• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

We hike toward the forest. Toward the Interahamwe. We wind our way up narrow paths on hillsides, and reach the top, only to recognize we have many more hills to go. I notice a hilltop church with a rusty corrugated metal roof. Banana leaves rustle in the wind. I do not notice the slow, creeping tension, or the cue from my UN escorts who ask, “Are you sure you want to go there?”

A family spots us and ducks behind bushes, watching us suspiciously. Normally, Jambo means “Hello,” and is followed by the response Jambo sana, which means “Very hello.” Somewhere between the road and this ridgeline, the translation has changed. As I muster up my chirpiest voice, Jambo now means “Relax! We’re not here to kill you!”

As they pause, slowly stand up to check us out, even smile, and call back, “Jambo sana!” now means “Thank God!” Make that “Very thank God!”

We are much closer to the forest now. It creeps down the hills. Trees are now distinguishable in detail as we follow the last ridgeline running along this valley.

We pass a villager who stands to the side of the path with a haunting look. In an ash-gray sports jacket and pants, he stands with his arms at his side, watching, like an intern standing at attention in a concentration camp.

On a nearby path, two girls, both maybe six years old, with shaved heads and ragged little oversize frocks, see the camera and drop to the ground. One of them makes a run for it, her little body tearing down the hill for safety. Where did she learn this routine? She slows down, hides behind bananas, looks back to check on her friend. She sees the camera pointed at her. Terrified, she disappears. Her friend runs after her at top barefoot speed.

On the other side of the hill, a woman minds her fields. Hers may be the first angry face I’ve seen here; she is seriously annoyed that the camera is pointed at her. She puts down her hoe, stands up, and glares, as if to say, “What the hell are you looking at?”

“Is that it there? Is that where we are going?” I ask, pointing to a cluster of round mud huts with cone tops, and cabbage patches perched on top of a small hill butted right up to forest. The Forest, that is. I’m trying to sound casual as I ask Maurice again, “So, this is the spot?”

Major Vikram and Major Kaycee are equally disoriented, squabbling with each other and the translator. “No, no, no. . . .”

“Are we going this way or that way?”

“It must be up there, beyond those bushes. . . .”

We’ve been hiking for an hour and something has turned. Suddenly, we all know we’ve gone too far and are tempting fate. We’re all thinking it must be just beyond the next corner. Even the idle talk with Major Vikram fades. My attempts at small talk fall flat. Major Vikram has other things on his mind, and making fun of myself for being out of shape, or my banal talk of the benefits of exercise, seems far less funny than it did an hour ago. Conversation circles around variations of “Oh my God, it’s so close.”

“It’s no wonder they’ve had problems if they live that close.”

“It’s so near to the jungle.”

“Yeah. Really near.”

“You see, Lisa, if they are coming from this place. . . .”

“Anyone can come. . . .”

“It’s so close.”

I hear children playing. In the distance, in an open field at the top of the hill, a group of boys are playing soccer next to a wooden shack that looks like it’s about to fall over. They see us and stop, stand at attention, and stare. A young man, maybe twenty, in an African-print, oxford-style shirt and baseball cap approaches and talks with the major. He is the girls’ brother.

Major Vikram points to the compound, now in view. “Do you see that prominent V of the hills and sky? They live just there. This is the house.”

The translator points back towards the main road and village. “He says all of the girls are back there at church.”

“What do we do?” Major Kaycee asks me, then adds, “I think we go to see the sisters in the church. That’s plenty.”

It’s not plenty for me.

If there is a point where numbness becomes dangerous, when lack of emotion trickles into lack of logic—a