FOR SEVERAL DAYS the six of us walked on a tiny path that was about a foot wide, walked by thick bushes on either side. Junior was in front of me and his hands didn't swing as they used to when he strolled across the yard on his way back from school. I wanted to know what he was thinking, but everyone was too quiet and I didn't know how to break the silence. I thought about where my family was, whether I would be able to see them again, and wished that they were safe and not too heartbroken about Junior and me. Tears formed in my eyes, but I was too hungry to cry.
We slept in abandoned villages, where we lay on the bare ground and hoped that the following day we would be able to find something other than raw ca**ava to eat. We had pa**ed through a village that had banana, orange, and coconut trees. Khalilou, who knew how to climb better than all of us, mounted each of those trees and plucked as much from them as he could. The bananas were raw, so we boiled them by adding wood to a fire that was in one of the outdoor kitchens. Someone must have left that village when he or she saw us coming, because the fire was new. The bananas didn't taste good at all, because there was no salt or any other ingredients, but we ate every single bit, just to have something in our stomachs. Afterward, we ate some oranges and some coconuts. We could not find something substantial to eat. We got hungrier day after day, to the point that our stomachs were hurting and our visions blurred at times. We had no choice but to sneak back into Mattru Jong, along with some people we encountered on the path, to get some money we had left behind, so that we could buy food.
On our way through the quiet and almost barren town, which now seemed unfamiliar, we saw rotten pots of food that had been left behind. Bodies, furniture, clothes, and all kinds of property were scattered all over. On one verandah we saw an old man sitting in a chair as if asleep. There was a bullet hole in his forehead, and underneath the stoop lay the bodies of two men whose genitals, limbs, and hands had been chopped off by a machete that was on the ground next to their piled body parts. I vomited and immediately felt feverish, but we had to continue on. We ran on tiptoe as fast and as cautiously as we could, avoiding the main streets. We stood against walls of houses and inspected the tiny gravel roads before crossing to another house. At one point, as soon as we had crossed the road, we heard footsteps. There was no immediate cover, so we had to swiftly run onto a verandah and hide behind stacks of cement bricks and saw two rebels who wore baggy jeans, sleepers , and white T-shirts. Their heads were tied with red handkerchiefs and they carried their guns behind their backs. They were escorting a group of young women who carried cooking pots, bags of rice, mortars and pestles. We watched them until they were out of sight before we started moving again. we finally got to Khalilou's house. All the doors were broken and the house was torn apart. There was a bullet hole in the doorframe and broken gla**es of Star beer, a popular brand in the country, and empty cigarette packets on the verandah floor. There was nothing of use to be found in the house. The only food that was available was raw rice in bags that were too heavy to carry and would slow us down. But the money was, luckily, still where I had kept it, which was in a tiny plastic bag under the foot of the bed. I put it inside my crape, and we headed back toward the swamp.
The six of us, including the people we had entered the town with, had gathered at he edge of the swamp as planned and started crossing the clearing three at a time. I was in the second batch, with Talloi and another person. We started to crawl across the the clearing at the signal of the first group that made it across. While we were in the middle of the clearing, they signaled for us to lie flat, and as soon as we hit the ground, they motioned for us to continue crawling. There were dead bodies everywhere and flies were feasting on the congealed blood on them. After we made it to the other side, we saw that there were rebels on guard in a little tower at the wharf that overlooked the clearing. The next batch was Junior and two others. As they were crossing something fell out of someone's pocket onto an aluminum pan in the clearing. The sound was loud enough to get the attention of the rebels on guard, and they pointed their guns toward where the sound had come from. My heart throbbed with pain as I watched my brother lying on the ground, pretending to be one of the dead bodies. Several shot were heard in town, and that distracted the rebels and made them turn the other way. Junior and the two others made it. His face was dusty and there were residues of mud in between his teeth. He breathed heavily, clenching his fists. One boy among the last batch to cross the clearing was too slow, because he carried a big bag of things he had gathered from his house. As a result, the rebels who were on guard in the little tower saw him and opened fire. Some of the rebels underneath the tower started running and shooting toward us. We whispered to the boy, "Drop the bag and hurry. The rebels are coming. Come on." But the boy didn't listen. It fell from his shoulder after he had crossed the clearing, and as we ran away, i saw him pulling on the bag, which was stuck between tree stumps. We ran as fast as we could until we lost the rebels. It was sunset and we walked quietly toward the big red sun ans the still sky that awaited darkness. The boy who caused the rebels to spot us didn't make it to the first crowded village we reached.
That night we were temporarily happy that we had some money, and were hoping to buy some cooked rice with ca**ava or potato leaves for dinner. We high-fived each other as we approached the village market, and our stomachs growled as the smell of palm oil wafted from cooking huts. But when we got back to the cooked-food stalls, we were disappointed to find that those who had been selling ca**ava leaves, okra soup, and potato leaves, all cooked with dried fish and rich palm oil served with rice, had ceased to do so. Some of them were saving their food in case things got worse, and others simply didn't want to sell any more for unexplained reasons.
After all the trouble and risk we undertook to get the money, it became useless. We would have been less hungry if we had stayed at the village instead of walking the miles to Mattru Jong and back. I wanted to blame someone for this particular predicament, but there was no one to be blamed. We had made a logical decision and it had come to this. It was a typical aspect of being in the war. Things changed rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything. We had yet to learn these things and implement survival tactics, which was what it came down to. That night we were so hungry that we stole people's food while they slept. It was the only way to get through the night.