If it wasn’t for the buzz of flies swarming just a foot away, my next step was bound to land on a mound of faeces.
Cued, I instantaneously retracted my step, fortunate enough to sidestep the mound. However, I had to keep waving my hands across my face to swat off frantic flies.
I started to regret accepting Jeremiah’s invitation to visit his homeland, but remembered it was actually I who pressure Jeremiah to bring me.
My whole life had known only the city, safe and far away from the death and dearth the civil war had left in its trail.
News dailies and television made sure to relay pictures and stories about thousands upon thousands rendered homeless, and starving in concentration camps. They spoke about those who had been widowed, orphaned, the plight of families broken, of lives wrecked, futures shattered…
It was more than that, Jeremiah had warned. No words can describe extent as it is. No photo-shoots can really capture the dearth and dread, he had said. I began to see his point, the passivity of my city life made obvious as we entered farther in to the camp.
I was now more careful, and selectively planted my every foot to make sure none landed on one of the several other mounds of faeces indiscriminately loitering the compound, until we finally arrived beneath the eucalyptus.
Beneath its shade stood as though waiting for someone, a man of advanced age. He quickly waved at us, as though to hurry us away quickly. Jeremiah waved back as we by-passed him.
This was only the last day of my three day visit, and this one, I had demanded that Jeremiah show me to the camps before I traveled back to the city. I wanted to see them with my own eyes. But there was also another reason. I wanted to see Jessica.
A tall, small bodied girl I had met on the day of my first arrival, when after the tiresome journey, I and Jeremiah had retreated to a busy bar to freshen up. It was then that I had noticed her solitary figure in the darkness of a corner.
Glancing hideously our direction the moment we made entry, her beauty was quick to register. Against Jeremiah’s advice, I didn’t wait to join her.
We only exchanged courtesies, names. And it embarrassed me that hours later, I would spend a greater length of the night to relive the few minutes I had with her, the blue light in her eyes. She had pulled a cord in my heart, it was obvious.
Jeremiah who would later reveal to me that Jessica lived in the camp, didn’t mince his words when he warned of the immorality rampant in the camp.
I was interested in seeing the conditions at the camp myself, but my greater urge to come here was, admittedly, in the hope of meeting Jessica whom I had not again seen from that time of our first meeting at the bar. I was soon leaving or the city, and I wanted to leave her with my contact, a cue maybe…
Now as we moved, my eyes earnestly searched every skirt, but to no avail. Maybe it is a mistake after all, I thought to myself, more in frustration. It was time to return, I told Jeremiah.
Starting out toward the egress, we marched, this time at a much faster rate than when we were coming in.
And that was when my eyes caught from beneath the eucalyptus, the figure of a tall girl just separating from the embrace of a man who even from a distance, was obviously twice, even thrice her age.
I didn’t look twice. It was obvious who, even more obvious what was happening. The man shortly headed away, after stuffing something into Jessica’s hands.
Now I knew what the man we had earlier on left beneath the eucalyptus tree was doing. Anger ran down my spine. I remembered Jeremiah’s warning that young girls in order to eke a living concubined men who could give them money.
Against me, Jeremiah, vindicated, remained silent.
But not me, I immediately went out to Jessica. And her guilt was obvious as she evaded my eyes.
Well. There was nothing between us, after all. I convinced myself. Still, resolved to say my goodbyes, I asked Jeremiah for some privacy, and spoke to the quiet figure of Jessica.
However much I pretended, anger was obvious in my words.
“Why prostitute, Jessica? Why sell yourself? You could die of AIDS”, I said, bitterness obvious in my voice.
But nothing had prepared me for what would follow when Jessica spoke back, albeit in the most apologetic of undertones.
Bowing her head, tears ran down her cheeks, “which would you prefer: to die tomorrow of hunger or to die a year later because of AIDs?”
Of all that I heard and saw of the camp, the most I remember are those words.