Chukwuma ate sand for the umpteenth time. His eyes hurt. He could barely see.
Dear Lord! What have I gotten myself into?
The sandstorm bit harder, feeding him gratuitous servings of fine, jagged particles. While his mouth filled up, his mind emptied of reason– delirious from the deafening howl and unending sting of desert grains. His high cheekbones and low nose bridge, the only exposed flesh in his covering, were frightfully sore from the aerial assaults and numb from unyielding pain. Even the ragged grey scarf given to him by their Tuareg guide did not stop the dust from finding a route to his parched lips, silencing any shred of defiance he still had. The dust itself was a muffler. He had been coerced into rubbing discomfiting petroleum jelly in his nostrils at the start of the trek but it was impotent against such arid opposition. His nostrils were cracked and bleeding, his entire body sore and weary. Yet he found the strength to drag his corpse a bit further.
Chukwuma could barely walk. He could barely stand. He could barely see. When one trudges through the raging simoom of the Sahara Desert on a dark, sunless day, visibility is at a premium. One has to rely on other senses for orientation as the eyes are usually engaged in a battle of their own with the elements. Chukwuma rubbed his eyes with his left hand frantically while gripping firmly to the hem of another man’s shirt with his right. The loose cotton shirt he clung to was worn by a lean figure in front of him who led the way aimlessly, at least in Chukwuma’s view. As far as he knew, they jolly well could be walking around in circles. Behind him was a Malian boy from Gao who also clung to him for dear life. The tail of his shirt was mangled in the boy’s clenched fist and Chuks felt the traction on his shoulders as he tried to move forward, making his every step heavier and sinking him deeper into the sand.
Nobody wants to be lost in the Sahara. Nobody wants to die here. So far from home.
There were many of them walking in a single file, holding onto a piece of each other’s garments like paper-cut men. It was a case of the blind leading the blind. Their backs were hunched with necks retracted into them like buzzards in a vain attempt to shield themselves from the storm. There was little solace in this posture as the wind laughed at their antics, severely lashing their humps with whips of sand, chiding them for the gall! Yet the Quasimodos trudged on. Nothing else for them to do but to move even though the strain was unbearable. A cry escaped someone’s lips now and again but it was muffled to a whisper by the raging wind. You almost doubted you heard it.
Is there no place to take shelter? Is there no reprieve from all this? I don tire ooo! Make person die abeg!
Chukwuma is a Nigerian – the first of nine children; six from his mother and three from the other woman. His father, a school teacher in a community secondary school, had died of chronic kidney disease five years ago. For almost a year before he died, they had been treating him for malaria and typhoid fever– moving him from one hospital to the other, one church to the other. But when his ailment was finally identified in Lagos University Teaching Hospital, it was in its latter stages and they were told he had only a few weeks to live. Too late for dialysis or kidney transplant, they were told. Even if it weren’t, they lacked the wherewithal to afford either treatment. So they watched helplessly as the poor man suffered for his remaining days. Muscle cramps, nausea, breathing difficulty, itching, swollen extremities? He had them all. It was thus a relief when Chukwuma Sr. died in his sleep. He deserved no less for all his sufferings – both in sickness and in health. He was a man who sacrificed all for his family and accepted responsibility for the weakness of his loins. Upon his demise, Chukwuma had to drop out of school and find a job since Mother was a petty trader. He found it extremely hard to get one as he had no qualifications, no capital, no skills, and no supportive relations. What’s more, he was too proud to beg and too upright to steal.
“We stop here! We stop here! Sandstorm too much! We lie down!” Ah! The sweet sound of reason in the form of a Tuareg.
Ahead of him, the Tuareg’s silhouette sank into the sand unceremoniously and merged with it. Others followed suit with groans all around. Chukwuma fell on his back feebly with a sigh of relief, pulling his shirt over his face, and shutting his eyes tight to find sleep. Even then, flying sand still tore at his eyelids causing him to wince. The sandstorm was relentless in its attack and whistled expletives in his ears constantly. This was going to be a long, painful day.
Damn you, Ehis! Damn you for your advice! Damn you! I would never have embarked on this journey if not for you!
Chukwuma had met Ehis the year before while working as a dockhand at Apapa Wharf in Lagos- his third job that year. Life had been very unkind to him. He ate only once a day to save up for his rent and to send some money to his mother and siblings in the village. Before this, he had worked as a night-watch for a Chinese company and as a cab driver. The take-home pay for either job couldn’t take him home to Orile where he lived so he kept on moving. At least as a dockhand he got tips from satisfied customers once in a while to keep body and soul together. Most of the dockhands he met were neither educated nor enlightened and as such he couldn’t relate with them much. They spent most of their useful lives smoking hemp and doing drugs to be of much use to him. Then he met Ehis the clearing agent. Ehis shared similar backgrounds and ambitions so a budding friendship amid stagnation was inevitable.
The young man had told him of brighter prospects in Europe, of his peers who had travelled abroad and were building mansions and buying pricey cars for their parents in the village. Of how their families were eventually relocated overseas after a couple of years and how some eventually became citizens by ‘arranging’ a legal marriage to some white girl. Now they breezed in and out of the country as often as they pleased, looking ‘janded’ fresh and all. They returned with enough foreign currency to shut down Lagos and invested in any business that tickled their fancy. He told Chukwuma of a contract staff in a known financial institution who had gotten fed up with his life of squalor, found his way to Austria and worked as a truck driver for four years until he saved enough euros to buy majority shares in the same financial institution he had once slaved for. A year later, this man made his cousin the MD/CEO of the company and sacked the entire board. Wow! Chukwuma was left in awe. So to achieve this, all that was required was to go yonder and hustle abi? No shaking. I’m game. So how do we go about it?
“We go through Niger Republic,” had been Ehis’s answer. “There’s a woman I know who organizes such things. We call her Mama C. All we have to do is get to the Niger border. She has a friend in Customs there who will stamp our passports without hassle so we can cross over to the capital, Niamey. From Niamey, we will take a bus to Agadez – a large town in central Niger – then connect a train to Libya. When we get to Tripoli, we will then board a ship to Europe and that’s it! Shikena! Piece of cake!”
That wasn’t exactly how it went, though. Ehis left without him a couple of weeks earlier because Chukwuma was unable to raise the requisite four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-naira payment needed in time. His family had contributed all they had to his appeal fund, as he was their last hope of salvation, but even then, it had not been enough. He had to double as a bartender at a Lebanese club and borrow money from his pastor to join the next batch of emigrants.
So Chukwuma ended up travelling alone by bus to Sokoto in Northern Nigeria and then hitched a ride to the Niger border along with twenty others. Ten of them in the truck were girls from Edo State. He made friends with the prettiest of them. Her name was Osas. Coincidentally, she and Ehis were from the same village and, like her kinsman, she too was looking forward to a bright future in Europe. There was no future in this godforsaken nation where the old refused to give way to the young and the young watched helplessly, like Tantalus, as the elusive fruits of life kept swinging away from their reach. The beautyful ones are not yet born, they say. How can they be when the ugli ones refuse to die? The youth just stare up in frustration at the glass ceiling that screens them off from the sky. In truth, the sky was not their limit – it was their myth, their unattainable seduction, their mirage. Like the femme fatale that sat there beside him, there could be little progress without money.
Pretty Osas was a Mass Communications graduate with huge prospects- both physically and figuratively. But after banging on the glass ceiling for two odd years after National Youth Service, she too fell for the lure of ‘overseas’. She had many suitors and boyfriends but none measured up. They couldn’t meet her standards or her demands. They wanted her but none of her familial baggage and she was the first in a large family of nine, with a late father. Also, Auchi town, where they lived, was far too small for her ambitions. She was going to Italy to make it. Make it at what? Chuks had asked. She was visibly irritated by the question but answered flatly that she did not know yet. What she knew was that her friend, Adesuwa, usually sent plenty of euros home to her siblings and they now lived ostentatiously in Benin City. Her other friend, Isi, had come visiting last Christmas with an ‘oyibo’ husband and a biracial daughter. No, her future was not cast in prosaic Benin clay but quality Italian marble. She wanted the same posterity for herself so she would do whatever it took – and perhaps more – to make it. It would only be for a little while. Hustle now, enjoy later. It made perfect sense. Adesuwa had told her she would be quite at home in Rome because there were so many of them there.
From Sokoto, they had crossed to Niamey, the capital of Niger Republic- not without parting with twenty thousand naira each to Customs officials though. So much for Mama C’s connections at the border. Chukwuma should have sensed something was off from then on but he didn’t. The thought of El Dorado had dulled his instincts. Also, the environment was novel to him- he was intrigued and distracted by it. Everyone was speaking French; the roads were smooth and, even though every building was painted in a shade of brown, they were presentable. Even when they were joined by Ghanaians, Sierra Leonians, and other migrants on their way to Agadez, he still wasn’t bothered. The truck had only gotten tighter and slower that it took them two days to get to Agadez as a result. No big deal.
Claude Opara
Claude is a Nigerian author, artist, architect and project manager. An avid movie watcher, history buff and football fan, he also has a penchant for travel and adventure. Claude has authored a few books ...And the Night Hissed being his first novel, a historical thriller about a slave raid gone awry. He has also written and published two lighthearted comics and a children's storybook under his An African Legend series. Claude is also the co-founder of Teambooktu.com.
