A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [85]
I flip the viewfinder and call them back so I can show them their photo. They smile, shy but intrigued. “See what beautiful smiles you have,” I say. They giggle and cover their mouths, duck behind one another, and peek out to smile at themselves in the viewfinder.
We enter the compound; a guarded older woman, around sixty, greets us. In New York or Paris, I’m sure her bone structure, cropped silver hair, and thin frame could win her a place as a catalog model. “This woman is their grandmother; we are going to her daughter’s house,” Major Kaycee says, then he turns to her and asks, “How far is it? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Are the girls there?”
He is measuring the investment they’ve made already in what they thought would be a quick walk. I’m not sure any of us thought it would be this far, especially in the direction of the hills. No one knows if the girls are home. But questions of security aside, I don’t want to turn back.
I pipe up, “We’ll walk. It’s okay.”
We get directions and set out with the troop of children, who serve as our new guides, in tow. Major Vikram pulls the UN badge from his pocket and clips it to the front of his pants, on broad display. One of our newly adopted guides, a little boy, waddles and flops in a grown-up’s long-sleeve sweatshirt. Barefoot, he’s stepping in time with Major Kaycee, following him the way a child clings to his daddy’s leg in a crowd, moving as fast as he can, trying to stay in the thick of the manly men.
Major Vikram turns and sizes him up. The UN translator stops the boy and tells him to go home, but the child is anxious to prove himself essential by showing us the way.
As we round another bend, Major Vikram points back toward the road. “Can you see on that hilltop something, something, something?” It is a small collection of tents on the far side of the road, perhaps a mile from our hill, away from the forest. He adds, “That is the mobile unit, the base for opposing security. For the protection of local people.”
“How long has it been there?” I ask.
“Two weeks.”
“Do they patrol over here?”
“No.”
I miss the cue completely. Of course they don’t patrol here. They don’t patrol where the attacks happen most often because it’s too dangerous.
A group of young girls clustered under a big, rainbow-colored umbrella, their ages ranging from five to ten, walks toward us on the path. Some have babies on their backs and each wears a Sunday-best dress with lace trim.
They slow to a stop, trying to place the large African man in camouflage fatigues. The tallest among them takes her little sister’s hand and leads them off the trail, her eyes tracking the major and Major Vikram. I recognize that look. It’s the same frozen, nowhere-to-hide stare I saw on the streets of the West Village late on the morning of September 11, when a low-flying government plane passed by. Strangers stopped cold and stared into each other’s eyes, as though to ask, “Shouldn’t we duck and cover?”
Major Vikram greets the girls as they pass us. They step off the trail, onto a patch of grass, poised to run. I approach them, which alerts them to my presence for the first time. They spot the camera and scatter, lugging the babies on their backs.
It finally dawns on me. They think the camera is a gun. I flip the viewfinder over and call them in my cheeriest, most soothing babysitter voice. “It’s a camera! Do you want to see a picture of yourself ?”
They approach cautiously, perhaps relieved, but too startled for quick smiles.
They relax for a moment when they see themselves on the mini-viewfinder screen. I ask them, “Did you think it was a gun?” As the Swahili word “gun” crosses Maurice’s lips, their slow-growing smiles instantly drop. The children duck and run again. It’s not funny or cute. There will be no warming it up now, so I wave goodbye