August 15, 2023
From Semera, we drove on for sixty miles through the desert, going straight, on the empty road. I looked ahead, seeing the fields or the little eating sheds, and occasionally stared through the window at a hundred white tents pitched on the flat land. How all of you live? Where all of you get food? Well, Afar region is mostly desert.
The land cruiser parked somewhere. I had dozed off contently as the yellow sunlight fell on me in the front seat. Taking a tour made me not so bad—just follow the guide—I was able to be lazy. “Eat lunch here,” The driver said, “Until another guide come.” I scrambled down from the car. As I looked around I found myself in the small village. The driver led us into the straw hut. There were three square wood tables. And the chickens lay on the mad. I sat at an empty table, facing the Japanese couple, Jun and Tsubaki, a mediocre man and an unattractive girl. The local man gave us cold drinks, and we ate each plate—fried rice with corn, potatoes and carrots. It was good.
The kids played outside as I sat on the bench in the shade. The three boys broke into trots, fooling around with me; they happily introduced themselves one by one. Every one was so eager to talk with me, that I smiled and muttered some pleasantry. After a while I noticed there was a hint of anger in Tsubaki’s voice. She was frustrated that the new guide had not come two hours after we got here. I knew they were not punctual for appointment and got used to it.
I had had managed a reminder of a dimension of her personality as though to blur out of my mind. But I found myself recalling well enough her bearing toward children. That was yesterday afternoon after viewing Alalobed hot-spring. We visited a small hay barrack, a ground straw and leaves on the floor, and at the stall in the corner. Then the children crowded inside and I went out before I was encircled. They were used to showcasing themselves as Maasai do: one tourist after another gaze them. Being involved in tourism is important for them. They would be welcoming, smiling, touching and taking photos with tourists: the adults manipulate children to receive food and other items. Of course as soon as the children saw the couple, they shouted and swarmed about them, tugging at their hands and it looked such fun that they tried to do it.
The sun seemed to light up them. The other children skittered along, hopping excitedly from foot to foot around the barrack. The couple stood inside the circle, shrieking with delight and comporting themselves with their self-satisfied smiles and smirking. The tour guide became a photographer while the sky seemed more alive than it had been. Stupid. I thought. I nauseated with revolution and loathing. Staying away from them, I became a bystander who despited a shallow couple. The tour guide gave me the cold shoulder, but I never made a smile.
Japanese who visit African country do want photos with children. She solicits African children to take photos with her—not from children. Her belief is that she did do something worthwhile. She believes it sincerely. She posts them on social media that makes her look likable the way she loves children. But what did she contribute for them? If you were serious about poverty, you would not have time for that. A real man never do that. I revere Hans Rosling; I had read the book FactFullness. I am very sorry for Tetsu Nakamura; he drilled wells and constructed irrigation canals for poverty.
Now and then Tsubaki rose to her feet and clenched her fists at her side, looking the road over which we had come. “Now that you say it, the new guide isn’t coming,”I said. “I texted it to the tour company,”she said blankly, wondering about Jun, who sat on another bench with his legs crossed. A boy fiddled with my neckless I wore all the time. She called to the tour company. “That driver said somebody picked up us here, but not come,” her face went grim with anger.
I remembered vividly more of the argument I had had with that woman. On the last night, I had been in my hotel room, googling Kenya Visa. I heard someone knocking on the door. Listening through it I could not of course determine to open the door late at night, but the knocking never stopped. I wondered who was there and finally opened the door. I saw a dark figure of a woman. “Pay!”she said. “What?” “Hotel fee.” “I already paid the tour company, it includes in the tour.” “No. Pay! Eight hundred(About 20 dollar, It was the cheap hotel, in spite of 400 dollar for the tour).“I already paid. Ask my tour company!” “No. Pay!” this stupid bitch hold out her hand. “You’re very rude,”I blurted out, so I made me bring myself under control.” “I call the tour guide now.” I had been waiting for him to answer impatiently. Fuck. “Tomorrow, the tour company pay you. Okay?” I said softly. The stupid bitch slipped back into the darkness.
Tsubaki had been continuing. “Full refund! Okay?”she demanded at last, with some irritation, and she hung up the phone. Her eyes were blank and her lips writhed. “They are looking for someone who can come now, but no one,” she muttered. She had certainly created a tense atmosphere around us, characterized by distrust. The boy had touched my neckless gently or mischievously while she had been silent before the kids.
I opened What’sAPP and typed a message.
‘We are in Silesa. The new guide hasn’t come for so long. Immediately arrange new guide who take us.’—2:15PM✓✓
“I texted the person of the tour company a message, too,”I hold out my iPhone so Tsubaki could see. “Ah, thank you very much, K-san,”she said soberly. “Maybe reached the boss, but, it would be difficult to be sure.”I said.
A little kid was struggling to open the number pad lock on my backpack I put beside me. Then his brother joined in, and I had been letting the two kids play—I seemed to talk so freely with an open mind. At that point I was praising myself just a little bit. I had been a man who was difficult to get along with kids and pets.
“I’ll definitely get a full refund,”she muttered furiously to herself. “You got a reply?” I asked. “No. Just marked as read,”she said. “Why we have to wait this long?” “Maybe, because of after Corona. They are disorganized and the ways of thinking differ from ours,” I went on. “And I heard the most of organized tour groups were based in Mekele. But we are Semera. Maybe, largely on account of the wars, especially the borders between the countries. Either way, they abandoned us in the desert,” I sighed. Jumping and yelling, the two had opened the lock—000. “Great!”I said to them, turning back to her. “But thanks to you here, this seems to reassure me. My style is acting alone. If I were alone here, now, I just get panicky.”
I texted again.
“Nobody come. We 3 member really really worry it will be dark in the desert. We were left.”—3:23PM✓✓
“If a new guide came now, it would be near midnight before we get there,”said Tsubaki. “No longer do I need dinner or sleep. Take us to get there anyway,” she said flatly. “Yeah,” I agreed. And then I opened the google map on my iPhone—I started where we were. Jun, a mediocre man supplemented by her English, was temporarily isolated. “From here it’s perhaps about one hundred twenty miles, so we could be there in three or four hours,”I said to a mediocre man, who began to google on his phone set up by Japanese language. “One hundred twenty miles. It’s not that far away, isn’t, it?’’ he went on,“We can still make it. I wish we could go.”
“What should we do? We are afraid of everything.”—4:21PM✓✓
A car pulled up beside the road. I lifted my eyes and we strolled to the land cruiser. Three men had got out out of the car. They were sharped-faced men, and they looked very clean from head to toe. And at the front was a man with black sunglasses, dressed in traditional clothes. He had on a massive silver bracelet. The two man wore new western shirts, blue jeans, and leather shoes. They walked about, bossy in clean clothes, the way atmosphere turned.
A ragged man like a village mayor went to a corrugated iron shed. The young men carried the gunny sacks in their hands and put them in front of the three. The randy man noticed Asian faces and gazed at us. “China!” he said, “What are you doing? China, huh?”he asked. I found that absurd and said. “Sorry, I can’t speak English.” We just stood quietly; he made a mockery of it. “China,”he said again.
We were nervous while the sky started to be covered with cloud. I was bored in a small village, which made the kids scattered. Tsubaki and I sat on the same bench. “I added further pressure to them, by WhatsApp.”I said, having been on my phone. “Oh, I got a reply! I hadn’t noticed.”
I read out loud.
“I am sorry for the problem we caused, and we understand the frustration we put you through. driver is coming”—4:23PM✓✓
“I never got one reply,”she was frustrated. “They’re licking me.” “Maybe, I shouldn’t reply. Ignoring without thank you,”I said. “Yeah, I agree with you. Leave on read.” she said, “We should make us look steadily stronger—or else they lick us.” “I think so.”
We three had vaguely wondered the village and I asked Tsubaki. “Do you believe that? They say the driver is coming.” “I don’t know. But perhaps they had performed some kind of action,”she looked forlornly at the road.
“Ah, they are coming.” Then with a little smile she seemed to regain her poise. I could see a land cruiser on the road. The car charged in, it’s wheels screamed, and a cloud of sand from the ground fluffed up and spread out. A lean, quick man in a red t-shirt got out of the car.
