Slum City Africa by Warren Elofson

Author:Warren Elofson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anthem Press
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 29

BARISSO

It had been a very long time, more than a year and a half since Mahret had heard from her husband. She could not write to him because she did not know even which part of the country or which city he was living in—or if he was still living at all. Barisso, on the other hand, had the same basic address for the Western Union office on the edge of Mashimoni that she did, but he had no way of knowing how to contact her by mail.

Barisso had, however, managed to stay both alive and in Ethiopia during all this time. After sending Mahret and the two boys off on the bus so many months ago, he had headed on foot from the farm toward the city of Shashamane some fifty kilometers west, in hopes of finding a means to get to Kenya. He had picked Shashamane for a reason. The men who bought his land had boasted that the Ethiopian people would benefit. The farms would see their leather, coffee, bamboo, natural gum, and flowers marketed in Kenya. Barisso figured that a lot of the trucks transporting these goods would have to stop to gas up at Shashamane, the closest bigger city to the farm on the main connecting road to Nairobi. He figured that if he could bribe a trucker to take him along as an ostensible back-up driver, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front would leave him alone. The government supported the companies, so it must support their developing trade.

On foot, the trip to the city was a long one—four or five hours if he walked as quickly as he could. Barisso followed the paths until he got to the main road and then headed west. He knew he was taking a chance. The EPRDF was stepping up its vigilance. It would be looking for any man approximately of military age to arrest for supporting the OLF, or to recruit for its own forces. Neither was acceptable to Barisso. The first would obviously mean certain death, and the second, send him back to an existence he now knew he was unsuited to, and on the wrong side.

At this point, however, he was reasonably confident he could avoid detection as he walked along. It was still dark, and there was very little traffic. When the occasional vehicle did approach from either direction, he could hear it and see the lights before it got close. When possible, to be safe, he would duck out of sight behind a bush or any other vegetation on the side of the road.

At sun-up, the traffic grew heavier, and Barisso no longer had the same advantage. There was no point in diving to the sidelines anymore. There were so many vehicles, and they could see him clearly enough at the approximate moment he could see them. He kept going, however, and just at the point when he could make out the outlines of buildings in Shashamane, a jeep coming from the direction of that city pulled up and stopped in front of him.

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