How not to cross a border (1)
Central African Republic, Febuary1984
We travelled across the hot dusty savannah of the Western Sudan, following the railway from Kosti through El Obeid to Nyala and Oum Dafog at the border to the Cetral African Republic. We did not encounter any difficulties which was fortunate because rumours about unrest in this region abounded. Everything seemed so peaceful that I could hardly imagine that there was a war in the south.
But appearances can be deceptive. Siggi, not the driver but another traveller who had joined us on the way, wore a bullet shell around his neck which he had picked up in a train after it’d come under fire in the area around Wau. Ten minutes after the shooting, everybody acted as if nothing had happened. We were about 300 km north of Wau.
Our driver had left us in Khartoum, along with Paul, the former legionaire. The two were determined to continue to the south and came under fire on a ferry across the Nile. They managed to escape into the swamp and made their way out of the trouble zone. When I met Paul again in Bangui he had booked his flight home. He’d had enough for the time being.
Harald and Reinhold now shared the driving and we made good progress. We were welcomed in the road construction camps along the way, many of the companies were West German. We enjoyed their hospitality almost as soon as we had left Khartoum and periodically all the way to Nyala, mainly by teams from “Wayss & Freytag” and “Herbert & Franke” who were generous both with their hospitality and advise.
Every now and then, we camped out in the savannah, far from any human settlement. On this particular morning, I was woken up by a roar as if from a lion. Uschi, Norbert, Walter and I had slept on the lorry under a cover of palmfronds. It was already daylight. I blinked into the rear-view mirror and saw a herd of camels passing behind the lorry, some of whom emitted a deep growl. Four boys had dismounted their camels a short distance away. They were engaged in animated talk, shooting intermittend glances over to the camp. They seemed hesitant but eventually turned away to follow their herd. It was time to get up.
This close to the border to the Central African Republic, the land was green. Carob trees and oil palms were growing in profusion. We expected to reach the border early today.
After three hours drive, we came to a village of round adobe huts covered with straw, typical for this region. The road was bustling with animals and people. The men wore skull caps and white, green or light blue jellabas, the women were dressed in brightly coloured tunics. Children and donkeys milled around. We drove up to the market place where a number of lorries were lined up. This, apparently was the border.
Parked in the shade under a huge mango tree, we awaited our turn. We had to wait for three hours but on the other side of the street there was a small tea shop where we could relax. When the paperwork seemed finished, just as we got ready to depart, two soldiers boarded the truck for a thorough search. Before long, they would get to Harald’s chemistry box. Luckily, they found our medical supplies first and immediately asked for painkillers and indigestion remedies. We had sufficient pills to get past any checkpoint and handed over some from our store and the two gave the OK to leave. Harald fired the engine, but nobody came to lift the barrier. Instead one of the soldiers at the checkpoint signalled us and we simply drove around the barrier into the Central African Republic.
Our passports started to look impressive by now. ‘If you don’t know where to travel next,’ I mused to myself: ‘Just pick the nicest stamp..’ The one we had received at the border glittered a metallic red-green when held into the light and was by far the most impressive I had seen so far. We had obtained it without any hassle. But in Birao, the first town past the border, we had to endure lengthy procedures to receive a plain passage stamp.
As soon as we pulled to a stop on a sandy square, a soldier barked at us. Apparently we had parked on the “sidewalk”. We were shown to a spot a little further down and all our passports were collected. There was none of the friendly welcome we had received in the Sudan. We were asked for the name of our mothers, fathers, our professions. Reinhold told us to say “student” or “teacher” — possibly: “hairdresser”. Udo, being Udo, said “Figaro”. The soldier looked up with a scowl. Harald desparately indicated the cutting of hair which satisfied him. Then it was my turn. Was I married? No?What was I waiting for? “Bien, merci.” With a sigh of relief, we took back our passports with their tiny new stamps.
But it wasn’t over yet.
I had a clump of compressed grass in my luggage which I had received as a present in the Sudan. It wasn’t particular good quality — full of seeds and more likely to deliver a sore throat than a high, but I had hung onto it, if just for cooking. Once past the border, I had removed it from its hiding place because some of the others wanted a joint for lunch and it was now floating around somewhere in my backpack. And in Birao, long past the border, two officers again insisted on seaching the lorry. Thoroughly. They were not open to appeasement.
Harald and I exchanged glances. The officers had begun to go through our backpacks one-by-one. By the time they got to mine I had been able to alert some of the others in a hissy whisper: “The hash!” While the officers looked on with stony faces, I slowly began to pull the contents out of my rucksack. The washbag, which I unpacked. Nothing of any interest in there. My T-shirts. A towel. I could feel the little bag of hash against my hand. If I pulled out the towel, it would drop out. If I didn’t, the officers would get suspicious. I looked up.
Udo, Uschi and Dieter had been rummaging through their stuff and held up a shirt, a few T-shirts and other assorted garments shouting: “A vendre!”. Apparently there was a demand for Western clothes and also (God knows why) for towels and soon a crowd had gathered, bidding and bartering for our stuff. The officers stopped their search and took their pick, then jumped off the lorry and walked back to their post, too aloof to mix in with the commotion that now surrounded us. We were in the clear, even if it had cost a few shirts off our backs. I breathed a heavy sign of relief. In my mind I had already languished in a dark cell on death row. From then on in I vowed never to take hash across any border ever again, no matter what. –Even though the stuff turned out to be freely available in the Republic and was probably semi-legal anyway.
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Denni