Beyond the Vapour Trail Read online

  I had thought I was kidding myself that I had any significance to her, an absent adult who she had only met twice. But it means something, to be part of someone’s life. To say, You matter.

  It became clear that her life hadn’t been at all smooth over the last few years. By the age of fifteen she had only just finished Year Seven, falling well behind because of her time in the bush. At the end of the school year she went home from the boarding school to her grandmother’s home in Arapai.

  That very summer vacation she fell pregnant. And that was the end of her education.

  Now she was twenty-one, with two gorgeous tiny children, Aliano Martha, now three and a half, and one-year-old Agono Rebecca. But she wasn’t really married. She had a boyfriend.

  We talked for a while and then I raised the topic of her story. She seemed genuinely comfortable with the idea of sharing it and agreed without hesitation. I suggested we could stay there or find a quiet corner in a cafe in Soroti town so she could share without all the neighbours listening – mud huts can sometimes be overly communal when a vehicle attracts the curious, friendly and well-wishing. Her first thought was one of the huts, then as we walked towards it she changed her mind.

  ‘It has mice,’ she said in surprisingly clear English. Most of the day she spoke Ateso.

  I took a closer look at the four separate small, round mud huts that made up their home. They had become dilapidated. The problem was, the whole technology of mud huts comes down to grass. There is a tall variety of grass that is used for the thatched roofs, and it was scarce here because it was in high demand. There was none left in this area in any quantity to mend the roofs. So the hut that served as their kitchen had a leaking roof and the unprotected mud bricks were starting to erode. There was no man around, either. The grandfather was still alive, they told me, but came and went seemingly at random every few years. This unfortunately sounded like me, too.

  The little girls, Rebecca and Martha, hid behind their mother. Martha in particular didn’t know what to make of this mzungu. I had some smiley-faced rubber balls from my workshop in Tororo, which they accepted. I spoke to Betty’s grandmother.

  ‘Mama, thank you for welcoming me back. It’s so nice to see you. I hope you are well.’

  She responded politely and then talked to me earnestly. She told me that Betty’s aunt and her cousins had left the area, including the cousin with the same name, Betty Alajo. There were just Betty and her now.

  ‘Apart from me, you are the only parental figure left in her life. Once I’m gone there is no-one else. Her mother is gone. Her uncle was killed during the time of the rebels. Her boyfriend is not reliable.’

  The boyfriend wasn’t able to support her? Really?

  The night before I left on this trip I saw a French movie based in Tunisia or Morocco that explored the inherent difficulty of any relationship between human beings divided by poverty. You want to be friends, equals. You want to maybe share without eroding their dignity. But anything they tell you that illustrates their need can feel like an ask. You put that aside, but it hangs there unwanted. It is like a twist in the space that exists between people who have and who have not. It distorts. I later checked out the circumstances with Albert to make sure. Everything she had said was correct. It felt bad to have even questioned it.

  So we drove into the town, and Betty expressed surprise at how Soroti had changed – so many new buildings. I was surprised by that. She lived just a few kilometres away.

  ‘When did you last come to town?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe a year? … I think more.’

  It must have been more. I asked how she got to town. She said it cost two to three thousand shillings to get on the local ‘pickup’ bus – which sounds like a lot until you realise it’s about eighty cents. She could only ever generate some meagre cash by working someone else’s garden. Town was a luxury.

  Albert took us to a nearly empty cafe attached to a quiet hotel that gave some privacy. I shared a series of questions about what I wanted to know and told her that she could choose any of these, and answer however she liked. She spoke in her quiet and earnest manner, and Albert translated.

  The story was stunning. She spoke of the inside of this hell that she had endured. And more than that, of a difficult life that continued to be difficult.

  Partway through her story I took Betty’s hands in mine and spoke to her – looked her in the eyes. I told her I was really proud of her. I said, ‘The rebels are gone, but you survived. You’re still here. And they are no longer around. They are gone. So you’re strong. You’re a strong person.’

  I don’t know what she made of it – but I really just wanted to affirm her power, because that was a big part of what they had taken from her.

  At one point Albert stepped out. Betty took the opportunity to ask me something.

  ‘Can you help me? I want to have a house one day. A real house.’

  This was interesting, because on the way up I had been asking about the costs of building houses and had some idea. It had already crossed my mind. At the same time I didn’t want to rush in and fix the situation immediately without thinking it through. It seemed like such a reasonable dream. Just a house.

  ‘Let’s put the house in the future. Yes, we’ll work it out. Somehow together we’ll make sure you have a house. But right now I’m concerned that you can have an income. You have two little girls to look after. Do you want to go back to school? Do you want to take a course to have a trade? Open a business?’

  Her first thought was tailor. Albert later said this had been a course on offer in the district for some time and he suspected the market was saturated. I also decided that the proceeds of this book could help her build a house. This would mean that it would not be some generous benefactor but her own story that built her house. A beautiful, sweet irony – that the LRA took so much from her, but the pain they caused could be transformed into a home for her and her children. Something beautifully redemptive.

  When we returned to Arapai the family served us lunch outside, on the little wooden stools under the mango tree. I believe we had the experience of eating the distinctive Ugandan weightlifting chicken. I’m fairly convinced such a variety exists, because I’m not sure any meat could be that tough without a serious workout at the gym. It came in a nice soup, very tasty, with a generous dollop of atap, which is a combination of cassava and millet flour. This always includes the added crunch of remnants of soil from the drying and milling process. Think mashed potato with a pinkish colour. Now think much heavier. No, you’re not trying hard enough. Heavier than that. It’s actually not too bad, though. And you have to think about both plants being planted, the cassava roots being harvested, cut and sun-dried, then ground in the ekisu (mortar) into flour. The millet seeds are extracted with a beating and also ground in the ekisu to extract the bracts, which can make it bitter. The feature of the meal for me was eboo – greens cooked in odi, a paste made from groundnuts (peanuts to the rest of us) and simsim, the local name for sesame seeds. This was tasty.

  Well, yes, there was another highlight to the meal: a bowl of recently caught ekong. These are white ants during their winged phase. They make a distinction here between white ants and termites; I was told termites sting your tongue when you eat them because of the nippers on the soldier termites. They told me that termites build mounds and white ants don’t. During the rainy season the white ants swarm, so at night the people light a big fire. The white ants are attracted to the fire and many burn themselves in the flames and fall to the ground. These are promptly collected and salted. How do they taste? Well, crunchy and salty. Just the kind of thing to have with a beer and a movie. You do need to manage the willing suspension of disbelief that you are eating a member of the cockroach family. Yes, termites have recently been reclassified – an unhelpful new association courtesy of the entomologists, if you ask me.

  I decided to willingly suspend any neural connection between the separate bits of my brain th
at deal with taste and entomology. I don’t want to ever see termites and have another part of my mind light up the association of taste. But I would have eaten anything this family put before me. I was touched that they had cooked for me. It was such a privilege. This was their kindness, their hospitality, the expression of the best they had – and possibly a chicken they might have saved for another day. Perhaps this chicken could have continued to carry firewood or something for a few more weeks.

  CHAPTER 13

  A Beggar in Nairobi

  What do you do when you’re confronted by a beggar?

  It’s uncomfortable. They catch us unaware. We don’t want to feel bad for refusing, but we also don’t want to be conned, so most of us develop a script in our head to follow. That way we have a planned response and don’t have to react when suddenly someone asks us for money. After all, we’re pretty sure they will probably spend it on alcohol or drugs, or that they are part of an organised cartel making money off the gullible … Or, as I had decided from a development perspective, begging isn’t a long-term solution to poverty. Yes, I packed this idea away along with my passport and Imodium.

  So I was comfortable with my schema for navigating beggars. When an outstretched palm came along it activated a mental process that said, Oh, OK, I already have the answer to this question. It’s no.

  It was dusk in Kenya, and I was walking back to my hotel. A boy of about eleven or twelve came out of nowhere and approached me. He was very dishevelled and dirty, and put his hand out. This caught me unawares and hit an awkward gap in my armour plating. I don’t know why. I immediately refused on cue, although I felt more uncomfortable than usual. He signalled that he was hungry. Something really disturbed me about him. The desperation in his eyes. But I didn’t want to acknowledge the way he made me feel, so I focused on following through my refusal and getting into the hotel. He followed me right to the gate. I looked at him once more and hesitated.

  Then I walked away. The security guard blocked the path of the child.

  I don’t know if hunger was gnawing away at that child that night, but the question was eating me alive. What if it was that simple? What if he was just a hungry child and I had walked away? My rationale was suddenly threadbare. In what way was our long-term development helping this child survive tonight? We didn’t work in this urban setting anyway. I mean, I knew I couldn’t respond to every beggar I met in Nairobi or New Delhi – I would be overwhelmed and my pockets emptied every time I went down the street. Yet a child the same age as one of my sons at home was on the streets tonight. I felt sick. I felt the hypocrisy of everything I stood for staring at me from the uncomplicated and hopeful eyes of that young boy.

  I woke early and felt the same. At the large breakfast buffet, offering me dozens of accusing choices for my next meal, I ran into Tom from my organisation, who just happened to be in the country and happened to be staying at the same hotel. We shared breakfast.

  ‘Tom, what’s your policy on beggars?’

  Tom was a very experienced relief programmer, with an air about him that everything he is about to say is worth listening to. It usually is. He looked at me. He looked away and took in a heavy, thoughtful breath. He paused.

  ‘I give to beggars …’

  He exhaled heavily. A sigh.

  ‘… when I feel like it.’

  That was it.

  Yet this was liberating. It clicked. It set me free from my premeditated response to every single beggar, yet without demanding that I respond equally to everyone who asks of me on the street.

  Perhaps my instincts may not be good enough to weigh up whether the need of every beggar is genuine, but more than anything else, Tom’s advice meant I could open my heart to a fellow human being without resorting to prefabricated ideas to shut them out of my life.

  We have a lot of those kinds of scripts in our heads. We can sometimes dismiss the poor or the indigenous or people of different political ideas with ease. Every time I dismantle one of my own dismissals, I discover more human beings – and in the process rediscover a little more of my own humanity.

  CHAPTER 14

  A Disturbing Moment at the Thai massage, Mae Sariang

  Mae Sariang is a gentle little town about three or four hours’ drive west of Chiang Mai, heading towards Myanmar. It sits on the edge of the most beautiful hill country. From Mae Sariang we drove through the nearby mountains to an isolated village we were working in. In the streaming early light, winding along back roads, we became immersed in unexpected birch forest intertwined with giant bamboo on the impossibly steep slopes, and the entire scene hung in mist like a Chinese ink drawing.

  There’s nothing particularly striking about the town of Mae Sariang itself, except that it doesn’t bother to hustle like Bangkok or bustle like Chiang Mai, and it has the gentlest clear stream running through it and a general sense of calm. This makes it rather pleasant. We held a workshop there in an upstairs room above a little cafe that serves pretty mean local Thai food. The building was dark with teak, and our room upstairs had shutters that you could open out to see the town, and hope for some air movement to counter the intense humidity.

  After dinner one night I thought I’d treat myself to a massage and the hotel staff said there was a place about fifty metres down the road. Somewhere. I missed it first time and had to ask someone in a bar.

  ‘Just where lights are.’ They indicated almost across the road. ‘Sign on gate.’

  Well, no wonder I missed it. There weren’t many lights, you could barely see the gate, and it was just a little sign, really. My friends and I have indicators for avoiding dodgy massage places in Bangkok. The staff should wear uniforms, they shouldn’t push oil massage, and the place should be well-lit. This had none of those. But it’s a rural area, after all, I told myself. When I walked through the gate, it just looked like a Thai house, sitting almost completely in the dark, and I felt like I was invading someone’s private home. I cautiously entered the yard until a lady sitting in the semi-dark on a large balcony spotted me. She switched on some lights and immediately picked up her mobile. “Sorry, five minutes,’ she said in such heavily accented English that I could just barely understand her.’

  She must be calling the masseuse, I thought, so this will be OK. But it did seem like it was just a house, so I felt a bit cautious. Then she took me inside a downstairs room where there was a mattress on the ground and curtains, and indicated that I should undress and wait. Right – she was obviously still waiting for the masseuse. So I stripped to my underwear, climbed under the cover and she came back with a cup of tea. ‘Sorry, five minutes,’ she said again and left. Sometimes you can get a lot of mileage out of a single phrase. I admire that.

  There were no other customers. Had I come too early? Too late? I began to ponder what kind of massage place it was, but I was committed now, so decided to see it out. The tea beside me was in a lovely Asian ceramic cup, and was clear with a pleasant perfumed aroma. It wasn’t too hot so I had a decent sip. I wasn’t expecting what I got.

  Umm … yes, it was the massage oil. I had a mouth full of massage oil.

  Travel idiot warning #189: Don’t drink the massage oil.

  CHAPTER 15

  Chom Bueng, Thailand

  My second ever evaluation was back in 2002 in rural Thailand. We wanted to determine whether we had reduced poverty in fifty villages in the Chom Beung district in Ratchaburi Province.

  Travel is a sensory immersion. Sometimes the impressions are so subtle you aren’t sure what it is that moves you. John Ruskin, the philosopher, taught people to sketch as a way to connect with what they were seeing as they travelled. My emails home were my sketches.

  From: Brett Pierce

  Sent: 11/07/02

  To: Kathleen Pierce

  Subject: Ratchaburi, somewhere near Burma

  … OK, so I’m out in the rural area - in a place called Ratchaburi, which is really close to the border with Myanmar. I love these rustic places. It’s like they’re
dying out, modernity is encroaching, and they won’t be around any more …

  It’s typical lush Asia, with jungle in territorial dispute with crops, and the struggling farmers fighting to separate them. Not much rice here - a water problem, but plenty of different kinds of vegetables, sweet corn, sugar cane, and stuff. The hills in Australia are usually curled in a ball asleep with the sun on their backs, but here they look like a giant madman punched them out from under the earth. Some are razor-backed ridges textured with trees (and the trees here never comb their hair). Other mountains are straight from Chinese paintings, washed out in haze. And then there are these distorted rocks rising straight up from the ground, steep. Every ledge, no matter how tiny, wears incongruous jungle, as if the trees are oblivious to the fact that they’re 800 feet up.

  There are little spirit houses all around, with colourful offerings to the local spirits. And then those temples with the stacked roof -just two stacks - but with horns at the peak at each end, reaching for heaven. Ratchaburi is where the real floating market is - the one in Bangkok was created for tourists …

  The poverty is less visible, but real. Yet in the same area are people with TVs and cars. Today was spent interviewing groups with 10 seed technique, which is a form of qualitative interview that can be used with non-literate … the children gave amazing insights, maybe more so than adults … when asked if the poorest were the ones sponsored, they said, not always … and drew our attention to Bunya …