Chapter 5 – The road

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Sayowa’s heart was beating at one hundred kilometres per hour, even faster than the car she was sitting in. Through the window, she saw disappear the big red sign on which was written: “UNAM Katima Mulilo Campus”.
That was where her sister was studying. It was still time to abort. To say: “Driver! Let me out!” That was what Muyambango would have told her to do. That was what would have been reasonable.
She said nothing.
The car made a right turn, the campus vanished.
She wanted to speak but could not produce any sound. Her breath was short. Her brain was making deliberations too fast to formulate.
The driver, ruthless, kept on driving through the town while Sayowa remained paralysed.
Service stations, warehouses, shacks on the side of the road… a new sign thanked them for visiting Katima Mulilo and wished them a safe journey.

Four hours earlier, at Livingstone’s bus station, she had asked the man with the moustache to let Muyambango’s wife know that she would find a way to get home on her own.
After a quick investigation with the drivers going to Namibia, she had learnt that cars would normally not go all the way to Swakopmund. They usually stopped in Rundu, half-way through, and were only leaving early in the morning.
While she was about to give up her plan and to ask where she could find transportation to actually get home, a man had came to her. He had told her a car was going to Swakopmund. It was almost full and was about to go. She had had to negotiate, to show her puppy eyes to get a seat, because the amount of money she had was not sufficient.
Without much effort, she managed to get taken pity on and could get in the seven-seater.
Half an hour later, the car was full, they had left.
They had exited the city and taken the road towards the Namibian border. That road was so damaged that they had rarely driven over forty kilometres per hour, having to zigzag between the pot-holes, which were almost craters.
It had taken them three hours to do two hundred kilometres, until a bridge that crossed the Zambezi River, towards the border post.
There, there had been a heated moment, when the driver had learnt she did not have a passport. She had thought for a moment her trip was over, but she had been shown a mean (not exactly legal) to cross the border on foot.
She had followed the advice, had arrived in Namibia and had found the car.
Shortly after, she had seen the sign of Katima Mulilo’s university campus.

They were now going a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour, moving every minute two kilometres away from her island, getting as much closer to Swakopmund.
She was sitting in the middle of a bench covered with a purple sheet, between a woman and an old man. Behind her, on a similar bench, were installed a young lady, two kids younger than her and a teenager about fifteen years old.
In front of her, there was the driver and a man in his fifties. His uncle, or something like that.
It was that man who had came to her in Livingstone and with whom she had negotiated the price of her seat. It was also him who had explained how to cross the border. He was tall, imposing, but inspired trust. He was wearing a red jacket with silver reflective stripes, which had been helpful to find the car after the border.
There had been close to no conversations since their departure. Only low volume music which was easy to forget when she paid no attention to it. Sometimes, the driver would skip a track, pressing a button on the radio fit into a big piece of polystyrene in the centre of the dashboard.
Sayowa had spent most of her time panicking inside.
Now that they had left Katima Mulilo, the option of getting back home was becoming less feasible with every second. She slowly ended up accepting the situation she had put herself into: she had taken the decision to go to Swakopmund, she had to hold herself to it.
No longer having an escape route relaxed her.

The scenery had not changed much since Livingstone: trees, bush, from time to time a village, a few lonely mud huts, cows. They were regularly meeting cars driving in the opposite direction, skimming past them with a big “whoosh”. The road only had one lane on each side, separated by a mere dotted line of white paint. The sky was blue again, but clouds here and there were threatening to bring the rain back.
They were going in a straight line, the driver had been able to gain speed. What they had done in four hours until there, they would have done in less than two if they could have drove that fast.
Acceleration seemed to perk the driver up. With a spin of his wrist, he turned the volume of the radio to max. Percussion beats, along with disordered electronic sounds, low at times, then high, mixed with a modulated voice, took over the cockpit. The noise shook up Sayowa’s eardrums.
She could not enjoy that cacophony for five seconds before the woman sitting on her left launched a long and high complaint, followed by an angry speech addressed to the driver. Words were barely audible, masked by the music, but the general meaning was crystal clear: “turn this mess down!”
The driver hurried to flip the knob back the other way. The volume became bearable again.
That incident had entertained Sayowa. She savoured the driver’s guilty look and the woman’s pout, which seemed to say “come on!” She realised she had barely looked at her travelling companions since they had left, all busy as she had been silently debating with herself.
So she began by observing the two opponents. The driver was a young man with a round head, skin wrecked by the vestige of past puberty. Patterns shaved directly into his short hair were visible under a black cap he was wearing sideways. He was short, wearing a skin-tight t-shirt full of bright colours. That made him look more muscular than we was. He would often turn to exchange a few words with the person sitting next to him, his uncle with the red jacket, who Sayowa already knew.
The woman left of Sayowa, who before her lightning intervention was dozing with her head on the side, was now well awoken. Her fury had made her immense. Her grandeur was magnified by a complex hairstyle, intertwined with thick braids, giving her twenty extra centimetres. Her small nose and her small eyes were throwing sparks. She was wearing a dark blue dress which traced her ample shapes and silver jewellery. She was holding a big purse made of coloured fabric on her knees.
As she completed that first part of her inspection, Sayowa turned to the old man on her right. He had not made a single motion since she had entered the car, even during the episode that had just occurred. To say he was old was a euphemism. He seemed to be seven hundred years old. His puny body, his stunted face, were barely visible under an innumerable amount of wrinkles. If it were not for his wide opened eyes, which only the pupils moved from time to time, Sayowa could have thought she was sitting next to a wooden log slipped into a large beige shirt.
She would have liked to turn around to go through the passengers at the back, but it would not have been appropriate. She settled for their reflection in the rear-view mirror just in front of her. With a small tilt of the head, she was easily able to go from one face to the other.
She started with the teenager sitting behind the old man. He was tall and thin. Whichever way she twisted her neck, she could only see his chin. She was able to observe his long skinny arms, sticking out from a plain white t-shirt. He was moving them often, apparently not knowing what to do with them. Sayowa recognised the typical behaviour of people who had grown up too fast. Seeing the pace at which she was herself getting taller, it was very possible she would soon be in the same situation.
She slightly moved her own arms, wrapped around her chitenge winded around the bundle of wheat, placed on her thighs. Yes, it was fine. She liked her proportions, there was no reason for it to change.
She moved to the following seat, the one just behind her. That time she had the inverse problem. She only saw the top of the heads of the two kids sharing the same spot. She lifted herself a bit to get the full heads. There was a girl who must have been seven, and a boy, smaller. She had fine traits and a trendy hairstyle, which consisted in splitting hairs in several portions to form small knots. He had a head shaped like a circle, completely shaved, big cheeks, his mouth made an “o”, full of bread crumbs and jam. She smiled at that look which seemed ever stunned.
Sayowa ended her review with the last passenger. Last but not least she told herself when she had placed that final face into the mirror’s frame. It was indeed a beautiful face, young, wearing makeup, well outlined lips, eyes shaded by never-ending lashes. She was crowned with a cascade of thin well made braids, a bit like Sayowa’s, precisely placed on shoulders covered by stripped white and blue fabric. Tall ringed earrings perfected the ensemble.
Sayowa admired her splendour for a long time, then move her head to frame her own face in the mirror. She saw her big eyes, her nose, not as cute as the one of the nice girl, her lips, not as well drawn, her high forehead. Maybe with a bit of makeup she could arrange it better. She quickly dropped the thought. She liked her face as it was. She smiled to herself.
She lowered her gaze to see the road, still straight, getting swallowed by the black and dusty bumper of the car.

A sign indicated “Kongola”. They crossed the small town quickly and arrived in sight of a gate, hand operated by an officer dressed in military outfit.
– Damn, the check-point! the man with the red jacket said.
He turned swiftly over to Sayowa.
– Don’t you have any ID? A birth certificate? Anything?
Sayowa had to reply to every question in the negative.
– Err… hide!
– Too late, the driver said.
They had indeed arrived fast. The agent could already see what was going on in the car through the large wind-shield.
When they got to his level, the driver lowered the window and greeted the man in uniform.
Sayowa did not move a muscle and held her breath, as if it could make her invisible.
– Hello, how far are you going? the agent asked.
– Swakop, the man in red replied.
– Swakopmund?! You know it’s already six p.m.? You will drive all night?
– Yes sir, the driver said.
The agent turned to the passengers.
– How is it going in there?
The choir of passengers replied in a brouhaha that basically meant: “we are fine and you?” 
The agent laid his eyes on Sayowa, who had not answered.
– Are you fine? You are going to the coast?
– Yes sir, she said feeling her face paling.
Those simple words would for sure give her up! Her cheeks transpired with guilt. She did not exactly understand what she was guilty of, but she was about to get in trouble.
The agent kept his eyes on her a moment, and unveiled a big toothless smile. He turned to the driver.
– All right, be careful on the road. You only have one hour of sunlight left, so don’t go too fast in the park.
He waved his hand and the barrier lifted.
The driver thanked him and drove.
There was a collective sigh in the car, all turned towards Sayowa (except for the old man). The young lady from the back even pass her arms over the back of the seat to give her two gentle pats on the shoulder.
– Well, that close wasn’t it? the man in red said. You, don’t go too fast.
After that, Sayowa felt the atmosphere had shifted in the car. They had become a sort of community. Even though they clearly all came from different worlds, during that trip, those fifteen hours they were to spend together until their destination, they were in the same boat (figure of speech, because they were in a car). She skimmed over each of their faces, thanking them silently.
The road crossed a river, displaying an open view, showing the first lights of the sunset: the horizon started glowing red.
– We’re getting into the national park, the man in red said, open your eyes for animals! And you, slow down a notch, they go out at nightfall, especially at the entrance of the park.
After the river, the road sank into a thick forest. A round road sign forbade them from going over eighty kilometres per hour. Another, triangular, warned them to watch out for elephants.
The speedometer was showing a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour, it dropped to a hundred. After a long curve, the man in red shouted:
– Stop! Stop! Over there, you see?
There was something on the road, three hundred metres away. Sayowa had not noticed it from that far.
– Elephants, the man said, keep your distance. If there are some over there, it means they are everywhere.
The car stopped. The driver even cut off contact. They waited in silence, scrutinizing every direction to check the man in red’s prediction.
– There.
The old man had said that word, in a gasp, as if it were his last breath of life. He was pointing a shaky finger towards a spot in the forest.
There was indeed a group of elephants knocking around trees a few tens of metres in front of them.
– Well seen madala!
The man in red showed another place in the forest. A trunk got out of the trees. Huge legs carried a big grey creature onto the road, fifty meters further. The imposing head turned towards them, its tiny eyes fixing them, the tusks menacing, the ears waving as a warning. That big female judged them for a moment. She must had found them harmless, because the rest of the herd soon emerged from the edge of the forest, all at once, as if the matriarch had sent an inaudible signal.
– They are probably going to the river, the man whispered as if this was a required precaution.
– Oh dear, oh dear, was making the woman next to Sayowa, as hundreds of elephants appeared from all sides, from the small group they had first seen, until way behind them. Some were casually going around the car, not looking at it.
As new individuals showed up on one side of the road, those who had already crossed were disappearing on the other side.
The ballet lasted several minutes. Those animals, of impressive proportions, were moving with a kind of captivating grace. Sayowa let herself get charmed by those incredible beasts. She could see intelligence in their small black eyes, witnessed it in their interactions, when mums would push the kids who took a too close interest in the car for instance. They inspired her deep respect with their calm attitude. Maybe also because she knew that a single one of them could knock the car over with a single head stroke, if they felt the herd threatened.

After the crowd had gone by, they waited a few minutes more, in case latecomers showed up.
Finally, they hit the road.
The sky had become orange.
The old man slowly turned to Sayowa and said with a voice that was trembling almost as much as his body:
– So, small girl, have you ever seen elephants like this?
– Never this many, but some sometimes they come on my island, during the dry season, when the river is low.
– The babies were too much cute! the voice of the little girl shouted from behind.
– Too much cute! the little boy confirmed.
That reminded Sayowa a story.
– One day an elephant calf came to our school, when I was six. It was so small, so nice! We all wanted to go out to play with it. We were not listening to what the teacher was saying any more, we were all at the windows. But the teacher forbade us from leaving the classroom. She went in front of the door to block it. She explained that elephants are very social, and that if there was a child, there must have been the mother close and that if we were approaching, it could attack us. So we just looked at it through the window and it left.
– So lucky! the two kids said together.
She felt proud. She had told a story, shared her knowledge, like her grandfather.
Better than that, she had just lived an adventure she could tell him about when she would get back home. She had never felt so certain she had taken the right decision when she had disobeyed her cousin. When she took the decision to leave for Swakopmund on her own.

A while later, something else stepped out of the trees in the distance and crossed the road. The lack of light in the evening rendered difficult the identification of that new appearance. The driver hit the breaks with prudence. He was driving very slowly while the thing was quietly walking on the tarmac, in their direction.
– A lion!
Sayowa did not have time to understand who had spoken. The woman next to her was already yelling, panicked:
– Go! Go! It’s going to attack us!
The driver complied, they passed the imposing feline at good speed. Sayowa could only see it for a second through the window. It had not paid the slightest attention to them.
In that flash, she had still been able to see its brown eye. It made a big impression on her.
As she turned around, she saw the big cat disappear quickly as they were driving away. She would have prefer that they had passed it slowly, to be able to observe it.
The woman was gently coming back from her dread.

The night fell quickly, they moved on with headlights as their only source of visibility. From time to time, a glimmer on the side of the road revealed some village. Other times, a car going in the opposite direction would blind them, ripping a curse out of the driver’s mouth.
The last incident to happen in the park was when the women opened the window to throw away a plastic bottle. That act immediately produced strong protests from the young lady and the teenager sitting at the back: “Really?! You are polluting a national park like this? It’s because of people like you our country is a mess!”
“Come on, it’s fine” was the woman’s only defence.

There was not check point at the exit of the park. There was thus no new emotion as for Sayowa’s lack of ID.
The journey dropped into monotony. The night had made the scenery uniformly black, tiredness made heads drop, the car’s soft oscillations were rocking the passengers. Only a sporadic conversation remained between the driver and his uncle, to fight off sleep.
Sayowa, whose day had been full of events and emotions, felt her consciousness slipping away.

A gurgling coming from her stomach woke her up and reminded her that she had not eaten anything since morning. She had drunk a few sips of water, but their nutritional values were evidently not sufficient to sustain an appetite.
She was not the only one who had lifted their heads. They had arrived in a town, the street lights had woken the whole car with the exception of the two kids.
The driver steered to enter a service station, quite busy in spite of the late hour. Cars were parked on the big plot surrounding the gas pumps. They were surrounded by a crisp effervescence. A sign above the entrance of the station indicated they were in Rundu.
The car stopped, all went out. Sayowa helped the old man with her arm.
The man in red and the woman both spoke to Sayowa at the same time, to ask her if she had food with her and if she wanted go to the bathroom. Her answer was “no and yes”.
The man charged his nephew with buying something in the station, the woman took Sayowa to the toilets.

A bit later, they were all sharing, standing outside the car, a collection of pies stuffed with vegetables and fresh fries wrapped in newspaper.
When Sayowa thanked him, the man reminded her of that saying nobody knew the origin of and that everyone put in practice in their own way: “In Africa we share”.
They recalled their adventures in the park as they were finishing their meal, and it was already time to go.
The man in red sat behind the wheel, giving to his nephew the opportunity to sleep, he who had been driving for over nine hours. When he tried to incline his seat to optimise his sleeping position, he once more triggered the furry of the woman who was hit on the head by the backrest. They agreed on an intermediate position, the trip carried on.

Sayowa, now full, did not resist the call of sleep for long. She fell against the woman’s shoulder. She herself had taken advantage of the inclined seat in front of her to use it as a pillow, her head leant forward.
At the back, the small boy was asleep in the arms of the small girl, who was slumped on the knees of the young lady, whose cheek was pressed against the window. The teenager had his neck thrown backwards. His wide opened mouth was producing a whole variety of sounds, soliciting the whole range of audible frequencies.
Only left awake were the man in red, driving, and the old man.
Sayowa sometimes opened her eyes when the lights of a new town or of a service station filtered through her closed eyelids. She would then stare at the moon, the stars for a moment, and close her eyes again.
She dreamt of Stefano, that she found him next to the ocean, that he gave her mozzarella and salt.

When she woke up, she did not remember the face she had imagined for her grandfather’s friend, nor what mozzarella was. But that was not what was troubling her.
She had to check something out, she had had an idea.
Again, it was the lights of a town which had woken her. The man in red parked in an umpteenth service station and went out to stretch his arms and legs.
Sayowa slowly pushed over the women to open the door, she stepped over her legs, went out of the car. The night’s cold air stroked her face, fully reviving her. The store-front of the station told her they were in Otjiwarongo and that it was almost five in the morning. She had slept several hours and was feeling perfectly rested.
She entered the building and found herself in a small store, lighten up by pale old neons. Small shelves were offering bags of chips, chocolate bars, biscuit packets. Nothing interesting.
She walked a bit, weaving her eyes randomly, when she found what she was looking for.
On a wall was displayed a big road map of Namibia. She got closer and enjoyed her find. She liked maps.
She scanned it with her eyes and found the dot indicating Otjiwarongo, almost in the centre. She put her index on it. She was there.
She continued her exploration until she found Swakopmund. The dot was close to the ocean, completely west on the map, a bit south from their position. The road joining the two dots made a four hundred kilometres diagonal.
With her eyes, she followed the Atlantic coast, going from Swakopmund, upwards towards the north until she reached the latitude at which her finger was. Slowly, she slid it horizontally, leaving Otjiwarongo until she found the ocean.
Her finger was now showing a point, three hundred kilometres north of Swakopmund, on the sea side, named “Torra Bay”.
She remained like that for a moment, her index on that new place, her eyes moving along the coast between Swakopmund and Torra Bay.
She was recalling a geography lesson, during which the teacher had said it was over there, on the Atlantic coast, that the salt they were buying was extracted. She had shown them pictures of large salt lakes next to the ocean and of big industrial machines.
It all happened there, at finger’s length.
What if, instead of taking that diagonal to go to Swakopmund, she took the perpendicular until the ocean, and then went down the coast? It would allow her to explore that part of the map she had been told about in class. To see where salt was made (moreover, it was an ingredient of her list!).
It would extend the trip a little, but it was probably worth it. The Namibian coast, she knew, had a worldwide reputation!

She found the man with the red jacket and told him her idea. He admitted that the coast was indeed worth a visit, but said they could not allow themselves to take such a long detour. They had to be in Swakopmund that very morning and the clock was ticking. He added “sorry small girl” as he paid the employee of the service station.
That refusal reinforced Sayowa’s determination even more. She had disobeyed Muyambango the previous day, it had been the best decision of her life! She could not give up so fast. She insisted.
– Aren’t there cars going that way?
– Maybe there are, but I couldn’t tell you where. And should I remind you that you don’t have any more money?

Twenty minutes later, Sayowa was in a car driven by the employee of the service station, on her way to Torra Bay.

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Excerpt from “Recette de pizza pour débutant” © (SACD) Thomas Botte