ON THE ROAD - Nouakchottgo / Mogadíscio

I depart from Nouakchottgo, the capital of the Western Sahara, taken by some Tuareg caravan, and so, as we go across the big desert, across a series of sandstorms, across uninterrupted oasis, I hear stories about mythical creatures that used to live around these oasis, stories about a certain kind scorpion living inside a crumbling palace with a troupe of enslaved mermaids surrounding him, stories about Zerzura, a city guarded by black giants who would keep anyone from going in and coming out, stories about Jinns wandering through the desert, waiting for caravans where they could immerse themselves inside the bungle, and stories about Marids, this is, water spirits that are believed to dwell under springs, beings that tend to be associated with fertility and abundance, and stories about Ifrits, spirits that are believed to inhabit the hottest parts of the desert, this is, beings associated with the destruction and chaos, also invoked for protection against evil spirits, and stories about Ghuls, malevolent spirits that are believed to prey on humans and animals, often depicted as shape-shifting creatures that can take on the form of a hyena or a jackal, and so, still on the move, I’m now watching the sky, counting the stars, and as it goes, I sleep and I awake as the devils rubs the eyes. And so, in this dream I see myself running through the desert, rolling on the sandbanks, falling on the pit, and then, as I look up, I have this impression that the sky is actually approaching, getting closer, this is, apparently, falling over our head, but then, there I go again, dragging myself on the crest of the dunes, and thus, as I advance, I’m visualizing some kind of towers appearing and disappearing on the horizon, and so, as I stare at it, I feel a great attraction, a strong desire of getting closer to it, even if it may be just an illusion made of sand and smoke, it doesn't matter, I really wanna get there, and so, here I go again, on the prowl of it, and, thus, as I’m apparently getting there, they tend to disappear, to change place… and so, all in a sudden, I’m already being engulfed by a sandstorm, and, while I turn in the sand, there are various shadow beings coming closer, twirling, dancing around me… mumbling, hollering, yelling, freeing quaint laughs… and then, I don’t know how, some of these shadows are already entering inside my body, tickling my bowels, and thus, as it goes, I have a palette of voices babbling things inside my head, like “I’m the true-truwe, and I will guide you through the stars…”; or, “I’m the real-reel, and I will carry you to the matter…”; or “I’m the freeda-free, I will take you wherever you wanna go…” and then, there I go again, running through the crest of a dunes, still trying to approach these towers… now looking bigger and closer, but, well, after a while, they are gone again, changing their locations… and so, I have to change my directions too, thus, down another dune I go, and while descending, again, I fall on the fold, and then yes, while looking up I see that the sky is actually getting really close and as it comes down, in between the dark clouds, I see, some sort of blinking numbers becoming blurred faces with pointy teeth or… numbers that are also running and toppling over, changing its form and then, the voices I was hearing inside my head are actually incorporating these blinking faces coming closer, and closer, and... then, there I go, already being sucked by this magnetic sky, this is, probably my body and existence being choked by the jobbery of numbers and their nonsense. This is, now here, I’m just a prey being analyzed by the matrix, electricity and dysfunction running through my veins, meat and bones… Though, in my mind, or, in my conscience, while rolling through these tunnels at the speed of the light, I mean, while being sucked by the tentacles of these ultra-technological machinery, I still know who I am, or at least, I pretend that I know. And then, while being engulfed by this meta-mathematical sky, I’m having emotions like misery, hope and contentment fighting inside myself, and so, I feel like fighting against the wind and making love with the sand at the same time... anyway, I’m falling through a hole now, a deep hole, softly, and then, as I go down I see images of the world’s history passing by at high speed, this is, I see images of big explosions, spaceships, flying crocodiles, and then, the primitive man naked in the hoods, under some big rock, rubbing two pointed sticks… trying to make fire, and then, in another groove, I see the sons of Adam all fighting together because of … well, I don’t know the reason why they are actually fighting, but, then, as I look up, to the ceiling of this same cave, I see a lot of dollar notes falling from the ceiling, and then, landing on the bodies of the fighters, and further, I also see some spiders making their webs on the sky, and then gods fallen into these spider web-shaped traps, and I also see ugly sea monsters licking these webs where the gods are locked down, and I see myself falling from the sky, passing on the side of all these webs, that now look more like whirlpools, and so, then, as I go down I see images of the world’s history passing by at high speed, this is, I see images of big spaceships, big explosions, flying crocodiles, the primitive man naked in the hoods, under some big rock, trying to make fire while rubbing two pointed sticks… and then, in another cave, the sons of Adam all fighting together, because of… well, I don’t know the reason they why they are actually fighting, but, then, I see a lot of dollar notes hanging on the ceiling of this same cave, and after… I see all these people working on the pyramids of Egypt, and while they work, I also see the gods up there in the sky, laughing, drinking whiskey, making toasts with it, and while they do it, some drops of their drinks are actually falling down over the bare back of the workers/slaves now looking up, and then escaping their service, fighting with big bears on the side of the road, dancing in circles with cobras around their necks… and so, as I go down, I keep having more visions, I see the pilgrimage of Jerusalem, and I see the medieval man inside big ships, arriving at other continents… and then, naked man/ women trying to stop bullets with their own breasts… and I see the outbreak of the first great World-war, and the aftermath of the second great World-war… this is, I see the men inside Auschwitz concentration camps, choking, and I see the atomic bomb falling over Hiroshima, children screaming in the suburbs of the city, and then, I see the advent of internet… people stuck inside computer screens, and then, I’m already passing through an opening between some roofs and in a while, I’m landing precisely on the chair of the defendant/accused inside a big courtroom, just in time to hear the verdict from the judge, now staring at me, half smiling, his silly wig falling a bit on the side, and then, as he bangs the hammer on the table he shouts “Acquittal!”, afterwards, the public are clapping their hands, and, then, as I look back, at the assistance, I can see their vain expressions, and, at this point, all them are actually looking at their phones, not at us at all. And, in a while, the judge is no more here, and, at some point, I’m already being seized by a couple of security/policemen, this is, they pull me through corridors that lead to another corridors until reaching a big door, and then, as this door opens automatically, I’m being shoved outside, down this big marble staircase, and so, when I reach the bottom of the stairs and open my eyes again, I see a bunch of heads with turbans on the head, big eyes on their faces staring to me, and as I look around, I also see camels under awnings, some bundles piled up on a bank of sand and here, the man around, drinking tea, are actually asking me what was I dreaming about, and I say that I was dreaming with cobras falling from the sky. And then next morning we depart again, and so, I do not know how many days later, we reach Agadez, in north Niger, one of the traditional Tuareg–Berber federations, they are coming here to pick a shipment of salt, and so, as they do their dealing at some kind of markets specialized in many kinds of desert salt, I wander through the city, this is, at this point, I’m passing a row of crude mud houses and shops with colorful tarps over the main door, and then, at a certain hidden terrace, I see the groups of the sub-saharan migrants, gathering there, talking loud and drinking teas, and so, I seat with them for a while, and then, they take to some open-air market on the suburbs of the city, and so, here, I see men with all kinds of turbans on their heads, wandering round through this maze of stalls, actually not stalls, just some rough pieces of tarp scattered in between the groups men, goats, and camels, and then, over these pieces of tarp, I see some king of huge pumpkins and other vegetables, like, red onions, pods from the Moringa tree (someone tells me), plus some kind of dry grains, dates, and some kind of pinkish salt -.apparently mixed with some kind of gemstones, animal hides, broken mobile phones, and other outdated gadgets brought from Europe. And watching around, the clients are, mainly, Tuareg women with broad rings swinging on their noses, and Tuareg men with embroidered daggers tied to their waist, and so, as it goes, I stop by a tarp covered with jeans and leather jackets full of patches, and here, I get to know some guys coming from countries like Eritrea, Sudan and Chad, guys with the intention of crossing the Sahara and then getting into European lands, but there are several routes, one leading to the Algerian/Moroccan border, other leading to Sfax in east Libya, others leading to Tripoli, the capital of Libya, and many others going east, in the direction of the Valley of the Nile, through Egypt and Sudan, and so, it is one this, the longer one that I take, for the ones that do not want to get into Europe via the Mediterranean sea but via the Middle-East and Turkey, that makes border with the eastern branch of Europe. And so, said and done, here we go now, this is, me and a bunch of nigas, pressed against each other, aboard some kind of pick up van, and, as the hot wind passes by, a mixed up conversation about international football comes up. This is, names of African football players (playing in Europe) are being pronounced with different tonalities and accents, and then, like a game, other guys aboard are matching the clubs where these footballers are currently playing. So, at this point, the thing goes more and less like this: “Salah: Roma/Liverpool. Sadio Mané: Bayern Munich. Yaya Touré: Manchester City/Olympiacos. Édouard Mendy: Chelsea. Felix Afena-Gyan: Roma. Romelu Lukaku: Chelsea/Inter Milan. Aurélien Tchouaméni: Real Madrid. Daniel Ola: Lazio/Chievo Verona. Aaron Wan-Bissaka: Manchester United. Cher Ndour: Benfica/ Paris-Saint-Germain. Aaron Wan-Bissaka: Manchester United. Alfred Duncan: Fiorentina. Paul Labile Pogba: Juventus. Pape Abou Cissé: Olympiacos. Simon Ngapandouetnbu: Olympique de Marseille…” And then, further, while sleeping, I see myself running on the crest of some dunes, and while advancing, I envision some kind of blurred towers appearing and disappearing on the horizon, and, as I stare at this vision, I feel a great atraction, a strong desire of getting closer to it, but, as I’m apparently getting to some of them, they tend to disappear, to change place… and so, all in a sudden, as the devil rubs the eyes, I’m already being engulfed by another sandstorm, and, while turning in the sand, there are various shadow beings coming closer to me, twirling, dancing around me… shadow beings that, somehow, mange to enter my body and soul, goshes, sprits, jinnees, whatsoever… mumbling, hollering, yelling, freeing quaint laughs while turning around… and then, I don’t know how, babbling things inside my head, things I identify as “I’m the trow-trow-true, and I will guide you through the stars…”; or, “I’m the reel-reel-real, and I will carry you to the matter…”; or “I’m the free-free-freeda, and I will take you wherever you wanna go…”, and then, somehow, when I wake up I’m inside a fluca, going down the Nile river, and so, soon we reach Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, a city situated inside the vertice where the blue and the white Nile meet, and so, here I go through the city center now, more precisely, going along the Nile street, just on the side of the Blue Nile. And, on my right side, along the banks of the river I see, some “posh restaurants”, some cafes, some boat tour agencies, and then, up ahead, rising on the horizon, a blue fat building shaped like a bean, and so, as I envision it, I decide to ask some janitors around what is that, and quickly they tell me that “this is the Gaddafi’s Egg, a five-star hotel located in front of the Tuti island that dwells inside the triangle where the Blue and White Nile converge forming the main course of the Nile itself”. And so, then, they also ask me if I wanna go on some excursion along the Nile, but, “which one is bigger, the Blue or the White Nile?” I ask, and instantly I get to know the answer, “the White is bigger, it born thousand and thousands of kilometers away from here…”, and then they also try to ask me something else but I run away from them, this is, I keep going across the Nile Street and then, I turn left and right, and at some point I’m going across some narrow streets on the city center itself, and so, describing it, I pass some small shops selling trinkets of all kinds, things like, beaded necklaces, plastic fruits, pots of spices, spark plugs for motorcycles, shiny candles, sugar oil, muslim hats, tailors specialized in leather, sweet corn stalls, barbers that also repair mobile phones, some banks with the showcases full of dust, some crumbling governmental buildings, and then, under a big guava tree, a tea stall with women in colorful dresses wandering in the middle of a tangle of kettles and water pans, making different kind of teas while babbling between each other. And so, after drinking my tea, a strong black tea infused with spices like cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger, I keep on the going along Isbitalia street and at some point I get to a big mess of people getting in and out of mini-vans, and someone tells me that I just reached the Souq al Arabi, one of the largest open-air market in Khartoum. And so, as I go across it I see that, at one of the sides of the market, there are a multitude of stalls selling gold pieces, perfumes, incense and oils stalls, and so, as I make a multitude of questions I get to know that, Humrah is one of the most famous fragrances around here, being Humrah a preparation of mahleb seeds, cloves, dufr, sandalwood, musk, and even orange peels, someone tells me. And then, there are innumerous kinds of clothes stalls, arabi, african and european style, leather shoes and crocodile bags, carved wooden masks, ivory pieces… men lounging in front of their shops, young men and women offering buckets full of cotton, gum arabic, sorghum and sesame, between other things I can’t understand. And, then, as I approach the food stalls, I get in touch with a body from South Africa, his name Mandla, a Zulu speaker, but he also speaks English, German, and some French, etc. And so, as it goes, he invites me to seat and eat on his side, with the hands, like people do here, thus, while we share a Ful Medame (this is, a fava beans stew served in a large metal jug), we talk a bit about South Africa, the war in Sudan, about our travels in Africa, coz he is also a traveler, etc. And he is also disclosing that his family sent him to study in Europe, “but, in truth, I didn’t like it that much, and so, some months after I would come back to my country and then… then yes, I would go and traveling all around Africa, this is, north, south, east, west, all around… and yes, yebo, I got to understand a bit about all the different African cultures, about African history in real, about the problems that came after the colonialism, the African fauna and flora, but above all, the African people… and how resistant we are…”, and so, as I listen to him saying those things, I ask which countries in Africa after all afteralls are his favorites, and he, without losing time, says that “Ethiopia and Madagascar…” are his favorites, and then, when I ask why, he says that “Madagascar, this Island country, has many rare species of fauna and flora, species I haven’t anywhere else, I mean strange birds with wonderful chanting, etc”, and “Ethiopia because… well, Ethiopia has the most versatile people in Africa… its people are African, Arabian, Indian and European at the same time, and you know, Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that refused to be colonized by Europeans and plus… you also know, all that reggae kings and queens from Jamaica that see Ethiopia as a promised land and, as a matter of fact, the Emperor Haile Selassie granted land to Rastafarians of all kinds in his country, have you heard about that?”, “No!” I say. And then, it’s his time to ask “But, what about you, why are you in Africa? I mean, from where you came from? And, what’s your purpose here? I mean, where do you want to go after all?” and here, I delay my answer a bit, until that “I don’t know…” I say, “I’m not even sure about my name, all I know is that… from the Sahara I came and… I’m not sure how I got here, I mean, I really don’t know!”; “Oh, and about your destination, do you know?” he insists, “Well, I think I wanna go south, but I’m not sure, maybe east, maybe north… it all depends on the people I meet on the way…” And so, now, Mandla wants to take me somewhere, it doesn't matter to me if it is north, south, east or west… well, we go across the Al Sunut forest now, a forest inside the city, and here we see some people playing basketball, the baskets installed on the stems of some big acacia trees, and also there are some monkeys around them that come after us, but, we run away from them. And then, in the meanwhile, as we get to some kind of marsh land, where we can see a big group of pelicans landing on small muddy islands, and “this is already the White Nile '', my mate tells me. And so, as we go across the river banks, walking along a hard mud path, after a while, we get to one area with a lot of fishing gear, some wreckage, some fishing boats and some recreational boats as well, and it's onto one of these boats that we mount. This is, straight away, Mandla introduces me to the captain, Abdô, his friend, and this captain also introduces us to his assistants, a couple of smiling boys dressed in basketball jerseys and baggy shorts. And, as it goes, after sharing some jokes about crocodiles, the boys are already bringing a bottle of wine, and so, we make a toast, and, as we take off, half of the bottle is spilled in the river stream. And, as this happens, Mandla says, “Actually this is not a port, this is a shipyard, the real place where they live, and this man, Abdô…” he says pointing to his friend, “...this man here, he is an experienced fisherman that also makes recreational trips, if we give him the means…” and so, as he says this, I nod my head, this is, at this point we all nod and smile to each other and then the boys also run to the bow, laughing. And so, here I’m now, floating along the White stream of the Nile, blaring arabesque music coming from inside the boat shed, “not arab, this is Sudanic!” the boys say, while exercising some dance paces like, jumping without taking their feet off the floor, and then rotating in a crouched position, while wielding a stick with their right hand they say, “and this is the “Hadandawa dance… it’s the dance from our people, the Beja people, do you know about the Beja?”; “no” I say and then they explain. “The Beja are people native from south Egypt, eastern Sudan and north Eritrea… and our language is Tigre, not Arabi…ok!” And so, after some more tribal dance demonstrations, a couple of hours later, we reach the Jebel Aulia Dam, and so, here, would be my first checkpoint, this is, I had to get out of the boat, go across the banks of the river, and get in another boat on the other side. And it was also here that I would say bye bye to Mandla, even so, he left with me a paper saying (in several african languages) that I intended to reach the Victory Lake in Uganda/Tanzania, by boat only and not by any other transportation. And thus, many fisherman boats after, I would reach the Lake Albert in Uganda, and after the Lake Albert it would come the Murchison Falls National Park, a place with innumerous wild animals, like leopards, buffaloes, elephants, hartebeests, waterbucks, warthogs, orbis, kobs, grey duiker, and occasionally, crocodiles… and how I have crossed all that, I’m not sure, the sure thing is that I was over the influence of some local drugs applied by the wizardry people I met on the way, and then, finally, I would reach Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and so, here I go now, along the Namuwongo road, and as I go trough, I see a bunch of people cooking in the middle of the train line, and then, as I ask around if there is no trains coming, I get to know that this train line is actually the one making the connection of freight trains between the city itself and Port Bell, a bay belonging to Lake Victoria, and so, “I’m on the right way” I think to myself, and then, as I look around, this people cooking in the middle of the train line, they are already bringing me a small stoll where I can seat, and, straigh away, they invite me to have lunch with them, and so, as I seat, I observe what they are actually cooking in these grills over old oil cans, and so, what they have here, is, some kind of Indian chamuças, also called Rolex here, someone tells me, fried banana with some kind of hot sauce, Namungodi, this is, deep fried rice balls, actually a combination of boiled rice, mashed potatoes and flour dipped in whisked eggs and some unknown herbs; G-nuts Luwombo, a paste of grinded seeds and beef rolled in banana leaves; Tv chicken, a dish that gets its name from being cooked in a rotisserie oven that looks like a television; Nsenene, this is, roasted grasshoppers that are actually cooked alive in a frying pan or pot with oil, and, Kassoli, that is Roasted Maize/ Corn. And then, after trying all this, some kid takes me in some sort of four wheel bicycle, this is, three wheels on the floor and one up, rolling in the air, on our back. And, as it goes, after passing a bunch of people doing their stuff in the middle of the train line, in less than thirty minutes we reach Port Bell, already on the shores of lake Victoria, and then, there we go through the margins of this same lake, appointed as one of the possible sources of humanity, but the stench of these waters is so intense that we quickly move away from the shores of this famous lake. And then, we went through some forest roads, this is, the boy takes me to the main road heading to Jinja, where actually the Nile river debouches. And so, as I go through Jinja, I get to know about the Nyege Nyege festival, a festival mixing traditional central african music, and modern experimental free improvised and electronic music, and so, as I go to visit the place where this festival happens, I meet some guys that actually take me to Malab, a city on the border with Quenia, and here, I get a ride with some truck guy that will take me to Nairóbi, the capital of the country, and so, as we go through we see some huge giraffe, some zebras, some rhynos, and even some Wildebeest, also called gnu, that actually are antelopes from the Bovidae family, I get to know. And then, about ten hours later, as we reach the suburbs of Nairóbi, I get another ride with another truck, this one transporting Kerosene, soap, and bottled water into Kismayo, a city by the Indian ocean, in southern Somalia, and so, there we go, listening some kind of muslim praying in somali language, going through a series of bumpy, unpaved roads with hungry goats crossing here and there from time to time, and then, once in Kismayo, I go to wash my face on the waters of the indian ocean, and, as I come back to the road, I get another ride with another truck, this one transporting lubricants, waxes, candles, etc, to the capital, Mogadíscio, and so, as we go up by the ocean, slowly, constantly wobbling, we listen to serie of Turkish pop music artists, and then, next morning, once we reach the big city, there we go, through a maze of crumble but colorful buildings, bare wires running over us, and some empty squares, and so, once I reach the Suuqa Bakaaraha, this is, the Bakaaraha Market, I look for someone that wanna buy my shoes.