Read Online This Is Where I Am by Karen Campbell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Karen Campbell
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the first day and the last and the last the last I will not there is not I am I will only remember the first.
‘Dah-dah!’ The man swept his arm back, a wide and knowing gesture like when the witchdoctor scatters bones.
‘You get it?’ he grinned. ‘ This is the centre. Right here. This is Dadaab.’
Grinning and chewing. All the time chewing, from the moment he began to lead me through the camp, the slack khat swilling in his mouth, making his eyes too round and his speech too slow. Which was good actually – it helped me to understand him more. We don’t all speak the same language. I crouched, peered through the plastic curtain and into a long dark shelter. Many men lolling there. I recognised the low murmur of madness and a quick, rising shriek that may once have been laughter. One or two turned their heads as the light drove in, but most continued in their steadfast stares, or carried on monologues with unblinking neighbours. All locked in their constant chewing. We had walked through this swarming, stinking human sea for over one hour. He had brought me to a khat house. I moved back into the light.
‘No, friend. I was looking for food?’ This place smelled evil. I had to get back to my wife. I had left her and the baby with a group of women, told her to stay in the middle of them and not to move. But I wasn’t sure, now, if I could even find the way back. Never had I seen so many shacks, so many people. Such vast barren tribes of scattered people. Someone told me there were three hundred thousand human beings crammed here, but I didn’t believe there were that many lost souls in the world. Me, who had lived in my village with my friends and my kin, who had learned from meagre books and from the generosity of my grandfather, from the love of my mother. Who had ventured from the village to the big town . I was book-boy, learning-boy – I had been to school. Over four hundred in my school! But so many, child! My mother fussed, made me patties.
From only knowing the same faces for ever, I had learned at school that there were many different shapes of nose and cheek, that there were Bantus and Cushties and a whole bubbling soup of peoples that made our little piece of Somalia. And I also learned that, in our scraps and differences, we could still be friends. But there was no sense of that here in the refugee camp. No community, no shape to the place even though it was mostly Somalis packed inside. There was nothing except stench and wide lost lakes of bodies in mud blocks. However far you looked. You have no idea how many tents and mud blocks, shored up with tin and ancient wood, how much sharp-wire fencing, camel-blood and sewers and plastic bags and long dirt roads and dust and gates and guns. Only this, and then the desert. After trudging for so long, you come to this.
The chewing man ignored me, stumbled inside the khat house. I stood in the dull beat of the Kenyan sun. I knew it was the same sun wherever it blazed, but it was no longer my sun. I hated it. It didn’t grow our crops or give us joy and light. It didn’t warm my sea. Just shone above all the atrocities I had seen, drying up land and bones until they could no longer be named. The heat licked the nape of my neck, puckering my skin. People thumping by me; everyone close and surly, no one with anywhere to go.
‘Follow me, son.’
An old man touched my elbow. My first response was to strike him. The single belief I clung to now was that every creature might do you harm. I’d let the chewing man lead me only because he went in front. I could see him from there, and I knew he was alone. This feeble old man had come at me from the side – he might have his sons behind him, and my eyes swung crazily as I lurched away.
‘You want food, boy?’ He gave a toothless smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to eat you – far too stringy bastard for me.’
Still I hesitated.
‘Suit yourself. I’m going there anyway. You
‘Dah-dah!’ The man swept his arm back, a wide and knowing gesture like when the witchdoctor scatters bones.
‘You get it?’ he grinned. ‘ This is the centre. Right here. This is Dadaab.’
Grinning and chewing. All the time chewing, from the moment he began to lead me through the camp, the slack khat swilling in his mouth, making his eyes too round and his speech too slow. Which was good actually – it helped me to understand him more. We don’t all speak the same language. I crouched, peered through the plastic curtain and into a long dark shelter. Many men lolling there. I recognised the low murmur of madness and a quick, rising shriek that may once have been laughter. One or two turned their heads as the light drove in, but most continued in their steadfast stares, or carried on monologues with unblinking neighbours. All locked in their constant chewing. We had walked through this swarming, stinking human sea for over one hour. He had brought me to a khat house. I moved back into the light.
‘No, friend. I was looking for food?’ This place smelled evil. I had to get back to my wife. I had left her and the baby with a group of women, told her to stay in the middle of them and not to move. But I wasn’t sure, now, if I could even find the way back. Never had I seen so many shacks, so many people. Such vast barren tribes of scattered people. Someone told me there were three hundred thousand human beings crammed here, but I didn’t believe there were that many lost souls in the world. Me, who had lived in my village with my friends and my kin, who had learned from meagre books and from the generosity of my grandfather, from the love of my mother. Who had ventured from the village to the big town . I was book-boy, learning-boy – I had been to school. Over four hundred in my school! But so many, child! My mother fussed, made me patties.
From only knowing the same faces for ever, I had learned at school that there were many different shapes of nose and cheek, that there were Bantus and Cushties and a whole bubbling soup of peoples that made our little piece of Somalia. And I also learned that, in our scraps and differences, we could still be friends. But there was no sense of that here in the refugee camp. No community, no shape to the place even though it was mostly Somalis packed inside. There was nothing except stench and wide lost lakes of bodies in mud blocks. However far you looked. You have no idea how many tents and mud blocks, shored up with tin and ancient wood, how much sharp-wire fencing, camel-blood and sewers and plastic bags and long dirt roads and dust and gates and guns. Only this, and then the desert. After trudging for so long, you come to this.
The chewing man ignored me, stumbled inside the khat house. I stood in the dull beat of the Kenyan sun. I knew it was the same sun wherever it blazed, but it was no longer my sun. I hated it. It didn’t grow our crops or give us joy and light. It didn’t warm my sea. Just shone above all the atrocities I had seen, drying up land and bones until they could no longer be named. The heat licked the nape of my neck, puckering my skin. People thumping by me; everyone close and surly, no one with anywhere to go.
‘Follow me, son.’
An old man touched my elbow. My first response was to strike him. The single belief I clung to now was that every creature might do you harm. I’d let the chewing man lead me only because he went in front. I could see him from there, and I knew he was alone. This feeble old man had come at me from the side – he might have his sons behind him, and my eyes swung crazily as I lurched away.
‘You want food, boy?’ He gave a toothless smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to eat you – far too stringy bastard for me.’
Still I hesitated.
‘Suit yourself. I’m going there anyway. You
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