On the way to the border the streets are lined with commercial trucks taking metals across. The wait takes up to seven days because, obviously, there is only one boat to take one truck at a time across the river.
When we were waiting for our own little boat to pick us up, I struck conversation with one of the border control guards. We were talking and I asked him about the gun on his back and if he’d ever had to use it. He informed me that he had killed five men last night that had tried to take his gun from him and then buried them in the bush (as in the African bush, not a single shrub). Immediately my jaw dropped and I thought he was joking. I (true to character) continued with a battery of questions and was told that he had killed about 25 men in his life (he has lost exact count). 15 since being a guard, 10 before. After he asked me what I enjoy doing with my free time and I returned the question, he told me, "Besides killing people? Going to church....and singing." Then asked me if I wanted to be canoed across the border by him--and him alone--in a wooden canoe that had some dead fish chilling in it. I still wasn’t sure (and still am unsure) if he was being serious about the nonchalant murders. So I half-jokingly told him, pointing to the gun, “With that thing on your back, I think I’m going to have to pass. Maybe next time." Better safe than sorry…He made me promise that I'd come see him when I returned and wanted me to leave him something to ensure it, which I refused. He told me he'd practice a song so when I returned it would be perfect and he'd sing it to me. Unfortunately, I came back to Zambia through Zimbabwe, not Botswana and will never see him again.
We then got on a relatively small motorboat onto the turbulent water. This petrified Emma and Anna, but after the earlier possibility of crossing with a murderer in a
mokoro canoe, a motorboat with life jackets seemed luxuriously safe. And Talya, as usual, was chill as ever.
When we were waiting for our own little boat to pick us up, I struck conversation with one of the border control guards. We were talking and I asked him about the gun on his back and if he’d ever had to use it. He informed me that he had killed five men last night that had tried to take his gun from him and then buried them in the bush (as in the African bush, not a single shrub). Immediately my jaw dropped and I thought he was joking. I (true to character) continued with a battery of questions and was told that he had killed about 25 men in his life (he has lost exact count). 15 since being a guard, 10 before. After he asked me what I enjoy doing with my free time and I returned the question, he told me, "Besides killing people? Going to church....and singing." Then asked me if I wanted to be canoed across the border by him--and him alone--in a wooden canoe that had some dead fish chilling in it. I still wasn’t sure (and still am unsure) if he was being serious about the nonchalant murders. So I half-jokingly told him, pointing to the gun, “With that thing on your back, I think I’m going to have to pass. Maybe next time." Better safe than sorry…He made me promise that I'd come see him when I returned and wanted me to leave him something to ensure it, which I refused. He told me he'd practice a song so when I returned it would be perfect and he'd sing it to me. Unfortunately, I came back to Zambia through Zimbabwe, not Botswana and will never see him again.
No comments:
Post a Comment