed in his military uniform but instead was dressed in the attire of a British judge, wig and all. A horse’s ass of many colors I thought to myself. The guard led me into a makeshift courtroom with the officer acting as the judge and a couple of other soldiers guarding the doors and no one else. He addressed the empty courtroom like it was full of important people. He told all these imaginary people I was an Israeli spy and he was going to preside over my trial. He read the charges he had just written down and then glared at me. He asked me a couple of stupid questions, “Why are you working for the Israelis?”

“I am not working for anybody?”

“Is your passport real or fake?"

“Of course it is real. I am not a spy so why would I need a fake passport? I am nothing but a tourist interested in Nigeria and Africa in general. I am not out to hurt anybody or anything. I just want to learn about African culture and its people. I am a student. I have my student ID card in my bag that you took from me.”

“We don’t need to see any more of your fraudulent documents. We know the truth. We know why you are here. We will find your supplies soon enough.”

He smirked at me and started ranting at me, “Very many black men like myself are treated very poorly by you and your fellow Jewish, white, friends. They have lynched many innocent black men for no reason except for their own entertainment. They treat us like animals. Black men got lynched in the US without a trial but I am fair. I am giving you a fair trial.

“Right! This kangaroo court isn’t exactly what I would call a fair trial. Where is my defense?”

At least I now knew his motive, revenge for crimes of the father. He convicted me of espionage for Israel without allowing any defense for me and no evidence presented to verify his accusations. He then sentenced me to death by firing squad execution at dawn the next morning. The whole trial was less than five minutes start to finish. Then the soldier walked me out of the room and showed me a post that was full of bullet holes with dark stains on the surrounding ground. The so called Judge had told me they would execute me in the morning, this was obviously where. If they were trying to intimidate me, it was starting to work. Then I was taken, speechless, to a holding cell where the rusty handcuffs were removed and the heavy wooden door swung shut and was locked with a loud clunking noise. I was left alone in a room about eight feet by ten feet with a single window up high on the wall. There was a crock of water and a crock that was obviously the toilet by its smell. No chair or bed or anything else including any type of light was in the room.

I stood there in shock for a few minutes. I had been warned about Africa being the white man’s graveyard but I didn’t think I would go out like this…executed at dawn as a Jewish spy no less. As the sun went down and my cell went dark with no lights around, I realized that I had to do something besides sit there crying and feeling sorry for myself. I wasn’t going to sit there quietly and let them shoot me in the morning. I started circling the room. There was a small window about six feet off the floor blocked by more hardwood dowels built into the walls that were made out of what looked like adobe. I wiggled the wooden bars but they were pretty solid. One would move just a bit. I dumped out the water and stood on the empty upside down pot to reach the window. I started digging at it and wiggling it. I worried that someone would hear me working away but what the hell, they were going to kill me one way or the other so I kept at it. I have read many times that your life flashes in front of you when you are going to die. My life was not flashing by. I was concentrating on getting the window bar out. My hands were getting sore and bloody from digging away but I had to keep going. It took me about five hours but with constant effort and the motivation of being executed if I didn’t get out of this little cell, I managed to make a hole big enough to get out though the opening. I poked my head out the opening half expecting to get hit by a rifle butt or something like that. I did not see anybody around in the dim moonlight. I climbed out. I stood outside the cell for a minute to get my bearings in the dark.

The compound consisted of a group of buildings clustered in the center with a well lit clear area about 50 yards or more wide surrounding the buildings and then finally there was the ten or twelve foot tall fence. The clear area was being watched by guards when we arrived and I assumed they had a night shift working too. I decided to just walk, not run, across the clear area. I made it to the fence and started examining it for a way to climb it or go through it. I found an area where water ran under the fence when it rained and within a couple of minutes work with the softened earth, I was on the outside of the compound, free to go.

Now here is where I finally got angry. I started to fume. My fears and anxieties all erupted into anger now. Young angry males can be really stupid. I was a very, very, angry young man and I did something really stupid. I went back inside the military compound to get my stuff. On the way back across the clear area walking towards the buildings clustered in the center I decided to carve a Star of David on the wall of my cell just to piss off the asshole officer. I crawled back into my cell. I picked up one of the bars from the window that had a point and I went to make the star. There was only one problem! I could not remember how to make a Star of David. Was it five or was it six points? Then I remembered that it was two triangles one on top of the other. I quickly scratched one into the hard adobe wall as visibly as I could make it. I crawled back out of the cell and snuck around to the room where my things had been left. I slowly opened the unlocked door and inside I found my things in the room I had been handcuffed in. I walked back out the same way again. Outside the compound once more, I looked my things over in the dim moonlight and discovered my passport and money were not in my things. Then I remembered that the officer had taken them with him when he left the room to change into his judicial robes. I needed to go back into the compound yet again and climb into the officer’s personal quarters to get my passport and money back.

“What are you doing master?” A young boy about 8 or 9 years old startled me in the dark.

“I am escaping from here. They were going to execute me in the morning but I got away. I forgot my passport and papers inside though so I need to go back in one more time.”

“That is very dangerous. They might catch you this time. You were very lucky last time not to get caught. I watched you.”

“I need my passport and other papers that he took from me. I have to go back inside to get them.”

“I know the compound very well. I will go get them for you. It is safer for you to stay out here and wait for me. Where are these papers and what do they look like?”

“They are in a black folder about this big and the officer took them into his quarters with him.”

“I know where he put them. I will go get them. You wait here.” He took off under the fence without any further discussion.

I waited a few minutes and then I suddenly realized that the young boy was going to tell them about my escape and lead them to me for a reward or something. I started to panic. I looked around for a place to hide but there was no place around and besides if the kid ratted me out the entire base would come searching for me and they would surely find me. So I waited and hoped I could trust the young boy. After about ten minutes he crawled under the fence and smiled proudly as he handed me my things.

“I climbed into the officer’s quarters while the officer slept, and got your things out of his desk and the officer was snoring loudly when I left out the window again.”

I gave him $10 for his effort. I was outside the compound with all my stuff and the young boy was showing me the way to the dock where I planned on stealing a boat and going straight to Cameroon. Stealing a boat is not something I would do lightly. I am no thief. Morality is not intrinsic for me. When it comes to survival I would steal or do whatever is needed at the time but only for survival purposes.

“Could you show me the way to the harbor or someplace where there are boats? I want to steal a boat and go off into the mangroves so the soldiers can’t find me.”

“Yes master, I will show you where you can find some boats. The swamps are very dangerous. There are very dangerous criminals living in the swamps. You will not be safe.”

“Ya well I won’t be safe anywhere around here because they will come looking for me when they find I have escaped. It is the only place they won’t look for me. I have no choice.”

He led me to and through the town. Dogs barking were my biggest fear. I thought they would wake someone up or something and I would get recaptured. When we finally got to the small dock I started snooping around in the dark looking for a boat to steal when I happened across two smugglers with a big load of kitchen utensils. I scared them as much as they scared me. “The police are chasing me and are going to kill me. Can you help me get away in the mangroves?”

They clearly did not understand me. The boy tried to say something also but he only spoke English too and these men did not understand us. I figured that they spoke some Pidgin and some French. They had reacted to the word police when I was talking and they figured out that I was running from the police from my sign language. I pointed to myself and said “No policia! Policia voudrais kill me!” I held my arms up like I had a rifle and sighted down it and pulled the trigger then I rolled my eyes back like I was dead. They understood me. They started laughing but told me to wait and they would give me a ride to Cameroon. They unloaded their goods with a young couple that suddenly appeared out of the dark and we took off with my heroic young boy that had helped me escape waving goodbye from the small brick dock.

We pulled out away from the small brick dock in the long dugout canoe which was hand carved from a single giant log and we quickly disappeared into the misty darkness of the mangrove swamps with me in the middle and the two young men paddling, one on either end. They were very good at controlling the canoe and we were cutting through the inky black darkness very rapidly. I was relieved to be away from the maniac military officer but I may have jumped into a canoe with two more men just as or maybe even more dangerous than he was. I had no idea if I could trust these two. I also had no choice but to take the chance or die for sure at the hands of the crazy officer. These men at least smiled a friendly genuine appearing smile at me which is something the officer never did.

I started to reflect on my journey so far. Without a doubt I had some luck on my side. Not all the luck just fell into my lap. I earned a lot of the luck. I could have been executed in Nigeria. No one would have known about it except for the officer and his lackies. I would have just disappeared like Dr. Livingston did--only in my case nobody would have written a song about it. I managed to fight my way out of the situation using only my wits and my hands and did not get executed. I am sure that someone was executed in my place for allowing me to escape like I did, maybe the guard that was supposed to be watching the clearing or the guard that was supposed to be taking care of the jail. For all I know the young guard that was guarding me in the kangaroo trial saw me escape and did nothing to stop me because he knew I had been railroaded. The only thing I know for certain is that the jerk officer will need to have someone to blame for his failure. Of course he learned that Israeli secret agents are some slippery well trained professionals.

We were miles away gliding silently through the water except for the sound of their paddles deftly dipping rhythmically into the brackish water. As the sun came up at dawn, I listened for the sound of rifles but even if he did execute the guards in my place, we were too far away by now to hear. I am sure there was a big search going on for me back in the vicinity of the military compound but they would never think about me going into the mangrove swamps because they were considered impassable. And I found out why as we pushed deeper and deeper into Conrad’s proverbial heart of darkness. The swamp could easily be its own executioner. I didn’t exactly trust my two young men that were taking me deeper and deeper into the darkness of the mangroves. It would be easy for them to get rid of me out in this wild, dark, and unknown place.

As I sat there balancing as best I could, I watched the shoulders and arms of my saviors working the paddles. They clearly did nothing else but paddle canoes fulltime because all the muscles used to paddle were glistening with sweat and were well developed, large, well coordinated and able to paddle seemingly forever. The rest of their bodies looked emaciated by comparison. I thought about Popeye’s overdeveloped arm. When we first started out I was moving around a lot trying to find a comfortable position to sit in and they were getting agitated with my disturbances. I noticed their frustration and stopped moving deciding that the ride was worth some pain. Controlling a dugout canoe with three people sitting in it requires a degree of balance and team work and I was a novice. The gunnels of the boat were only an inch or two above the waterline and if the canoe rocked even slightly it could take on water and roll over in a flash. How they navigated I never figured it out. We were passing through a maze of tree roots, trees, vines, canals, rivers, islands and swamp that to me all looked the same. They would turn here or there down small canals sometimes barely wide enough for the canoe to pass. They sometimes pulled on branches to get through tight spaces. Branches and plants hung down and we had to brush them aside to get under them. I was a little afraid of getting bit by a snake but I never saw one close enough to bite me. I did see snakes but mostly small snakes in the water that fled when we approached. I didn’t know if there were crocodiles around or hippos like I had seen killing people in Tarzan movies or the African Queen with Bogart. A lot of scenes from Tarzan movies were going through my head. I half expected to see painted faces suddenly appear and capture us or to have blow gun darts hit us. I had no idea what to expect so I just took it all in stride and tried to make friends with the two men.

In the morning dawn there were sounds of raucous birds calling and of monkeys howling. The mud which was exposed as the tide lowered was literally covered with holes occupied by bright colorful crabs and some small fish that walked out of the water on top of the mud using their fins like legs, sometimes even hopping along the top of the mud flats. There were also shrimp everywhere. We saw fresh water dolphins that playfully checked us out up close and then swam off squeaking their high pitched calls that reminded me of Flipper or maybe a laughing hyena. The monkeys that we saw were long lanky black and white ones that were very loud. There were lots of birds off in the distance but I only saw the ones that looked like some type of gull or the wading birds that were bold enough to allow us to pass close to them as they ate the plentiful shrimp, fish and colorful crabs whenever they could catch one off guard.

Bodily functions were a minor distraction in a small canoe. I was holding mine in the hope that they would have to go first and show me the technique required to piss and defecate from an unstable canoe like this one. In the end I could no longer wait and I had to go. I motioned for them to stop near the edge so I could climb out and take a piss and maybe drop a load while I was at it. They shook their fingers at me and said no with a very serious look of concern on their faces. I figured out from their body language that the problem is the mud is deep and it will suck you down. A few minutes later we pulled up to some mangrove roots and one of them showed me how to climb up on the roots and hang my ass out to shit. I figured out my own way to piss. They watched me dropping my load and they started to argue. I determined that the one in the front wanted to just paddle off and leave me there because they had all my things in the canoe. The one in the back liked me and did not want to abandon me out in the middle of the swamp which would have been a death sentence for me in all probability. I shot my load out with a big squeeze and got back in before they ended their fight with me losing out. I was lucky again that at least one of them liked me. I had worried a bit that this scenario was a possibility, but so far, I survived.

On the second day the tide went out so far we were trapped on top of the mud. Almost as soon as the canoe stopped the men quietly ate some cassava they had wrapped in leaves and went straight to sleep sitting up in the canoe. They had to be tired. They had been paddling nonstop since just before dawn throughout the day and night that followed and it was almost mid day now of the second day when we finally stopped. I tried to doze but my legs, feet and back were all killing me. I managed a bit of shut eye but could not get the kind of hard sleep my friends were getting. I had a little food with me, some crackers and cookies and some canned sardines that I munched on. I offered some to my guides but they seemed reluctant to take anything from me. They ate nothing but the cold cassava wrapped in banana leaves, which is nothing but starch. As soon as the canoe floated again we were off. We took a break from paddling several times as the tide went out and we balanced the dugout on the mud until the tide refloated us.

On the fourth day my friends suddenly perked up and started to increase the intensity of their paddling. I found out why shortly. We came to their home village in the middle of the swamps. The people that lived here earned their way mostly by smuggling, fishing and piracy. They were also known, according to what I heard later, for leaving the swamp periodically to go on raiding parties to villages and towns nearby the mangroves where they would attack and kill people to steal all their possessions and kidnap any young girls they found. They were a tough bunch that was for sure. They were well armed. When we approached they pointed their rifles at me and started to argue with my guides. I figured from the way they were talking that they were afraid I would bring the military or the police to their hidden village. My new found buddies defended me telling their friends that I was on the run from the police and military. The men with the rifles laughed and let me pass. We were finally stopped and after four days I got to stand up and move my legs. At first I just could not get up. My guides jumped out and tied up the canoe and the one from the back of the canoe helped stabilize me enough to get out onto the dry land. I stretched and massaged my sore legs and walked around slowly to try to get the blood flowing again. The young men went and hungrily ate some fish stew and some fruit and bread and went to sleep. I sort of stood around my things in the canoe, waiting, not knowing what was next. A few hours later my guys came back and we got in the dugout again. It took all day paddling but the man in front suddenly got agitated again. He and the other one argued about how to deliver me to the safety of the far side. The one in front did not want to risk getting captured by the police or military while dropping me off. I came up with a plan. After some very animated sign language with a few words of French and some sound imitations we agreed on a plan. We would wait until dark and then they would drop me off at the dock and they would leave. I would wait until it was light before walking away from the dock. It sounded good to me and they agreed. I stood on the small dock after they dropped me and searched in my bag for something to give them. I had nothing really except my clothes. I dug out my money and gave them $5 each and they were happy as hell. Not bad for me, $10 for a lifesaving canoe ride almost six days long through some of the most remote area in Africa. I was a happy camper.

I climbed under my mosquito netting and fell asleep. In the morning I started to walk up the trail from where this small dock was located. I heard a commotion in the trees and looked in the vicinity of the sounds. It was a family of gorillas. They were a long way away but I could see them clearly. Lowland gorillas were almost extinct. They were a rare treat for me to see. I tried to move closer but they heard or smelled me and they moved off quickly. I continued to walk along the faint trail and started to see palm tree plantations. Palm oil was going for a good price because it was used to make napalm for the war in South East Asia.

I walked about another mile and I saw a simple cabin with a frail looking older white man sitting on the porch drinking tea and eating bread. He jumped when I walked up to him and said, “hello.” He was very afraid of me. I put my hands up in the air and said “bon jour” to see if maybe he spoke French instead of English. I told him, “There is no need to be afraid of me. I am not here to hurt you. I don’t know where I am and I need to know how to get to the main road to get into a city or town.”

That threw him for a loop. He loosened up and started talking to me in British English, “I speak English. Not French. What are you doing here? Were you in a shipwreck or something? There is no place you could have come from.”

“I just came across the mangroves from Nigeria. I rode with some men that live out in the swamps. They gave me a ride in their dugout canoe. It took us six days to cross and they paddled day and night. I am totally exhausted right now. I haven’t slept for a week. It is a long story.”

The man looked confused by my statements. He gave me tea and bread with marmalade as he talked. “Well you are in the country of Camaroon right now. How did you end up in my front yard?” he asked again. I again told him the story from the tea shop to this point in time which in reality was only one week. He was stunned. “Impossible!” he said. “Those murderous sons of bitches that live in the swamps are nothing but killers and thieves. There is no way they would help somebody without cutting their throat. I live in constant fear of them coming up to me like you just did and murdering me. Why didn’t they just kill you and steal all your things?”

What could I say? “I am lucky I guess.”

“You are also lucky that I speak English because most people around these parts only speak French and Pidgin. How were you able to communicate with the thugs from the swamp? I know they don’t speak English, just that pidgin crap.”

“I was just nice to them.” Is all I could respond. “I gave them a chance to be nice and they were. I think we had a common connection in that the police were hunting for me just like they were looking for them which they could relate to.”

“Well you are one lucky son of a bitch if what you are telling me is the truth. Those blood thirsty bastards. Myself I have a hard time believing you. But where else could you have come from? Are you in some kind of military or something?”

I answered with what was becoming my standard response, “No I am just a tourist.” We then drifted into small talk as we drank our tea and ate the food. Later in the day after I rested a bit, he gave me a ride up to the company compound in his little Citron car. I met all the Europeans that worked the farm and a few of the Camaroonian workers. Afterwards, we had a nice French dinner. We all talked or maybe I should say I responded to questions all evening about my experiences. I was ready to die from exhaustion by now. One of the French women told me that the first man I met, Tom, was a complete hermit and lived down in that cabin alone never talking to anyone and only coming to the company store to buy enough food for a couple weeks at a time. She said this was the first time she had ever seen him be social. I somehow sparked some life into the old man. I ended up going back to his house for the night and then after a great night’s sleep and another continental breakfast the company offered me a ride to the nearest town in a few days time.

They gave me a tour of their farm. It was huge. Miles across in every direction! Palm trees everywhere. They had a factory where they burned the scrap branches for fuel to melt the palm nuts down into oil. The factory had a plume of rancid smoke billowing out of a tall chimney. Their biggest problem was they needed lots of help to climb the trees and harvest the nuts. A typical worker could not pick very many a day because it was too much exertion to climb the tall trees. They also wanted me to show them where I saw the gorillas. I know Africans well enough not to show them where an endangered animal is because often they will kill them. I showed them the wrong place and they got out and looked and didn’t see any sign of gorillas so they thought I was not being truthful. I just told them I couldn’t remember because I was so exhausted at the time. I was starting to recover from my intense week. I smiled and said, “Let’s look over there. Maybe that is where they are.” I was enjoying myself again. It is good to still be alive.