Ngo

NGO

RWANDA MARCH 1994

1

Phil come and look, I was shouting at him trying to get him out of bed. But he couldn’t hear me, he was dead to the world. So I went into his bedroom and after a while of continually shaking him, he stirred.

What’s wrong he growled?

Get out of bed and come and see. I think there’s a body in the back garden. Maybe two?

He sat up in bed, a body, what are you talking about?

Yes, a body, but maybe more.

Where?

He was still drowsy from the previous night’s escapade.

I have just told you, in the back garden.

How do you know?

I just saw it, or them.

Them, what do you mean, them, have you been drinking?

What at 7.00 a.m. I don’t think so. You know me better.

Sounds odd?

Yes, it’s been raining heavy all night, torrentially, and there has been a thunderstorm, and its disturbed the soil in the back garden.

And?

I went for a walk this morning and I could see a sandal on top of the ground in the back garden, lying in the mud, the bottom of it. 

Bottom of what?

I could see the bottom of a sandal. I thought it odd as I walk around the garden at 6.30 a.m. as you know, daily, and I have never seen or noticed a sandal there before.

Maybe someone threw it over the fence, that’s normal here, go back to sleep, fuck off, I’m tired. Have you forgotten, or has it slipped your mind that we didn’t get to bed until 3.00 a.m. this morning? After the piss up at the club and the Whacky Baccy I smoked last night, it has left me brain dead. I much prefer skunk. So fuck off I will see you later. He fell back asleep.

I shook him again, and he wasn’t happy. 

Go for a walk he said you may find the other sandal.

I’m sure no one threw the sandal over the fence, in fact I am one hundred per cent sure. He sat up in bed again.

How are you so sure?

Because there is a foot in it.

He rubbed his eyes and seemed to come to his senses, and looked at me, are you sure?

Yes, get out of bed and come and look.

I heard a noise outside the door, and heard a door creak. I thought it was another ghost walking around, yes another one, because the house was full of them, and I turned to see Jack Downing walk through his bedroom door and across the hallway into Phil’s room. I could see his face was white, and all the colour had drained from it. He was carrying his sacred coffee pot and his hand was shaking. I could smell the wonderful aroma coming from the ground up Robusta he had purchased in the local market that he used to grind up daily. Kigali had the best coffee in Africa, but not many people at the time knew this. Jack always woke very early in the morning and made coffee in his room. 

There was a reason for it, and it was very difficult to sleep. 

The rats. The house was full of rats. The size like one has never seen before. Gigantic would be putting it mildly. They ran across the corrugated tin roof of the house nightly, rata tat tat, rata tat tat, they sounded like my old alarm clock waking me up daily. With their claws skimming across the mounds on the rusty tin sheets above us. There were large holes in the sheets where they could climb inside and run down the walls, and on many an occasion across the bed that each of us slept in. We each had our own rooms. 

Good morning Jack how are you? I could see he was worried, he had that look on his face.

How am I? We have got to get out of here.

Why?

Look at my face, and he pointed to his chin.

I went closer to inspect. What happened, did you cut yourself shaving?

I wish I had.

What happened?

There were four or five rats in my room last night. I’m not kidding you, and they have eaten half my rucksack.

Why would they want to eat your rucksack?

Trying to get at the food supplies I brought with me from the UK. The bastards have also eaten half of the material from it trying to get inside.

Did they succeed? Phil was laughing. Things like this was funny to Phillip.

Yes, they did, but they didn’t get all of it because I chased the bastards away with this, he held up a big piece of wood, four by two teak with a nail in the end of it, and it was covered in blood. I got one of them and its laying at the bottom of the bed. Can the houseboy clean it up, I will be sick if I go back in there?

The bed?

Yes, I hit it as it was running across the bed and it’s still on there.

Sleeping, Phil said, as he broke out in laughter again. Phil was crazy to say the least.

Yes, sleeping, and as dead as a doorknob he repeated, but I can’t go back in there until the mess is cleaned up, it stinks and there is blood all over the sheets. They will have to be burned I can’t use them again. 

Why said Phil?

Jack ignored him, where is the houseboy?

He will be here soon and I will get him to clean it up I told him.

Thanks very much he replied, appreciated.

We had driven into Rwanda, into the capital Kigali, all three of us in the last week in March 1994, from Kampala in Uganda, where Phil and I had been trading commodities, namely, coffee, tea, and Toyota Pick-ups, for the last year or so. We were told there was going to be trouble in Kigali by a friend of Phil’s, we knew many influential people in Uganda, Museveni’s brother Salim Saleh. Museveni was the current president of Uganda in 1994, and still is to this day. 

Salim said there was a need for the procurement of many kinds of commodities in Rwanda, and he had orders for many Toyota Pick-ups, which we could supply. We had both been through some hard times in Africa, and good ones. Living in the Sudan for seven years, then onto Kenya, Tanzania, and Somalia, Mogadishu, during the Black Hawk down crisis. Where we were flying in seeds for the refugees from Mombasa to Mogadishu on American C130s for CARE USA. 

General Salim Saleh, born Caleb Akandwanaho, in 1960. Helped his brother with the fight against the Idi Amin regime, and his brother came to power in 1986. He has since featured in controversies regarding corruption, including being implicated by the security council for plundering natural resources in the DRC. Democratic republic of Congo. Mainly, sources of coltan and other precious metals.

He loaned Phil his Toyota pick-up truck so we could drive there, and told us he would meet us in Kigali, and he would be travelling with his friend Arif Mulji, another close friend of ours, and pass to us the contacts for the buyers. He wanted a commission on sales only. 

We intended to stay for six months or so, and we left.

Jack arrived at Entebbe airport in Uganda, flying in from Jomo Kenyatta airport in Kenya, and met Phil and I at the airport. He was a long-time friend from the UK. I first met him on the continent in the late eighties, where he was running a bar and buying property with his son Sean. Jack was around fifty years old and had seen it all, he had travelled the globe many times and was always keen on a new venture, and when he met Phil and I he surely got one.

We struck up a good friendship and we kept in touch over the years, and after I left Sudan after my seven-year stretch in the country, and moved into Kenya and onto Uganda I got in touch with him, and asked him to come over to visit me.

What happened to your face?

Have a guess.

For the second time, you cut it shaving?

No a rat scratched it.

What, Phil said?

Yes, a rat scratched it.

How did that happen?

It ran across my face whilst I was sleeping.

I went close up again to inspect the cut, there were two cuts in his face where the rat had dug his claws in, and they were deep and would need a few stitches.

Phil interrupted. You were lucky it didn’t bite you. We have to drive you down to the hospital Jack as soon as possible, and get you stitched up and get you the injection. The Jag. He meant jab.

Injection? What do you mean?

Rabies injection.

Shit I hadn’t thought about that. I am not having an injection, especially here. What are the hospitals like?

Normal for Africa. They are not too clean, but you have no alternative under the circumstances, I am afraid.

Shit I can do without this.

The rats here are full of rabies Jack, the houseboy got bit by one he told me a few weeks ago and he was in hospital for five days, and he was constantly vomiting for three of them. I paid the doctor the outstanding bill for him yesterday. So we better go to the hospital now and get you the lumber punch.

No way, no way Phil am I having the injection here. I might get Hepatitis or even aids, who knows?

Up to you Jack, and I have to agree with you, it’s possible you could pick anything up in these hospitals, but if I was in your shoes id go and have the jab.

He ignored what Phil said, and said to me, give me a hand will you and he turned around and walked off. I followed him to his room where he pulled a first aid kit form his big Camel hide suit case, the case had stamps stuck on the side of it from the different countries he had visited around the world. I noticed stickers from South America and India. 

He opened it and handed me a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide. Then he lay back on the bed and asked me to pour it into the cuts, it will kill anything that’s in there. He sat back up, and picked up a whisky bottle at the side of his bed. He always had a tipple before he slept at night, he needed it in that room, like we all did, and took a long swig from it.

I asked him, what are you doing drinking whisky so early in the morning Jack?

I will need this when you pour that peroxide into the cuts, to ease the pain.

Oh I see.

I took the top off the bottle and poured the peroxide into the cut, albeit sparingly, he let out a loud scream. Fucking hell mate he said that’s painful. I could hear see it was sizzling in the cut, and I could hear it bubbling, and after five minutes the cuts looked white and dry.

He was sweating buckets and I went and got a small towel from the bathroom and wet it and put it on his brow.

Thank you he said that feels good. Much better.

Please get a bandage from the first aid kit will you, and put some antiseptic on the lint attached to it and wrap it around my head.

I took out a bandage, there were many in the kit, and bandaged him up. He looked like the invisible man when Id finished with him, you could only see his eyes. The bandage must have been two meters in length.

I left him and told him to rest.

What about the bodies he called out as I was heading to the door?

Don’t worry about them now Jack, get some rest. I will go and give Phil a kick up the arse, and get him out of bed.

I went to his room; he had fallen back to sleep. I looked at him, he was dead to the world and snoring, and I had just told him there were two bodies buried in the back garden? Unreal. I shook him.

What’s wrong.

Get out of bed we have got to do some grave digging I said.

Grave digging?

Just get out of fucking bed will you.

   Phil got out of bed and went to shower, I stayed in his room until he returned.

I said what about the sandal Phil?

What are you talking about? What sandal?

The sandal in the garden.

Oh sorry, I had forgot about what you had said when Jack came into the room.

Well you better remember, because there is still a foot in it.

I heard a noise behind me and turned to see Jack standing in the doorway.

I said what are you doing you need to rest.

Sorry Jack interrupted, what’s this you are talking about? A foot in where.

In the sandal.

Really?

I went for my morning walk this morning around the garden, as I do as you know daily. The back garden. 

Yes, I have seen you most mornings walking round there, and what happened?

It’s been raining all night.

Tell me about it mate, that’s surely an understatement. I could hear a consistent tune on the corrugated sheets from it all night long. It woke me up, and that’s when I saw the first of the five rats that entered my room, bigger than cats the rats are here. I don’t know what they feed on?

Bodies, said Phil.

I’ve got them in my room too I said. I have one or two in there nightly, but I have never seen five. I see apparitions, ghosts, spirits, or whatever you want to call them, nightly as you do Jack, but I only get one or two rats in my room. I cover my head with the blanket because they run across the bed. But I don’t have food in my room so they don’t stay long.

Tell me about the sandal and the foot in it?

Follow me I repeated.

We left Phil in his room to get dressed and went into the back garden.

I pointed to an area filled with brown muddy water, with a pile of red mud circling a banana tree in the middle of it. The sun was out but the rain was falling, it never seemed to stop in Rwanda. The soil in Kigali was red in colour, and anything would grow in it, even feet it seemed.

I pointed to where I first saw the sandal, look, over there, in the middle of that pool Jack.

He went over closer to the water to inspect. I could see the rain beating down on Jacks face and the blood under the bandage from the cut trickling down his neck and onto his white shirt collar.

I said you need to get the cuts cleaned up and bandaged up again Jack? or they will get infected.

Yes, I will, be patient, and let’s check to see what is here first, and he walked off and broke a branch from a tree nearby and went forward towards the water. 

He prodded the area with the branch where he could see the sandal on top of the mud, and could see it was covering a foot that was white at the bottom.

It’s a white foot he shouted, bloody hell.

I said is it a foreigner Jack?

How would I know he replied I can only see his fucking foot, but it is white at the bottom so it could be? There is a body there for sure with a white foot but I don’t know what nationality it is, and I am certainly not going to dig it out to take a look. He looked back to the house. I followed his eyes to see what he was looking at, and he nodded his head and smiled, get a shovel and let the crazy man who is having a shower inside the house do it.

I laughed.

He looked at me solemnly. I mean it I’m not digging it out let him do it, it won’t bother him, he’s got no nerves, no feelings. Then he grinned.

I said Jack I can see something else.

What?

A yellow caterpillar boot.

Where?

I can see the side of a Caterpillar boot over there, it’s about two metres from the sandal in another pool, take a look?

He walked away from the area of the sandal and looked over to where the boot was. How do you know it’s a Caterpillar boot?

Because it’s got the Caterpillar insignia on the side of it, can’t you see it? If not, you must be blind my friend?

He went up closer to check it out. Yes, I can see it now, and I think we have a problem.

What’s the problem Jack?

If there is a foot in the caterpillar boot too, we have a couple of bodies here growing in our back garden, correct?

Correct.

   Phil came outside after his shower. Rubbing his hair with the towel.

What’s going on here, and what’s this about a foot in a sandal, and where is it?

   Two feet Phil I repeated.

   What do you mean two feet?

   We have one foot in a sandal and one foot in a Caterpillar boot, a yellow one.

   Where?

Over here, come over and see for yourself.

   Yes, and bring shovel shouted Jack.

Ok I’ll go get one. 

   Nah he’s winding you up.

Jack started laughing. 

   Seriously, Phil I said, we have two bodies buried in the garden, and that’s all we can see, and there are maybe more, who knows?

We better call the cops, or get the army to come in and take a look, there’s an army post just down the road, a check point.    Remember they stopped us last night on our way back from the club. There was a genocide happening in Kigali, and the clubs and discos were still open. 

   I’ll walk down there with the houseboy; he will have to explain to them in French what you have found as the soldiers don’t speak any English. I’ll get the houseboy on with it now.

   He walked over and checked out the scene and headed back to the house. We followed him.

What do you think mate I said? 

   No idea. 

   I told you two there were ghosts in my room last night, but all you can do is take the piss out of me. I see them every fucking night. Now maybe you will believe me. 

   He laughed at me, there’s no fucking ghosts he repeated. It’s all in your mind. 

   It’s not in my mind. I see apparitions around my bed nightly, like I told you, and I’m not making it up. I did see them, every night, and got under the covers when I did. There was definitely people in my room and walking around my bed nightly whether anyone believed me or not.

   Well why didn’t you grab one of them, the female one, and he started laughing. 

   Your crazy I said, and he definitely was. He was the craziest bloke I had met in my life. 

   He told the houseboy to follow him. 

   Why Mr. Phillip where are we going he replied? 

   We are going to report some bodies buried. 

   Oh I see, Ok. 

   Bodies didn’t bother the locals, if there were just one or two, because they had seen thousands of people killed over the years.

   Where are the bodies Mr. Phillip asked Rene?

   In our back garden. 

   Oh I see. I wonder who buried them there he asked, as though it was a normal thing to do.

   Can I ask you a question Rene?

   Yes Mr. Phillipe, please do.

   Who lived in the house before us?

   A big family, I think there were 14 people living here, and many kids.

   And where did they move to?

   I have no idea Mr. Phillip people just come and go, and nobody knows where they go to.

   Phil looked at me and put his hands up, showing his palms.

Jesus, Phil I said, no way.

   Who knows he said, let’s go get the army and bring them here with shovels. I’ve got two shovels in the pick-up I always carry for emergencies, but judging from what Rene has just said, we may need more. Let’s get the lazy bastards doing something, all they do all day is sleep all day at the check point. 

   We better ask them to bring their forensic team in I said.

Jack agreed.

   Forensic team, are you fucking real, he repeated?

   Why?

   They haven’t got any forensic team here in Kigali, and if they have they are probably all dead. Half of the people of Kigali, the Tutsis, have been tortured by the Hutus, and killed in the stadium as you know.

   Jesus, what are we doing here?

   I’m fucked if I know, you tell me?

   Jack just stood there listening to the conversation, scratching his head as he listened to what Phil had just said, and he couldn’t speak, he was tongue tied.

 2

   We walked down the road the half a mile to the check point. Phil told Rene what we had seen in the back garden, and asked him to report it to the soldiers, and ask them to get some shovels and come back with us, to help dig the bodies out.

   Rene smiled.

   What are you smiling at asked Phil?

   I don’t think they will come back with us, said Rene.

   Why not?

   Because they are lazy, and they are not interested.

   Why he asked?

   Because there are thousands of people buried all over the city, as you know, and they won’t come and dig a couple of bodies up because we ask them to. I think your request is impossible Mr. Phillip.

   It was true what Rene had said. Every day when we went out in the city we could see trenches that had been dug out down the side of the road, long ones, scraped out by JCB and Kubota back hoes, and piles of red soil piled up beside them, the soil was red all over Kigali. 

   Phil said it was red to disguise the colour of the blood. But he would. 

   The drivers would dig long trenches with their back hoe, and after they had finished two guys would fill the bucket at the front with the dead bodies that were lying in the street, and the drivers would drop them in the trenches they had dug and scrape the red soil back on top of them. That’s how they buried the massacred people of Kigali, in some areas of the city.

   The captured were kept in the Stadium in the centre of the city and were tortured nightly. One could hear the screams all through the night. We sat nightly with a contingent of UN soldiers listening to them and the soldiers could do nothing, because they were too scared, and there simply wasn’t enough of them. The Hutus were torturing the Tutsis to death nightly. They asked the victims whom they took into the stadium for money, Jewelry, gold, or any other valuable items they may have, on their person, or back at their respective homes, before they killed them.

   If they had money, Jewelry, or gold, they got a quick death and they put a bullet in them. But if they had nothing to give them, they tortured them until they died. They also had another offer on the table. They could buy a bullet for a quick death, or be killed by a machete and be hacked to death.

   We could see a bright orange haze above the stadium nightly where the Hutus burned fires and carried out their atrocities, and the screaming never stopped.

   Phil managed to persuade one of the army guys at the check point who was in charge, he said he was a major, but you wouldn’t have thought so if you saw him, and one of his privates, to come back with us to the house. They climbed in the front and the four of us jumped in the back of his old Toyota pick-up and he drove us back to the house.

   We went into the back garden, and the major asked Rene for a shovel, and asked the private, he didn’t look too happy, to wade through the water to where the two feet were stuck out of the ground, and start digging. Rain was falling heavy and we were all soaked to the bone. He started digging the red soil out near the sandal and stopped and wiped his brow, he was sweating buckets, it was very humid, and he called out to his boss in French. There are two more I can see here. 

   So that made four we had now, and he hadn’t gone to dig where the Caterpillar boot was yet.

   The smell now that some of the bodies were exposed was quite sickening, and Jack and I had to get away. I felt physically sick. Phil stayed while the guy kept on digging and took the shovel from him and started to dig himself, and they found more bodies where the Caterpillar boot was exposed.

   We went into the house and Jack made us a brew of coffee.    I needed it I thought I was going to faint; it was a horrible scene.    To imagine that we had been living in the house nearly a month with all those people buried in