Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [61]
Beware of Land Mines and Speed Guns
Nyamapanda
THE NYAMAPANDA BORDER post was as poetic by name as it was in real life. There was, after the feeling of stagnation that seems to have struck the rest of Zimbabwe, a sense of life and activity and vibrancy here. Bougainvillea wobbled bright blossoms over the dust-rutted road. Small vegetable gardens surged out from the tiniest and least likely patches of spare ground. Cyclists laden with bales of goods pedaled down the road. Cross-border traders, balancing loads of maize meal and soybeans and cooking oil on their heads, haggled loudly in the streets. A herd of schoolchildren in tatty blue uniforms came tripping past, barefoot and exuberant, kicking up dust as they walked.
The fuel station (the only place in the whole of Zimbabwe where we were able to find petrol) held a TOTAL sign in the wrinkled, pink-gray skin of an elephantine baobab tree. Next to that sign, also nailed to the enormous tree, was a marker advertising TOILETS, although, when I investigated, it seemed that the long drops intended to serve that purpose had long since received all the human waste they were designed to contain. I went back to the pickup.
While we filled up our empty containers with petrol, a very old blind woman (she had shrunk to the size of a child and her hair had turned vivid yellow) was led up to the car by her helper (a young, bored-looking boy). Without any difficulty, she extracted money from K, who said, “The Almighty is very specific about this.” He added, “Zambian kwacha too.”
We had to bribe our way out of Zimbabwe because of the extra fuel we were carrying. Zimbabwe’s fuel crisis had become a national emergency, so it was illegal to carry more than a full tank of fuel out of the country’s borders—in this area of vast distances and few amenities, it was not only inconvenient but potentially dangerous to have only one tank of petrol at hand. While K negotiated with the customs official (who was threatening to send us back to Harare for police clearance), I sat on the back of the pickup and kept a wary eye on our belongings.
A lorry carrying a load of fertilizer was parked at the border gate, which opened into no-man’s-land and from there into Mozambique. I watched as a group of six or seven young men unhurriedly pulled back the tarpaulin that covered the load, sliced several bags, and filled buckets with the spilling white product.
“Thieves!” I shouted and pointed.
The customs official blinked at me lazily and returned to the business at hand, which was negotiating the highest bribe possible from K. The thieves themselves laughed at me. I glanced at the immigration building, where the owner of the lorry was obviously held up under an avalanche of paperwork.
K was now rifling behind the seat of the pickup, where we had stashed our money. I said, “Look at those guys nicking the fertilizer.”
K nodded. “Ja.”
“If you wait with the car, I’ll run inside and find the owner of the lorry. Half his load will be gone by the time he gets back.”
K shook his head. “Leave the gondies to thieve from each other,” he said. “Now that they’ve stolen everything they can from the wazungu, they have to pinch from their own kin. Special bloody people, hey? Aren’t they? Special.”
The customs official received his bribe and accompanied us to the gate, where the gate guard also insisted on a “price to open the border for you, Mister Petrol.” So we paid again and—in another process of negotiation I was now too hot and too demoralized to follow—the gate guard paid his cut to the customs agent and to another man (dressed in camouflage fatigues, dark glasses, and tennis shoes, with a gun slung across his belly). During this time the owner of the lorry came out of the immigration building. He was a fat black man, perspiring heavily, and overdressed for the Nyamapanda border post. He was wearing a purple, long-sleeved nylon shirt that gleamed in the sun, thick, black nylon trousers,