God Is on this Mountain

‘You know, I was the national boxing champion,’ he said.

     ‘Were you?’ I said.

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘You must have been quite good.’

     ‘I was national champion for four years. I was very good for those years but then I experienced a bad period and then I retired,’ he said.

     ‘He’ was the Kenyan guide that had come with us on the bus from Nairobi. He was a small man and aging but lean and solid from the years of boxing and then the years of mountain guiding. He wore a blue baseball cap and a heavy blue coat. He wore the coat and I wore a t-shirt and he looked comfortable while I was sweating heavily under the strong sun and the weight of my pack. Africans have a very different perception of weather, I thought, remembering how a couple months back I would come out of the house shirtless in the early morning to find my South Sudanese security guards shivering under heavy blankets.

     ‘I was a bantamweight,’ he said. ‘I was very fast and I had good lungs. I was very good with the jab and then the left hook. When I lost the quickness I was no good anymore and I had to quit.’

     I nodded.

     ‘You must be very fast and you must have very good lungs and you must be able to hit back for every hit you take.’

     I nodded again, enjoying the walking and the working of the muscles and the weight of the pack.

     ‘When I lost my quickness I still had the lungs and I could hit back but I was not good like before.’

     We walked side by side on a wide, gently rising trail through thick forest that blocked out the direct sunlight from above. It was midday and we were just more than an hour into the 10 kilometer trek of the first day. This day would take us from Machame Gate to Machame Camp where we would spend the first night at 3,000 meters. From there it would be five more days up and then another day down but that was all too far ahead to think about.

     Now, an hour into the first day’s trek, my muscles were warm and I could feel the benefit from the previous weeks of early morning jogging. I felt strong - my breathing was good and my legs were confident under me - but also I could feel the first day awkwardness as the tendons accustomed themselves to the weight of the hiking boots and the shoulders to the weight of the pack and the whole mechanism searched to find its rhythm.

     Finding the rhythm always decided if it would be a good accent or a struggle. For a high altitude trek like this one, I was certain that it would be the difference between success and failure. The rhythm was there in the muscle memory, learned hard from all the previous hikes you had done and just set aside in the time since the last one. Like every time before, all you had to do to get it back was go through the motions during the first day until the muscles were tired enough to be broken of their natural stubbornness.

     Then when you found the rhythm, the movement of your legs and your arms and the respiration in your chest would synchronize. You would inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth, deeply and slowly, and you would get all the air you needed and maybe more at least until you entered the real altitude. If you were real good and were really keen to be synchronized you would take water from a Camel Pack and you would time it so that the gulps came between the breaths in order to disturb the synchronized breathing as little as possible.

     Also when you were synchronized you would not want to talk. You would feel so good, feeling your body in harmony and your senses sharp and your mind clear, so that the talking would only disturb this. But at least now while the muscles were being broken to find their rhythm, I did not mind the talking because it was a good distraction.

     ‘Soon after I was no longer good I retired and became a guide. That was when I was lost because I didn’t have the boxing anymore. But then I found my faith and everything was different after that.’

     ‘You found your faith?’ I said.

     ‘Yes. You see I was born a Christian but I was without faith. It was an experience that gave me faith after I started guiding.’

     ‘I see.’

     ‘Of course you are a Christian so you will understand about finding faith.’

     ‘I am not a Christian. About faith I have tried and I have not succeeded,’ I said.

     ‘Truly you are not Christian?’ he said. ‘What are you then?’

     ‘I am without religion.’

     ‘But you believe in God,’ he said, ‘even if you are without religion.’

     ‘I don’t.’

     This he could not understand.

     ‘It is important that you believe,’ he said. ‘I had my experience and it changed me so I know how important this is.’

     ‘Maybe I will have an experience and then I too will know,’ I said.

     He liked this and he became happy.

     ‘I think you will. I think you will find God on this mountain.’

     ‘You think so?’ I said.

     ‘Yes,’ he said decidedly. ‘God is on this mountain.’

     This mountain was Kilimanjaro - the highest on the continent with a peak reaching 5,895 meters above sea level. It was not supposed to be a difficult technical climb but rather a long, brutal slog up into thin air. If you were accustomed to the altitude, then you would still find it challenging enough to keep your interest. I was coming from the dry, flat land of Malakal, South Sudan at 415 meters, so I was plenty concerned.

     God is on this mountain? I thought, well it sounds pretty enough and I guess he wouldn’t be bothered by the altitude at least. Anyway, even if he was here, finding God seemed like a pretty lofty goal. My goals are much more modest, I thought. I was here for the fresh mountain air to clear the Malakal dust from my lungs and for a good challenge to clear my cluttered mind of all the mundane thoughts for a while. If he was here and if he could be found, I was not particularly interested in looking. Anyway, it seemed like a lot of effort to find God and I was already climbing a mountain on my holiday. But I try to keep an open mind and I have always considered that to indulge another in something they really care about is the highest form of charity. Damn it, it’s my holiday and I don’t want to be charitable, I thought. Do it anyway.

     ‘If he is here as you say then maybe I will find him,’ I said.

     ‘He is here and I am sure you will find him,’ he said. ‘Now let me tell you of my experience - the one that gave me my faith.’

     ‘OK,’ I said.

     The air was just a little bit cooler than when we started and my muscles were feeling better and more pliant with each step. This meant that the breaking was not far off, so I was glad that this story was coming now because later I would be feeling too good and I would not want to hear it and I figured it would be a shame not to learn how God was found on this mountain.

     ‘So I was guiding a group of men - they were Germans and they told me they were Satan worshippers.’

     He paused, maybe for effect or maybe because he expected me to utter an exclamation of horror or disbelief. I walked on and listened and he continued.

     ‘I didn’t know what this was then but they explained it to me and I knew it was very bad. Then in the night at the campsite they played a terrible music and they chanted some things about me. Whatever they said it cursed me and I became possessed.’

     ‘You became possessed by Satan?’ I said.

     ‘Yes. It was terrible. For a week I had these terrible images that went through my mind and I felt a great urge to do evil things like kill. It took all my control not to but still I went around like a mad person for that whole week up to the top and back down again. When the tour ended and I returned the Germans to Nairobi, I went to a Catholic church.’

     ‘I understand the Catholics are the best with exorcisms,’ I said.

     ‘Well the priest didn’t do anything like that. He prayed with me and then he told me to return here to the mountain and ascend it again. He told me to eat only ugali and to drink only as much as I needed. This way I would stave the daemon and it would be expelled. He said when it was expelled, the Holy Spirit would enter and I would be saved.’

     ‘And the daemon was expelled this way?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘And the Holy Spirit entered?’

     ‘Yes. And it took away all the madness and the terrible thoughts of death and killing,’ he said.

     ‘So that is how you found your faith?’ I said.

     ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was a terrible trial but in the end I found my faith so it was worth it.’

     Soon after we caught up with the two Danish women who were the two other tourists in the group. As they entered the conversation, I was able to exit it. The Kenyan guide began to talk to them about finding God on the mountain and I did not need to hear the story again so I increased my pace until I was beyond earshot. Now I was feeling the rhythm in my step and my breathing had become deep and slow and even. I put in my headphones and I listened to a book that imagined the way things were for the cave people thousands of years ago. I listened intensely and I felt the churning of earth and rocks under my boots and I observed the trail and the trees and the sky above them. I noticed my head cleared and my thoughts became more lucid and less scattered.

     I did not know what a faith-finding experience would be like. I only knew that sometimes you could experience a perfect moment or, if you were very lucky, a series of perfect moments. I believed I had experienced a few in my life so I knew how rare they are and also how to spot them when they came. I did not hope for one of these moments during this trek mostly because they occurred when they wanted to and certainly not when you were hoping or expecting them to come. When they did come, if they came, it would be because whatever you were doing you were doing it completely and there was no part of you that was not involved in doing it. Then you would not care if the moment came because you would only care to keep doing the thing completely.

     So let’s don’t think about it, I thought, the thinking only ever gets in the way. Thinking is the hardest thing to stop and the best way to ruin whatever you’re trying to do, I decided. It seemed as true as anything else I had come up with and it seemed like very good advice. So I replaced my earphones and returned to the story and tried only to focus on the movement of my body and the terrain that I was ascending.

     

     

Make The Most Amusing Ass That You Can Of Yourself

‘We have missed you in Malakal,’ I said.

     ‘Yes, I have missed you guys too,’ he said.

     He is the Finance Officer and he was well dressed on that day as he is always well dressed. Many will wear a full suit every day or randomly throughout the week because that is one of a half dozen outfits and all have their turn in the rotation. You will be in a t-shirt or a polo shirt and just the thought of a suit jacket will make you begin to feel the sweat. Today he wore a dress shirt and slacks that were too short for his long legs. His dress shoes had long, narrow toes and they were covered in brown dust from the unpaved road in front of the office. He is very tall and very dark and very uncompromising. He is a Dinka. It is very wrong to make one person your picture of a whole people. But to me he is what I think of a Dinka to be. He is made up of some of the best and worst of his people and their traditions. He is boxed in by those traditions and he knows it, but he follows them and he attempts to flourish despite it. I like him because of this - there is an authenticity about someone who is uncompromisingly, unapologetically, and inflexibly who he is and where he comes from. I suspect he is what our cowboys were or what we expected them to be and, anyway, this is very much a frontier town. Also he is good humored and does not take himself too seriously, which is not very Dinka of him. I like him for that and also I like him because he is colorful in his opinions and hardworking and he does not give too many excuses for what he does.

     We were in Juba because he had been in his village to arrange his marriage and I had come to the capitol to spend the holidays. He had been away two months. The first month had used up a year of earned leave and for the second month I had given him unpaid leave. He had not returned when he was supposed to and for this I should have begun the termination process. But it is hard to find a finance person you trust and I had spent a lot of time training him and, anyway, as I said, I liked him. So I gave him a warning letter and a month of unpaid leave and this had gotten me in trouble with the Country Director.

     We were in the logistics office, which is always busy - or should always be busy - whether there are programs running or not. So I led him out and into an empty room where we could talk.

     ‘So tell me how things have been going,’ I said after we greeted each other again.

     ‘Yes, so you know I was in the village and now it was down to two of us competing for the lady.’

     ‘Yes, I remember. Who is left that you still compete against?’

     ‘The one that now lives in Australia his people found him another lady. So the one that remains is the student in Wau,’ he said. ‘She does not want him but his father is old friends with her father. So you see how it is.’

     ‘Yes, I see.’

     ‘The family did not want to choose me so I took her,’ he said.

     ‘You took her a second time?’

     ‘Yes, the first time was when I was in Malakal and I called my friends to take her for me,’ he said

     ‘Yes, I remember, and then the girl’s family beat and kidnapped your uncle.’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘So you took her again?’

     ‘Yes, but she went with me.’

     ‘I see. How did you do it?’ I asked.

     ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I did not want anyone to know I was in the village. I did not tell anyone but one of my people. I bought a mobile and he gave it to her to communicate with me. I sent her airtime from my mobile. You know, I spent three days in the bush with only water and packages of biscuits waiting for her. Her family always watched her but sometimes she called me when she went to the latrine. Then in the night after three days she called me after they all went to sleep. So I came in the village and I took her.’

     ‘Where did you take her?’

     ‘We spent two days in the bush. We stayed in an empty tukul away from the village.’

     I imagined him in the bush with this lady who was probably still a girl and him wearing his dress clothes because maybe that was all he had or because that is where he was in the clothing rotation.

     ‘You took her to the bush,’ I said. I was repeating it because it is a way of actively listening and I have found it works quite well here.

     ‘Yes. Then the lady’s family went to the police and the police arrested my father and mother.’

     ‘They arrested your parents because you took the girl?’

     ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then, after we were two days in the bush, we went footing to Bor. When my phone had a signal, my parents called and told me they were arrested. So I had to come back.’

     ‘Sure.’

     ‘When I came back, they let my parents out of prison and they arrested me.’

     ‘How long were you in jail?’

     ‘For three days and they fined me.’

     ‘And the girl went back to her parents?’

     ‘Yes, they took her back.’

     ‘And why is it that the girl’s family does not like you?’

     ‘It is the father and grandfather and uncle that are against me but the rest likes me just fine,’ he said.

     ‘And the girl likes you?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘And you like the girl?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘Even after the two days together in the bush?’

     He looked questioningly.

     ‘Sometimes you will spend time with a girl and find that you don’t like her so much as you thought you did.’

     ‘Yes, I like her very much,’ he said.

     ‘OK then. So, two days in the bush,’ I said. This was me listening again.

There was a moment as we thought about this - perhaps each thinking something different or perhaps thinking the same thing. ‘So, did you...?’ I said, making a gesture with my hands.

     He smiled because he understood or because he did not understand but he did not answer and I did not press him.

     ‘So why does the father and grandfather and uncle not like you?’ I said.

     ‘You know, it is because I talk to them,’ he said.

     ‘I see.’

     ‘The rest of the family they like me but at the family meeting the father and grandfather and uncle - they are the head of the family and they overrule the others.’

     ‘Yes, I see. So what will happen now?’

     ‘So now,’ he said, pausing and then continuing, ‘the girl must escape. If she escapes they will see that she has made her decision.’

     ‘She must run away from home.’

     ‘Yes. Maybe this will have to happen two or three more times. But I cannot take her again. Now she will have to escape on her own. When she escapes, then she will contact me and I will have my friends take her again. I left 500 pounds with one so that he can conduct her away, maybe to Malakal.’

     ‘And if she comes to Malakal?’ I asked.

     ‘Then the judge would make her father settle. Then they would accept my best offer because they would know that she will not come back.’

     ‘Better to accept your offer of cows than to get nothing,’ I said.

     ‘Yes. You see how it is?’

     ‘Yes, I see,’ I said.

     We both thought about how it is but I think we thought very different things in that moment. I could not know the thoughts that were in his head but I wondered about them and I had my own ideas. It was all very dramatic, I thought, rival suitors, a deal between old friends, a bride price in cows and cash, a kidnapping, a reverse kidnapping, a stakeout, them running away together, then jail and fines, and probably plenty of other things that he had not told me about but that I could make up. It would make a damn fine story if you could write it well, I thought, but I did not think I could. To write well, I figured, you have to believe in what you are writing or at least take it seriously. I felt bad that I did not because I was skeptical that this was really love. Maybe it was not love only inexperience or maybe or was pride - him seeing a thing that he could not have and seeing that as reason enough to want it. And maybe her playing out that first act of rebellion that is how we know when a girl becomes a woman.

     I thought about how quickly I could summarize this biggest event of their lives into something trivial and that made me feel very bad. I felt bad for him because his labors deserved more than my skepticism and mostly I felt bad for myself that I should be so skeptical about what someone else felt. He is inexperienced and certainly she is, but that is not a bad thing. They might be inexperienced but that doesn’t make the feelings any less real. Still, you do a lot of stupid things when you’re inexperienced, I thought. You do a lot of stupid things anyways, I corrected myself, but especially when you are inexperienced.

     Then I was remembering my inexperience and how it was on my first proper date, which seemed like long ago but was suddenly quite vivid in my mind. I had taken her to one of those places where you order at the counter and then they bring the food to your table. It was not fast food but it was not very far from it. We took our drinks and selected a table and then she went to the restroom. As she was going, I turned clumsily to follow her with my eyes and, when I did, I knocked over her soft drink. It was my first crisis situation so I allowed myself a few moments to panic. When she returned she saw the pool of Coca Cola and a large caution sign and a man was mopping it up. Then she discovered me at another table. I think I was pretending to check my phone or maybe it was a pager back then.

     ‘The waitress knocked your drink over,’ I said, looking up as casually as I could manage.

     ‘There are no waitresses here,’ she said.

     There was a moment while we examined each other.

     ‘Yeah, I knocked your drink over,’ I said, recognizing that I was defeated.

     She was very magnanimous in that her first of many victories over me.

     The rest of the evening went very much the same: me trying to be entertaining as I drove us to the laser show and her pointing out that I had missed the freeway exit and then us returning the other way and me missing it again. Then, after the laser show, it was us enjoying the view of the city from the observatory while everyone else departed and then us getting locked in until eventually the security guard discovered us. It was a fiasco of a first date and it was a very fine success. So I learned something important after that experience: if you are not rich or gorgeous or an athlete or a musician, then you’re best strategy is to make the most amusing ass that you can of yourself.

     So I thought of that and that thinking led to other thoughts. The spilling of the drink made me remember when I was on the flight to Jordan before going to start my first mission in Iraq. The drinks were served and I took a red wine. I poured a near full glass and then placed it in the cup holder while I reach down for my headphones. When I came up my hand struck the cup and the wine went all over my khaki pants. So I spent the rest of the flight wet and cold and deeply purple stained so that I had to carry a blanket in front of my crotch whenever I went to the lavatory. When I arrived in Jordan six hours later and my new colleagues collected me at the airport, I decided it was better not to blame in on the flight attendant.

     Then it seemed like a long time had passed while I was thinking and I decided that I should say something.

     ‘It seems that you have done what you can do and you made preparations for what needs to happen next.’

     ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

     ‘So now you have to trust her to do her part, I guess.’

     ‘Yes. You know, it has been very hard but I think she will do it,’ he said and he sounded very tired. He did not sound enthusiastic as he had sounded two months before in Malakal when he had told me the plans for his conquest.

     ‘They will have to accept me,’ he had said with as much confidence as one could imagine.

     Now that confidence was gone and he looked a little older and wiser and very tired.

     ‘It sounds like it has been very hard,’ I repeated.

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘You like her that much?’ I said. I decided that I would ask it again and, if he answered it well, then maybe I could suspend my skepticism. Maybe if he could wait all that time in the bush and then make the long walk to Bor and then return because it was what he had to do, knowing that he would lose her and go to jail - maybe if he go through all that and tell me about it and be at his lowest point, and then answer this question and make me believe it...at least I wanted to be somebody who would believe it.

     ‘Yes, I like her very much.’

     ‘OK,’ I said satisfied and a moment later, feeling better, I decided, ‘You have fought very hard and I think it will work out.’

     ‘Yes,’ he said.

     Maybe he appreciated my effort at confidence in his situation or maybe it was what he needed to hear at that moment because now he was smiling and you could see he was proud of himself.

     He considered this and so did I until it seemed like time to say something again.

     ‘So then will you be returning to us in Malakal while you wait for her to escape?’ I asked.

     ‘Now,’ he said, ‘You know, when they arrested me, they fined me 2,000 pounds. I'm broke. So you see how it is?’

     I smiled because it was all so damned amusing and it did not matter if I believed it because it was real and happening now.

     ‘Yes I see how it is,’ I said. ‘Come on. We will arrange it with logistics and you will fly back with me tomorrow.’

The Oil Sizzles as It Strikes

He pours vegetable oil from a recycled plastic water bottle and the oil sizzles as it strikes the wrought iron pan. The pan is on a small grill filled with hot coals. The coals receive air from the open sides and he adds new coals and the ash of old coals he sweeps out so they scatter into the wind and upon the ground. There are others along this street that do as he does, tending the coals and squirting the cooking oil and frying the chapati in it until it is brown and hot. I choose this one because he seems as good as any other and he is closest by.

     ‘A rolex, please,’ I say.

     ‘One egg, two eggs?’ he says.

     ‘Two,’ I say.

     ‘Three pounds,’ he says.

     I nod and he breaks the two eggs into a cup. He takes up a big kitchen knife that is one sheet of metal with no proper handle. He cuts a small piece of onion into smaller pieces and does the same with the tomato. The chapati is finished and he takes it from the pan and places it upon the stack in a plastic bag. He uses the knife to stir the egg and onion and tomato. Then he takes up the water bottle and squirts cooking oil onto the thick, black iron pan. He puts too much oil on but I think he will stop so I say nothing but he goes on and now I decide it is much too late. He pours the egg upon the sizzling oil and immediately it bubbles and bloats and cooks through instantly. He pours more oil around the egg and now I think I will not need to chew. I will only bit and open my throat and the greased egg will slide down whole. When the egg is almost cooked he places a chapati upon it and leaves it to cook longer. Then he sees and smells that it is done so he turns the chapati so the egg is on top. He places it on the table between him and me and he rolls tightly and places it in a clear plastic bag. He begins to the put the one bag into another bag but I stop him because I already have a bag in my hand. I pay him and I take my rolex away.

The Time for Celebration Was Over

When the date for independence was approaching they said the new terminal would be built in time. It was to be ready to receive the dignitaries that would come from many countries to celebrate the occasion. The workers were put in shifts around the clock and they worked harder and longer and later than they had ever worked before that. when I saw them on a dry day during the rainy season some weeks before the independence they had a chinese foreman. He paced the construction site amidst the timber and the rebar and the cement blocks and shouted for them to work harder. But, as I said, that was as hard as they had ever worked or knew how to work and he was the only one that would receive a bonus if the terminal was constructed on time. I came again some few days before the independence and there were more of them and they worked still harder but the terminal was still a skeleton and, by then, they had passed the point where more men and harder work could change the equation.

View of Juba from atop Jebel hill

     I came again when I left some days after the independence when hopes were still high and flags still waved and banners still hung, but the time for celebration was over. Now it was the time for running a government, for rebuilding the petroleum rigs and the roads to them, for pacifying the tribes that stole cattle, and for breaking the rebel militias that harassed the northern border. Then the work on the terminal had slowed. The workers were fewer and their pace was less hurried.

     Now it was some months later and I arrived again. From the window of the plane that stopped beside the single runway where the staircase was rolled over, I saw that the work on the terminal was further along. The skeleton had flesh but no guts inside it and no wiring like arteries along the beams and the wall studs.

     I sat beside Sarah on the 737 that had brought us from Malakal along the northern border. It was her first time on Ethiopian Airlines and my first time on anything more than a prop jet between there and the capitol. The modern world was coming, I thought. We sat until the aisle had emptied. Then on the ground, walking to the terminal, she asked how long I thought until the airport would be on the level of Nairobi. 10-15 years is what I thought, knowing that Nairobi was not a particularly good airport.

     ‘More if they go back to war,’ I added.

     In the terminal beside the baggage counter we kissed on the cheek and she went to pass through customs and then re-board the airplane. I moved to one side where I could see between the bodies that crowded the wooden counters where the bags were manually ushered after coming out of the x-ray machine. There was as much activity in the waiting as I had ever seen anywhere. Some bags had to be checked by a soldier and every bag had an owner that shoved his way in to get at it and a commotion that was created for the shoving and because there was nothing else to do for the rest of those that still waited.

     One man was fat and squat and wore a gray suit with a pin of the country’s flag on the lapel. A tall, old army officer - probably a colonel - came over to look for his bag. He wore a green uniform and a beret with a tassel. His trousers were too short for his long, old legs and I thought that was funny. They, the officer and the squat one in the suit, bumped and the gray suit said something to the green uniform. The green uniform liked what the gray suit said and he laughed. It was too much laugh for anything clever that the gray suit could have said. The gray suit took license from this and he said something else. This time is was not so funny as the first and the laughing was muted. Soon the two discovered their bags and they went back into the crowd.

     Where they had gone then another man came to that calm spot within the commotion. He stood watching the suitcases as they came out of the x-ray machine. Another man had spotted him from a distance and the two greeted each other. They put a hand on each other’s shoulder and then they shook hands and embraced. Each held something in his hand - the one held an envelop and the other a mobile phone. As they spoke the one placed the envelop in the breast pocket of his suit jacket and the other placed the phone in the pocket of his polo shirt. I could not understand them but I figured I understood well enough what they said to one another.

     ‘Hello, brother.’

     ‘Ah, my brother, hello.’

     ‘You are most welcome.’

     ‘Thank you, brother, and you too are welcome. You are well, brother?’

     ‘Very well, very well. You are well?’

     I too am well. And your family, they are well?’

     ‘Yes, very well. Thank you, brother, and yours - they are well?’

     ‘Oh, yes, quite well. Thank you.’

     ‘You are most welcome.’

     ‘Thank you. I greet you.’

     Here or hereabouts the exchange faded out and they stood watching the bags pass through the x-ray machine. More bags had arrived and the great commotion had swelled around the baggage counter. Now they spoke no more until the one in the suit jacket identified his luggage.

     ‘Fine to see you, brother. Be well,’ he said as they shook and he went to join the commotion around the counter.

     ‘Likewise, brother. Take good care.’

It Is My Bad Policy

The Major was leaving so he invited me for dinner and drinks and to introduce me to his replacement. Another American from another organization was on mission and staying at the guesthouse so I invited him to come along.

Malakal in the evening after a rain

     The Major is with the State Department, which keeps a presence to monitor the developing situation. He stays on a large compound beside a church where several NGOs and a couple of ministers rent houses. It had been a bad, hard day as many of the recent days had been bad and hard and I was in a rubbish mood. The compound is near but we went in the vehicle because we might come back late if we started drinking.

     We pulled to the gate of the compound and I sounded the horn. The guard came out and approached the window.

     ‘It is closed,’ he said ‘You must come during business hours.’

     ‘We do not come for business. We were invited by the Major.’

     ‘You are welcome but the vehicle you leave here,’ he said.

     ‘But here is not safe for the vehicle.’

     ‘Nothing can happen here,’ he said.

     ‘Things do happen here,’ I said. ‘Right here the vehicle was broken into and the fuel was stolen.’

     ‘Here it is safe and you cannot enter with the vehicle.’

     ‘But I was invited and I have entered with the vehicle before,’ I said, which was true.

     ‘You know two ministers live here so there is a policy,’ he said.

     Often when you are a foreigner and you press them they will relent. This one gave no sign of relenting but I decided to press harder. I said I wanted to speak to the supervisor.

     ‘It is a bad policy,’ I said and I knew it was a mistake as soon as it was out.

     ‘So my policy is bad?’ he said.

     Damn, I thought, now he has taken it personally.

     ‘I don’t agree with the policy,’ I corrected but it was much too late now.

     ‘No, my policy is bad,’ he said and now it was a statement.

     It was a statement and it was a damning statement. It was the worst statement that could have been said ever and at that moment. It was a statement that you said and regretted saying as soon as you said it but knew that there was no undoing it.

     ‘Now you cannot enter,’ he said. ‘It is my bad policy.’

     'Neither me nor the vehicle?' I said.

     'No,’ he said. ‘Because it is my bad policy,'

     He repeated this several times and I tried to smooth it over but there were no words in his language or mine that could fix this now.

     I called the Major.

     ‘Hey, Major. We’re here at your gate but we can’t come in. It seems I have insulted the security guard.’

     The Major came. He is a big man, heavier and wider in the body than you would expect from looking at his face. He came and the guard told him that we may not enter because it was his bad policy.

     ‘What policy?’ said the Major.

     ‘The policy that the vehicle may not enter.’

     ‘OK, let’s speak privately a moment,’ said the Major.

     Major put his arm around the security guard and drew him into the compound. We waited and when I glanced back at the colleague that was with me I said something about two people catching each other at the end of a bad day. He smiled. He is good at withholding judgments or at least appearing to. In a few minutes the gate opened and we were allowed to pull the vehicle in.

     We parked and followed the Major to his house at the far end of the compound.

     'Jesus, man, you're causing me a lot of fucking grief tonight,' he said.

     ‘Yeah,' I said. 'I’m definitely the asshole tonight.’