Tribal Gathering

Tribal Gathering

Eight stories set in 1960s post-colonial West Africa

by

Kenneth C. Ryeland

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Kenneth C Ryeland

Discover other titles by Kenneth C. Ryeland at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/travelman

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For my children: Stephen, Stuart and Abigail

Contents

Map of the Republic of Nibana

The Slavers’ Lament

Author’s Note

Hot Metal

Juju-Men

The Price of Tin

The Visit

Boom Town

Comrades

Tief-Man

Smokescreens

Map of the Republic of Nibana

The Slavers’Lament

Beware and take heed of the Bight of Laguna,

Where few come out and many die sooner.

Where the howl of the slaves in the barracoons,^

Can be heard in the town on fine afternoons.

Where crying piccins* sold away from their mothers,

Can even raise guilt in the least Christian brothers.

Where a headman will trade his own kith and kin,

And with no Christian learning, he knows not the sin.

Where gathering the slaves demands speed and a plan,

Lest the headman reneges, the damnable man.

Where resistance is rare, they’re resigned to their fate,

But inside their hearts is naught but raw hate.

Where mists and vapours from swamps and creeks,

Can lay low a white man in only two weeks.

Where corruption and thievery there do abound,

And candour and justice can never be found.

Where the life of a poor man is held not dear,

And there’s never a place for sentiment here.

Where the land is full of strange juju and gods,

And the white man never sees favourable odds.

Where the Navy will hang us should we be caught

With slaves in the hold, just out from the port.

Now we’d all like shot of this land Satan made,

But the living’s so high from our dear slave trade.

^Temporary holding area for slaves.

*Children.

Author’s Note

There is no country called Nibana on the West African coast. In fact, there is no country quite like Nibana anywhere in the world; it is merely a figment of my imagination.

The stories presented in Tribal Gathering draw on my own experiences gained as a result of several years living and working in West Africa during the immediate post-colonial era of the 1960s. Though the stories are works of fiction; some of the situations described are loosely based on actual events.

The lifestyles, attitudes and opinions of the characters, as reflected in each story, are prevalent of the era and all the characters – with the exception of those people of note referred to by their true names – are fictitious and not intended to represent any specific living people.

Kenneth C. Ryeland

December 2007, Berkshire, England.

Hot Metal

It’s very hard to understand

Some things that happen in this land.

But do not mock the magic claimed

By native peoples you think are tamed.

They know far more than all your wit

Can ever hope to make of it.

The old Series II Land-Rover bounced uncomfortably along the dusty laterite road, its transmission groaning with every yard of progress. Inside the sweltering cab, Peter Stafford clung to the steering wheel for dear life while John Hughes struggled to stay upright in the passenger seat.

Bloody hell, Peter. Try to drive around the potholes, not through them for God’s sake.

Peter grinned broadly at his companion before attempting to reply over the roar of the engine and the almost deafening rattle from the vehicle’s bodywork.

Stop moaning about the state of the roads. This one is pretty good compared with many others in this godforsaken country. You people who only visit two or three times a year are absolutely wonderful. You all want it to be just like England. Well, I can assure you it’s not and if you had to complete eighteen-month tours of duty time after time, like most of the expatriates out here, you’d soon change your tune and be bloody grateful for small mercies. Life’s not all high salaries, servants, cheap food and booze, you know. We have important work to do. We must earn money for our companies and that’s hard work in this country, I can tell you.

John tried to light up a smoke, but soon abandoned the attempt when his hand holding the lighted match crashed, out of control, into the cigarette breaking it off at the tipped end close to his lips.

All right, Peter, said John, holding his right hand up in an act of submission. I know I’m just a moaning visitor, with no appreciation of the difficulties you professional expatriates have to deal with all day long. Now stop giving me a hard time for Christ’s sake and pull up over there, so I can light my cigarette and have a pee.

Peter grinned at his companion again and brought the vehicle to a halt close to a clump of thorn bushes at the side of the road.

There you are, you poor old bugger, go and water the parched land. Oh, and by the way, watch out for the snakes.

John got out of the vehicle and mouthed a rude word over his left shoulder before disappearing behind the thick undergrowth. A moment or two later his disembodied voice sang out from behind the bushes.

How long before we get to Ifun, Peter?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe an hour, maybe two. It depends on the state of the road. There hasn’t been a lot of rain recently so we should be OK.

As John walked back to the Land-Rover buttoning the fly of his khaki slacks he said, I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the countryside this weekend, especially Ifun with all the history and mystery that’s associated with the place. Believe it or not I’ve been to Nibana five times, staying for about a week on each occasion, but this is the first time I’ve ever been outside that smelly Federal Capital, Laguna, or your adopted home-town of Ndabi. I’m excited about our day out and very grateful to you for arranging this little excursion. Sorry about getting on your nerves, you being an experienced ‘old coaster’ and all that.

John offered Peter a cigarette and they both sat in the Land-Rover’s cab with the doors wide open hoping for a breeze to help cool them off. As Peter tossed the extinguished match on to the road and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke, he turned to speak to John.

You’ve known me long enough now to realise I’m only pulling your leg about not having ‘brown knees’. You should have seen me when I first came to this part of the world. It took me six months to settle down and get used to the way of life out here. You know how it is: we work hard and enjoy our leisure time. Trouble is, the lifestyle makes us just a little intolerant of the UK types who only visit once or twice a year. Worst of all are those people at home who have never travelled. They have no idea what it’s like to live and work in a place like this. I often feel like a complete stranger when I go back to the UK on leave.

John nodded philosophically and the two men continued to discuss the pros and cons of living and working in Nibana; comparing it with what some people considered the advantages of being UK based and simply travelling out to the West African coast every once in a while. However, they were unable to come to any agreement on the subject because each man preferred his way of life and argued its benefits relentlessly.

When they had exhausted the subject and discarded their cigarette butts safely – bush fires were always a hazard – they closed the cab doors and continued their journey to Ifun.

* * *

Peter Stafford had worked in the West African state of Nibana for over ten years and, at one time or another, had been stationed at most of the commercial centres within the country. He was an automotive engineer by training and his current position involved transport: heavy transport.

The Nibana National Oil Distribution Company had sole rights for the distribution of petrol, diesel, kerosene and aviation spirit throughout the whole of Nibana. Peter Stafford’s job as the chief engineer of the Ndabi Central Workshops meant he worked tirelessly from dawn to dusk during the week and for one weekend in every three. Peter did not mind this demand on his time. He lived for his work and enjoyed every minute of it. The heavy workload also helped to take his mind off some of the more personal problems that had dogged him for some time.

For the last three years, Peter’s wife, Anne, had spent most of her time in the UK nursing their only daughter, Alice. Before her falling ill, the whole family had thoroughly enjoyed the ‘colonial’ lifestyle in Nibana and naturally the prolonged absence of his family had caused Peter great sadness.

Young Alice suffered from a condition known as Chronic Iron Deficiency Anaemia, one of the causes of which is an inability of the body to absorb and retain iron from normal food. The condition had slowly crept up on her until she became so weak she could no longer endure the extreme tropical conditions in Nibana for more than a few weeks at a time.

The local doctors had been baffled by her illness and prescribed many different remedies, all of them useless. Not until the family returned to the UK on home leave did a specialist discover the problem. He immediately administered the appropriate drugs, placed Alice on a special diet and advised her parents it would be fatal for her to return to the tropics for long periods.

After several weeks of supervised treatment the condition stabilised and the family were able to breathe a sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that Alice would survive provided the treatment continued and she remained in the UK.

Their daughter’s illness had been a savage blow to Peter and Anne. Both of them loved Africa and the economic freedom Peter’s salary provided. Because Nibana could be a ‘difficult’ assignment, expatriates generally earned twice as much as those people in similar positions in the UK.

After their first tour of duty as a newly married couple, they had agreed to continue working in Nibana for at least fifteen years. This, they calculated, would enable them to set aside enough money to buy the farm in the UK where Anne’s parents had been tenants for the last thirty years. When Alice appeared on the scene three years later, she served to strengthen Peter’s resolve to earn enough money to buy the farm.

When the couple realised the seriousness of their daughter’s illness they indulged in much heart-searching discussion and finally agreed that Anne should stay at home in the UK to look after the child, while Peter continued with his work in Nibana. They both knew he would only be able to return home for three months’ leave every eighteen months; it had been a tough decision, but they faced it with the usual Stafford family stoicism.

Separated from his loved ones for long periods, Peter threw himself into his work. What little spare time he did have, Peter devoted to visiting the Ndabi Club. It could be said that his hobbies were, primarily, his work, with drinking and socialising at the Ndabi Club coming a close second. Peter always exercised care, never letting the drink – no spirits, only local beer – interfere with his work, and certainly his employer had no worries on that score.

Occasionally, Peter could be seen playing golf on the club’s magnificent eighteen-hole course. He played because he reckoned the sweat, which literally poured out of him all the way from the first to the eighteenth hole, purged his body and could only be good for him. His dedication to the game could be described as shallow and his skill questionable, but he persevered if only to sweat out the toxins that tended to build up in his system due to the poor quality of the local beer.

At the beginning of each tour of duty the company demanded, and received, eighteen months of total dedication to duty from Peter, except when his tour included Christmas. Then, and only then, he would demand, and receive, two weeks off so his wife and daughter could visit him on special short-term visas. The doctors in the UK were not happy at the prospect of Alice travelling or having to endure the climate of Nibana, even for two weeks, but they realised the importance of the family being together as often as possible.

Thus far, Peter’s wife and child had spent two Christmases in Nibana since the onset of Alice’s illness. Peter, on the other hand, had spent only one at home in the small village near Shrewsbury where his wife had been born and brought up among the sturdy farming community there.

Peter Stafford could be summed up as a dedicated, loyal, hard-working man; young at heart despite his forty years; totally devoted to his wife and daughter, but with a weakness for beer that he quaffed in huge quantities when off duty.

Peter’s job entailed many responsibilities. Not the least of which involved the maintenance and repair of over two hundred heavy-duty, six-wheeled prime movers and almost twice that number of six-thousand-gallon tanker-trailers. To keep this huge fleet on the somewhat treacherous and often washed out Nibanan roads, Peter controlled a staff of almost one hundred indigenous workmen, ranging from skilled fitters to ordinary labourers. The men in the workshop loved Peter and regarded him as their father. Not so the other Nibanan members of staff who worked in the sales and accounts offices. They thought him a tyrant simply because he expected the men under his control to work as tirelessly as he did every day.

Generally speaking the workshop staff lived up to Peter’s expectations, and in return he looked after them as though they were his very own children. In his unsophisticated, clumsy way, he loved his men dearly and would create mayhem with the accounts clerks when they made a hash of the overtime payments or generally messed up the men’s salaries, as they usually did at regular intervals.

Peter, always even-handed of course, did not confine his wrath to the accounts staff alone. Very often he fought the management vigorously to get the best welfare arrangements for his workshop boys and their families. These included free hospital treatment and free medicine for them all, an important benefit in a country with no National Health Service and very few doctors.

He loved his men all right, but he would rarely display any outward sign of friendship or affection. Such a display could be mistaken for weakness, both by the Nibanans themselves and by his small circle of European friends, and that would never do. Peter liked to give the impression he was a very cold, hard man. It suited him to do so and made people think twice before involving him in their problems. He had always considered self-help to be the best kind of help anyone could receive.

In some ways Peter was a hard man, but always very fair with his people and they appreciated his forthright nature. They fully realised that he taught them something new every day. Not only in matters of engineering and commerce, but of compassion for their fellow human beings and lessons in magnanimity, something he demonstrated every day in his position as the master of the workshop. He understood his men and they understood him, and the workshop fairly hummed with happy, contented activity.

That Peter Stafford was the master of the workshop had never been in dispute. His men always did their best to see that the harmony he created and upheld remained unbroken. For despite his easy disposition towards them, Peter would not tolerate laziness, poor workmanship or thieving. Above all things, he hated thieving. The staff had learnt long ago to avoid upsetting the chief engineer at all costs.

On the rare occasions when Peter did lose his temper, the workshop boys would either hide in the staff shower room at the far end of the compound or dive into one of the many deep inspection pits; remaining out of sight until things had settled and tempers cooled. Peter’s sixteen-stone (225 lbs) frame and six-foot stature were not to be sneered at, especially when on the warpath over stolen spare parts.

Inevitably, only the ‘attractive’, easy to sell parts tended to go missing from the stores. Despite the reasonable wages and the excellent welfare facilities, occasionally one or two of the men would submit to the temptation because of some family crisis that required cash as an immediate solution. Peter managed to keep the problem under control in his usual magnanimous way by lending money from his own pocket to those men with financial problems, though he would never admit to it of course. The men always repaid the debt, sometimes by only a few shillings each month. They never reneged because they knew he would never help them again if they did.

Apart from the occasional, temporary lapses in harmony between Peter and his staff, the workshop operated efficiently and the company prospered. This placed the chief engineer and the workshop staff in a very strong position with the directors of the company. Consequently, and much to the disgust of the office staff, the workshop boys always received the largest share of the annual bonus.

Half the directors of the Nibana National Oil Distribution Company were defunct Nibanan politicians. Many had been forced out of office by the recent military coup that had somewhat curtailed their fun and games with the contents of the state treasury. After the coup the army had insisted, somewhat menacingly, that the politicians repay, by means of several very large instalments, all the money they had stolen. It therefore grieved these directors to pay high bonuses to Peter’s men since it tended to reduce the level of dividends to which they were entitled.

The remaining directors were Nibanan businessmen who, during the brief time the civilian government had been in power, had indulged in corruption and nepotism to such a degree that almost everyone employed in the sales and accounts office was related to an ex-politician. The board of directors had tried to impose members of their extended families on Peter’s workshop, but he would have none of it and they disliked him for his forthright stance on the matter. However, since their main pre-occupation involved sucking up to the ex-politicians in the hope civilian rule would one day return to Nibana, the directors tended to leave the chief engineer in peace and this allowed him to get on with his work without too much interference.

Peter rarely worried himself about the activities of the directors. He had long since learnt that the country ran on a feudal system of patronage, nepotism and tribalism. Not forgetting, of course, the awesome power that emanated from the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle.

* * *

John Hughes had met Peter on his first visit to the Coast three years ago and both men had taken a liking to each other right away. John was tall and skinny with thirty-two years of life experience under his belt. He was a good engineer, very professional in what he did for a living and, like Peter, he enjoyed drinking beer. Clearly these qualities had impressed the chief engineer from the outset and the two men had remained good friends ever since.

John Hughes was the technical representative for the UK manufacturer of the trucks that Peter’s company purchased every year to replace those that had been wrecked or hijacked, or were simply too old to repair economically.

The terms of the sales contract called for a visit from a technical representative at least once a year to help sort out any problems associated with the vehicles and to approve, or otherwise investigate, any hefty warranty claims that may have been submitted from time to time.

The latest major difficulty, and the reason for John’s visit this time, had resulted in a particularly irritating problem associated with a new design of heavy-duty clutch fitted to the most recent batch of seven brand new vehicles. Five had suffered clutch failure after little more than a thousand miles of service, and this worried Peter. Under ‘normal’ operating conditions in Nibana a heavy truck clutch should last for thirty or forty thousand miles, despite the universally poor driving techniques and the dreadful road conditions that prevailed throughout the country. Quite naturally, Peter expected the heavy-duty units to last even longer than the regular clutches, not fail before all five vehicles had completed the first trip with a payload.

After several exchanges of telex between Peter and the factory in England, John finally arrived at Ndabi Airport on a hot, bright Thursday morning. In keeping with the protocol expected of Europeans living in Nibana, Peter met John off the plane and transported him by Land-Rover directly to the house to drop off his things and freshen up. Of course, Peter could have booked John into one of the many township hotels, but as a friend and colleague, Peter decided John would be more comfortable staying at his house. In any case, most of the accommodation available in the township fell well below the standard expected by a visiting European, friend or otherwise.

Before John’s arrival, Peter had already carried out a great deal of investigative work regarding the clutch problem. Consequently, John, after studying Peter’s report, drew similar conclusions and confirmed that the clutch failures were the result of poor clutch housing ventilation, leading to overheating and slip. Naturally the new clutches and housings had been designed with additional ventilation holes, but due to a mistake on the assembly line some old design clutch housings, with an insufficient number of ventilation holes, had been fitted to a batch of gearboxes and this had restricted the cooling effect sufficiently to initiate a cycle of overheating, slip and final burnout.

With Peter’s help, John soon had some firm recommendations regarding assembly line quality control procedures neatly detailed in his report, and had sent a telex explaining the problem to the factory so the production engineers at home could act immediately.

Happy they had isolated and agreed upon the cause of the failures, John and Peter spent Friday evening celebrating at the Ndabi Club, situated on the other side of the township, close to a district known as Sabon Gari: ‘The Strangers’ Place’.

* * *

Nibana is divided into three natural geographical and tribal areas, known as regions. The city of Ndabi is the capital of the Western Region and seat of power of the great Yuba tribe. It is by far the most densely populated of the three regions and produces most of the food and all of the somewhat limited industrial output of the country.

The Northern Region is the home of the Usmar tribe and the largest in area, but most of it is desert. Only cotton, groundnuts and a small amount of sugar cane grow with any degree of success in the north, though its mineral resources, mainly tin and iron, are extensive.

The Eastern Region is the smallest of the three and largely smothered by tropical forest. However, by way of compensation for the lack of agricultural resources, oil had recently been discovered in the delta area and this had transformed the lives of the Obi tribesmen who lived there.

The Yuba tribe tended to dominate Nibanan society, mainly because they provided most of the country’s wealth, and this fact had only served to encourage them to display a high degree of arrogance in their dealings with the Obis and the Usmars. Consequently there had been a lot of inter-tribal friction over the last few decades. The British colonial administration had successfully suppressed it for many years, but when Nibana gained its independence in January 1962, some five turbulent years ago, the tribal problems really began to rise to the surface.

Because the British had favoured the more loyal and obedient Usmars, the senior members of that tribe had dominated the first post-colonial government. However, after only one year of civilian rule the army, which had been largely controlled by Obi officers at that time, seized power in a bloody coup. The victorious Obis then banished the Usmar and Yuba politicians – those they had not murdered – to their home regions as a punishment for their somewhat unorthodox attitude to the national treasury. A year later, Yuba officers led a second coup and wrested control from the Obis. Those Obi officers who had not perished were then banished to the east. Fearful of a violent backlash, thousands of Obi civilians also fled back to their forested region in droves. This left the Yuba-dominated military junta in a very powerful position, which they exploited to the full.

Though the excesses of the first Usmar civilian government had left the country almost bankrupt, the Yubas produced evidence to suggest that the Obi military elite had also pillaged Nibana’s assets. Unfortunately for the Yuba military, similar evidence began to appear regarding their dallying with the contents of the treasury and, as a consequence, two years later a group of Usmar officers ousted the Yubas in a violent third coup. Clearly the Usmars thought it high time they were given access to the country’s wealth.

Information soon began to leak out suggesting the Usmar-led military government had been suppressing geological survey reports revealing the presence of huge reserves of oil beneath the swamplands of the Enube River Delta in the Eastern Region. It had been a crude attempt to conceal the fact that they had raked in millions of dollars and pounds by selling exploration licences and drilling concessions to all the foreign oil companies that had established themselves around the delta-towns of Warunda and Sapula. The burgeoning number of new Mercedes cars and luxurious houses owned by the members of the junta and their cronies testified to the resounding success of the operation.

Right from the outset it had been obvious to any dedicated observer of Nibanan affairs that the ordinary man in the street was not going to benefit from the discovery of oil reserves in the delta. It could be said, therefore, that things were not going too well for the poor, unfortunate civilian citizens of Nibana. Many would say, Situation normal.

* * *

During the course of their Friday evening celebrations, Peter announced that since he did not have to work over the coming weekend, John might like to see some of the Nibanan countryside. John, thrilled at the thought of getting away from the heat and dust of the township, eagerly accepted the invitation.

Ever heard of a place called Ifun? Peter spelled it out, I...F...U...N, pronounced ‘Eefung’, the ‘n’ has a barely audible ‘g’ attached. It’s only a small place, about forty-five miles from here. It has a long history going way back, and there’s a university too. I’m told the Department of Antiquities there is the finest in Africa.

Peter then sipped his beer and nodded, as if he had remembered something else to say.

By the way, it is said there’s a lot of...well...juju. You know, magic, ghosts and all that sort of thing at Ifun. Anyway, I’m pretty sure the local people believe in it.

John, sipping his beer, stared at Peter over the rim of his glass and almost choked.

Bloody hell, Peter. You don’t believe all that nonsense, do you? Witch doctors, black magic, zombies and the walking dead?

After speaking, John laughed nervously and several people sitting at other tables in the lounge looked over at the two men, no doubt wondering what could possibly be so funny as to disturb the tranquillity of the Ndabi Club at seven-thirty on a Friday evening. John, realising his error, placed his right hand over his mouth to stifle any further outburst.

Listen to me, John, said Peter. There are more things on this earth, particularly this continent, that are way beyond my comprehension; yours too, if you don’t mind me saying so. I’ve heard and seen many strange things during my ten years in this country and I’ve learnt not to mock those who believe in such happenings. Did you know that many of my workshop boys employ juju-men to sort out family problems and the like? Some of them even call upon the local tribal gods, of which there are many, to sort out some of the technical problems they encounter at work. Ogun, their god of fiery metal, is a favourite. He’s the equivalent of what we would call the patron saint of blacksmiths, metalworkers and mechanics. I suppose he would be all right for mechanical engineers too, said Peter, smiling at John.

Peter took another sip of beer and continued with his story.

However, unlike a patron saint, these tribal gods wield unlimited power over those who believe in them, and that’s ninety per cent of the population, you mark my words.

John’s eyes registered doubt and he leant forward in his chair, not wishing to miss a single word.

This god...er, Ogun, does he actually sort their problems for them, Peter?

Peter shrugged and said, "I don’t know, but I can tell you this; my foreman once asked a mechanic to assemble one of those rather complicated gearboxes your company make. I knew right away it was a mistake. The man had no experience, but he was the only mechanic available at the time so I let it go hoping he would learn. Well, he persevered for three days until finally I told the foreman to take him off the job and wait for a more experienced man to become available. The next thing I saw was this chap on his knees calling on Ogun to help him. I took little notice, they’re always praying to one god or another. Later on, it must have been about six in the evening, when everyone had gone except the nightwatchman, the mechanic and me; the mechanic approached wishing to discuss his position. I told him to go home and not to worry about the gearbox; we would discuss it in the morning. I’d already decided my plan to put a more experienced man on the job was correct. Particularly since the engine from the same vehicle, also being overhauled in another section of the workshop, was