On The Trail There Is No Perfection

It was dry when Mike came to Malakal. The rains had ceased a few weeks before but the land was still tall and green with grasses and it was overgrown with bush. The bushfires would come soon but not yet. This would happen when the tall grasses were no longer green and had lost their resistance. Then the villagers would burn the grasses so that they would not burn when the cattle were grazing in the fields.

Villages work in the fields a few weeks after the last rains

     Then, when there was the burning, the air would smell thickly of the smoke and the ash. The ash was like a powder, thick and hazy, heavy in the air. It would carry on the wind in fibrous strands. The ash that you did not breathe you wore on your skin and on your clothes. The ash that did not fall on you fell scattered upon the ground and collected along edges like hair clippings. If you stood in it for only a few minutes you would smell of it and, when you came out of it, you would still smell it. It would be so thick and so constant that you might think the whole country was covered in it.

     But it was not the time of the bushfires yet. When Mike came the grasses were still tall and green and well fed. Mike was a soldier and then a security contractor and now an aid worker. When he was young he rode two-stroke motorcycles. He talks of hard rides and bad falls and near misses along beaten trails through the backcountry of Alabama. Now, in older life, he still loves bikes and talking of them and he rides them plenty good enough. Some boys never grow up, they only grow older.

     At the field office we have six Honda 125cc off-road motorbikes. They ride well when they are maintained and to maintain them takes very little effort. On the day he came we had a lunch of chapati and beef at the restaurant that the Deputy Governor owns. Once fed, we drove fast and far to the outskirts of the township where the canal separates the village from the grazing lands. We followed the canal south, passing groups of children and young women that bathed in the muddy water that was left from before the dry season returned. After a few kilometers the trail diverged from the canal and disappears into tall grasses and thorny bushes.

     The town and its surroundings was once a battlefield and for a long time it was besieged. The de-miners work slowly - as you would work if you were a de-miner - and they have so much ground to cover. The safe trails are the ones where you find tire tracks or people. If you don’t see soldiers in high boots and poorly fitting uniforms or women carrying water and firewood or young boys pulling toy cars on a tether, then you know you are where you should not be. Where the villagers fear to tread, you should also.

     This trail was overgrown on either side with tall grass and bush but there were clear tire tracks and the growth between them was stunted where the underbellies of the lorries had cut them before full height.

     We drove fast, Mike pulling up ahead and leaving everything behind and me shifting into a higher gear. The rode was mostly smooth because the earth had hardened in the sun after the rains and before the punishment of the lorries. But this motorbike is not a Road King and this trail is not a paved highway. These small Hondas are like big bicycles with fine shocks and little side mirrors and a gutsy four stroke motor. They ride easily but the ride is very different than you might be accustomed to.

Jane (left) and Susie (right) wait while their riders
take a look around

     They ride lightly and jauntily but they feel everything and they feel it completely. They feel every pebble and every patch of gravel they tread upon. They feel so much and they pass all that feeling on to you so that it is like you are feeling it directly. The trail is good in many places and you are practiced and surefooted. But on the trail there is no perfection and if something happens it will probably and hopefully happen first to your front tire. If it does, the tire will skid or it might kick out but you won’t worry much about it. You will feel and measure every bit of it and you will know that it is your front tire, which is only a placeholder. If you are good and confident and if what’s happening is not too bad, you can keep it in your front tire and you’ll ride through it. It is the back tire that steadies you because it is wider and heavier and has the torque of the motor behind it. It is what you rely on and you know it will be good to you if are in the right gear and if you give it extra throttle when it needs it.

     Eventually the bush opened to junction with a wide road. It was dusty and gravel-strewn but smooth and very well graded. It was the Chinese road that goes south to Panyikang.

     'That was fun,' Mike said when I pulled beside him. It was almost the only thing we said on that ride and it was probably too much because there was no need to say it.

     ‘A good ride,’ I said.

     We shifted into gear, turned, and took the good, new road all the way back.

And the Girl's Family Took Your Uncle?

‘I had very much on my mind yesterday.’

Tukols (traditional huts) in Dolieb, a village south of Malakal

     ‘Oh?’ I said. I was busy and I did not looked up from the computer screen.

     ‘Yes,’ said the Finance Officer. ‘My uncle was taken yesterday.’

     ‘Taken like kidnapped?’

     ‘Yes, he was taken by the parents of the girl I am going to marry,’ he said.

     I looked up from the computer screen.

     ‘How’s that now?’ I said.

     ‘I am in a competition for her,’ he explained. ‘There are three of us. One lives in Australia or UK or America. The other is a student. And there is me. The parents do not like me but the girl she likes me and she wants to marry me.’

     ‘This is back in your village?’

     ‘Yes.’

     I closed my computer screen.

     ‘We are now seeing who has the most cows to pay. The parents like the one from Australia. They were going to pick him. So I called my friends in the village and they stole the girl away.’

     ‘Your friends kidnapped the girl?’

     He smiled.

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘And then the girl’s family took your uncle?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘And now?’

     ‘Yesterday there was a negotiation. They gave back my uncle and my friends gave back the girl,’ he said. ‘Now the parents will consider my cows for their daughter. They know if they do something I will have my friends steal the girl again.’

     ‘Couldn’t this start trouble if you keep stealing the girl from her parents?’

     He was still smiling and he did not answer.

     ‘Now the one from Australia or wherever has 15 cows and 70,000 pounds. I have called my family - I have family in other countries. You know the whole family has to give cows or money for the marriage. Now I have 30 cows or 40 may-it-be but I don’t have as much money. When we have offered all that we can, the parents will make the decision.’

     ‘But you will steal the girl again if they don’t pick you.’

     ‘Yes,’ he said.

     ‘It seems you have an advantage.’

     He did not understand me. He thought I was speaking of the bride prices being offered.

     ‘We care more about cows and I have more. But now, you know, people want money because they go to town to buy things. So we shall see.’

We Will Measure the Sludge and Deduct It

I show him to cut the top off and cut a round hole in the bottom of the first jerry can. We fit the large diesel filter into the hole and put sealant around it so that the fuel could not pass except through the filter. We cut a round hole in the top of the second jerry can so that the filter sealed to the bottom of the first jerry can inserted securely into the top of the second one.

Office Assistant and Head Guard filter the diesel

     ‘Pour it here,’ I say.

     The diesel filled the first jerry can and, slowly passing through the filter at the bottom, it trickles into the second jerry can.

     ‘This is clear?’ I ask.

     The Office Assistant clicks with his mouth.

     ‘Now you will instruct the guards to do this and you will supervise them so that they do it right. They will wash the dirty drums place them upside down to dry completely. They will filter the fuel and pour the clean fuel into the drums. They will do this for one drum at a time and not stop until all the fuel is filtered and in clean drums.’

     ‘Yes. We will do this,’ the Office Assistant says.

     I look him over a moment wondering if I should repeat the instructions or ask him to repeat them to me. I leave him be and return to my work. When I come back a few hours later the drums are as they were and there is no work going. I call the Office Assistant over.

     ‘We emptied this drum and put the fuel into this clean one here,’ he explains.

     ‘And this one and this one and all the rest?’

     ‘In these the fuel is dirty so we did not want to put it in the clean drums.’

     I look him over to determine if we are sharing a joke.

     ‘So once the fuel goes through the filter, it is clean. That is what the filter does; it cleans the fuel. Then, after the filter, it can go into the clean drums.’

     He clicks with him mouth and I have long learned not to trust the clicking.

     ‘That which is sludge and does not pass through the filter you will put aside there.’

The diesel passes through the filter and trickles clean
into the bottom jerry can

     I point at an open bucket.

     ‘After all the fuel is filtered and put into clean drums, we will measure the sludge and deduct it from the fuel log. This is clear?’

     He clicks again and I decide not to challenge his understanding. This will be a process, I think, as all things here are a process always. I must be patient and I mustn’t be insulting.

     I return to my work and I come back in the late afternoon. I call the Office Assistant and he knows by my tone to drop whatever else he might be doing.

     ‘Yes, you explained the process and it was clear,’ he says. ‘The guards they wanted to stop because they suffered to work under the sun.’

     ‘I see. And now with the sun low and on the other side of the building so that all this work area is in shade - where are they now?’

     ‘Yes, I see. I will tell them this. And shall they resume the work now?’

     ‘Yes. Right now.’

When It Goes for So Long and Does Not Fill, There is a Problem

In the evenings when the city power is on, the city pumps water through the underground pipes. You turn on the electric pump and pump the water into your water tank. The water tank sits atop a metal tower beside the house and about level with the roof. The water tank supplies the facets and toilets so that gravity gives the water pressure and maybe you’ll get a decent shower. Usually the pumping takes a half hour or so.

     In the evening I leave the compound to meet some friends for dinner and drinks. The guard has turned the water pump on and sits nearby waiting for the tank to fill. He will know it is full when the water pours out the top of the tank.

     I come back almost four hours later. The guard is still sitting there and the pump is still on.

     ‘Has this been on the whole time?’

     ‘Yes but it does not fill,’ he says.

The street outside the ARC compound after a rain.
Water tank can be seen through the razor wire

     I go to the pipes and I review the setup. I turn the lever that opens the valve to permit water from the city pipes to enter the pump. The sound changes from an airy sucking to a watery sloshing.

     ‘When it goes for so long and does not fill, there is a problem,’ I say.

     I demonstrate the turning of the lever to open the value.

     ‘This must be like this,’ I say. ‘You hear the difference in the sounds?’

     He clicks with his mouth and I open the valve and close it a couple more times to be sure he hears and sees the difference.

     ‘Now it will fill and you will turn off the pump when it overflows from the top.’

     ‘It is understood,’ he says and I slap him on the back of he shoulder.

The Motorcycle Mechanic

He cleaned the carburetor and then he changed the oil.

     He kick started the motorcycle and it wouldn’t start. He opened the choke and cranked it again but it wouldn’t start.

     He increased the idle speed and this time it started. Then he returned the idle speed to its proper setting and the motorcycle died.

     A second time he increased the idle speed and it started. Then, when he returned the idle speed to its proper setting, it died.

     A third time he increased the idle speed and it started. Then, when he returned the idle speed to its proper setting, it died.

     A fourth time he increased the idle speed. This time I stopped him.

     'I think we’ve gone as far as we can with this gentleman,’ I said to the Logistics Assistant. ‘Let’s thank him and pay him and send him on his way.’