Gift of Revelation (5 page)

“Are you saying there is no evidence of these crimes?”

“Like you, I've seen pictures and heard supposed victims say there have been killings, but this could be trumped-up, false evidence to keep up the conflict between both sides. Do you know what I mean? The West can do many things. The CIA can do many things.”

“What about the child soldiers fighting there?” I asked.

“Again, I've heard the propaganda, but this could be another trick by the West,” the editor said, smiling widely. “Who knows what is true?”

“The press says schools, clinics, and health centers have been attacked,” I continued. “Many women and girls have been raped, savagely and sometimes by several men. Some women and girls have been kidnapped. Children are being killed as well. What do you know about this?”

“Not much,” the editor boasted. “The only thing I know is what I read in the Western press. That's why we laugh at Obama and his underling Kerry. They have no idea what this whole thing is about.”

“I hope to see for myself,” I said firmly.

“Reverend, I'll tell you what Kerry said during his recent tour of Africa. We had a good laugh at it,” the editor said, taking a sip of the tea. “Kerry said, ‘Those who are responsible for targeted killings based on ethnicity or nationality have to be brought to justice, and we are actively considering sanctions against those who commit human rights violations and obstruct humanitarian assistance.' This is a big joke. Don't you agree, Reverend?”

“I don't agree,” I said strongly.

“What do you think you can do, Mr. Christian?” the Sudanese editor asked. “How can you change the situation?”

“Mr. Hasseem, I'll bring the lost and the broken a message of love and hope,” I said. “I believe hate and evil can never defeat the power of love. I truly believe that. I have the mandate of Christ and His Holy Word. I must preach the Word that the Kingdom is near and that the lost and the broken can be saved.”

The editor and his two aides broke into hearty laughter, so much so that the three men clutched their stomachs. I knew that my meeting was over. Still, my faith in Christ remained in me, for I knew the Lord could heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who had sinned, drive out demons. I had never felt such faith and trust in the Lord and His holy scriptures as I did at that moment, there in the office of this Islamist, in the lion's den.

As the editor ushered me out of his office and through the rows of reporters hammering out their stories on computers, he ordered one of his aides to see me safely back to the hotel.

“When you return from the bush, you come and see me,” he said to me on the steps outside. “Then we'll talk and see whether your opinions of our government, the opposition, Darfur, and the country have changed. I can't wait for your return.”

“Yes, we'll talk. Good-bye,” I said before climbing into the same car that had brought me here. The aide shut my door and then got in the front passenger seat.

Inside the car, the driver turned on the police radio, and the dispatcher announced that a bomb had ripped through one of the neighborhoods in the western part of the city. It had exploded around midday, when office workers and the privileged classes went to lunch. Witnesses said there were many casualties and fatalities amid the rubble. The aide remarked that the blast was designed to sow the seeds of fear and terror among the people of the city, who thought they were safe with the government's protection.

Following my arrival at the hotel, I went immediately to my room and dropped to my knees in earnest prayer.
What am I doing here? What can I hope to accomplish? How can I meet the needs of the lost and the broken? What does the Lord want me to do? Thy will is my will.

I suddenly felt dirty.. I took another shower and scrubbed the ever-present Sudanese dirt from my flesh. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. I thought I'd never get clean. Never.

A bright and cheery Addie woke me up the next morning, pounding on my door, shouting my name. It was crazy to be so energetic at this time of the morning. She couldn't wait to get going to the refugee camps. She wanted to see everything up close, wallow in the pain and suffering of it, and find out firsthand what Sudan was all about. I could have told her. At that meeting with the editor, I got a chance to see what challenges the country faced, challenges the West could never fathom.

Yawning and stretching, I stumbled from the bed and yelled for her to give me a minute. I reached in the refrigerator for a bottle of water and drank it slowly. Wondering if my “friends” were there in front of the building, I crept to the side of the window and moved the curtain to take a peek outside. Two security members, in casual garb and shades, stood near the car, in plain sight. And one of them had binoculars directed at my window.

“Addie, one more minute,” I said loudly, grabbing my robe.

When I opened the door, she walked through the doorway like a house on fire, full of energy and questions. “Where were you yesterday?”

“At the office of Mr. Hasseem, the editor. He caught me up on who the players are, what the game is, what are the stakes. I'll tell you this. Sudan is a very serious, dangerous place. After our little talk, I started wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, prodding me for clarity.

“I know this. Christians are not welcome here,” I said with dread in my voice.

“I talked to a BBC reporter last night, after I woke up,” she said. “A British woman . . . very nice. She was in Rwanda during the Clinton era and said it was a slaughterhouse. She said the United States acted cowardly.”

I sat on the bed and covered my legs with the blanket. “I got some of that from the editor. He thought Americans were hypocrites during the whole Rwanda thing. He said the whole world looked away from the bloodshed and the starvation, while Clinton tried to save his presidential butt. Remember Monica?”

Addie said with a dry smile, “Never again.” She meant that Sudan would never meet the same fate as Rwanda when the world ignored the Rwandan genocide.

“Give me a sec so I can get washed and dressed,” I said. “I'll meet you downstairs in the lobby. Is that okay?”

“Bring your camera, Clint,” she said, acting like a tourist.

“No. I was warned not to bring one,” I replied. “Westerners have been arrested for taking pictures around the city. The government has deemed some parts of Khartoum very sensitive, and the security officials can take you into custody for snapping pictures. This is not a town where you do a Kodak moment.”

That hit Addie hard. She was just beginning to understand that Sudan was not a place where you could act like a tourist. You had to be on point. You had to get the traditions and customs right and stay well within the law.

“Wonder if I can take pictures in the refugee camps?”

“Probably, Addie. You'll have to get permission for that too.”

Her expression changed, and she stiffened. “You're scaring me.”

I stood up and wrapped my robe around me. “Get out of here so I can get dressed. Also, I want to pack a little bag for the trip. I don't want to leave everything to the last minute.The travel agency said they were going to reserve our rooms for us after we make our jaunt. That's good.”

“That's really good,” she said, beaming. “Get dressed. I want you to meet my British pal and her Egyptian friend. They're both going out to the camps with us. They know the ropes, so we won't get into trouble.”

When she finally left, I checked on my two shadows on the street. Then I sat and made some notes about the meeting yesterday with the editor, which I shoved into my suitcase. In a way, I didn't want to meet Addie and her British pal. I wanted to gather my wits, so I could make this journey south.

Just then my telephone rang. It was Owen, and his voice was garbled and eventually lost in a sea of static and humming. I could have sworn someone was listening in on the other end, but it was not the time to surrender to paranoia or suspicion. The editor had tried to warn me. He had said the government kept tabs on all foreigners, especially Christians who liked to snoop, to pry into things better left alone.

In the bathroom I looked in the mirror and saw a puffy face with swollen eyelids and sighed. My hands trembled slightly as I splashed water on myself, thinking back on the talk with the Sudanese editor, concluding that I had no plan, few contacts in Sudan, and very little money. This was no joke, being here. I'd have to survive by my wits. I dried myself off with a towel and dressed hurriedly.

I left my room and moved slowly down the hallway, past a group of foreigners who were talking about the pleasures of Nairobi, the hassles of the customs officials at the airport, and the recent outbreak of the Ebola virus down south. I realized that their icy stares meant that I should not be staying at a hotel reserved for whites. What they didn't know was that I was used to this kind of treatment back in the States.

“Is your room satisfactory, sir?” an African housekeeper asked me as I passed her, and I nodded yes. Again, hateful glances came from the whites.

I searched in the lobby for any sign of Addie. The lobby was quite large, with meeting areas on the perimeter of the space, comfortable sofas for quiet moments, and seating where you could watch the activities on the street. I moved with ease through the groups of people until I saw her sitting at a table with two women, sipping coffee, a basket of French pastries between them. I approached them at a leisurely pace and came to a stop.

“How are you, Reverend Clint?” the white woman nearest to me asked, her mouth full of pastry. Her words had a British lilt mixed with an international flavor.

“Fine, ladies,” I replied, bending to give Addie a smooch on her soft cheek. Honestly, I was still asleep as I stood there.

There was an empty chair at the table, and I plopped myself into it. Introductions were in order. Addie, dressed in a khaki outfit, did the honors. The woman who had initiated conversation with me was Elsa Brombert, a correspondent with the BBC. She'd been given free-floating assignments on the continent. The product of an English father and an American mother, Elsa was not attractive, but she generated a feeling of intimacy and trust upon making another's acquaintance. She possessed the rugged face of a dockhand, a long pink flamingo neck, and a sturdy body built for endurance. She loved to talk about herself. She loved the sound of her own voice.

“How long have you lived in New York?” Elsa directed the question to me.

“All my life. I'm a native New Yorker.”

That triggered from her a gush of chatter about how she had attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, the J school as she called it, and had lived right around the corner from the old West End, an eatery where Jack Kerouac, the Beat legend, had supposedly hung out. She kept fooling with her brunette hair, which was tied up into a tight bun, as she spoke.

“I live not too far from there, on the other side of Morningside Park,” I said, noting her pleasure that we had made a connection.

Addie said nothing, only sipped her coffee.

The other woman, an Egyptian, was very mysterious. With her model good looks, she seemed like an Arab beauty queen. In fact, she had briefly modeled for
Elle
,
Marie Claire,
and
Vogue.
Her wardrobe indicated that she had an adoration of Yves Saint Laurent and Diane Von Fürstenberg. It was very chic and quite out of place here.

She stared that same arrogant stare of the whites whom I'd just passed in the hallway. Perhaps, she was displaying the haughty attitude all Muslims showed practicing Christians. I learned that her name was Nawara Shobra, that she was from Cairo, and that she had gained fame when she marched alongside female protesters in her hometown's Tahrir Square in 2011.

“I don't know if you saw the famous picture of her trying to shield the young Egyptian woman who had been stripped to her bra and jeans and was being kicked and beaten by police officers,” Elsa proclaimed proudly. “It ran in all the European media outlets. Did it run in the States?”

Addie didn't respond, but I replied that it probably did. However, I had paid no attention to it, since I was like most Americans, who never thought international news pertained to them. We lived in a bubble.

“The Muslim Brotherhood didn't treat them well,” Elsa noted.

Giving me the fish eye, Nawara asked me a prickly question. She wanted to know if I felt at home as a black man in Africa and if Sudan had welcomed me more warmly than America. Addie started to say something, but I shot her a glance of warning. I could see who I was dealing with—a snotty, upper-class Egyptian who possibly thought all of this was beneath her.

“I'm just taking all of this in,” I replied. “I'm a student. I've not drawn any conclusions or formed any opinions. I'm on a fact-finding mission.”

Elsa roared with laughter, then said something about Africa being a continent of contradictions and missed opportunities, a continent addicted to tradition, tribalism, corruption, and violence. It seemed that Nawara's query had unleashed a flood of British egotism and imperial superiority. Next came Elsa's colorful résumé of her global travels.

“I was born to do this,” she bragged loudly. “I've covered a malaria epidemic in Cameroon, a famine in Somalia and the Congo, Baby Doc's fall in Haiti, the sex trade in Bangkok, the AIDS battle in Central Africa, the Israeli bombing of Lebanon and Gaza, the Arab Spring revolt in Egypt, and the conflict in central Ukraine. This thing in Sudan is a piece of cake.”

As I watched her, I summed her up. She was a prime example of the whites in action in Africa, who were living up to the dream of themselves in the golden days of colonialism. They were entitled because they were white, and they were never stopped by their darker brothers or questioned. I remembered my travel to Sudan just a few days ago. I had discovered that as a black man, I was not afforded that privilege. Even yesterday I had determined that someone had gone through my luggage, searching for who knew what.

“Elsa, you think a lot of yourself,” Addie finally said.

Again, the raucous laughter. Nawara joined in for once and giggled, knowing that my Southern gal had struck home.

“Honey chile, I'm not a shrinking violet,” our British buddy said, doing her imitation of a gum-smacking homegirl.

Nawara turned her attention to me again. “You would think that the West would throw in the towel. Elsa, did I say that right?”

“Yes, you said it right. A perfect Yank expression.”

“You would think the West would feel like a fool for all the money and technology it has pumped into Africa over the course of so many years,” Nawara said harshly. “What do they have to show for it? Nothing.”

The tension was thick. Both Addie and Nawara expected me to answer the question. It was a trap. My answer would initiate a lengthy argument, which I did not want to have at this time of the morning.

Elsa saved the day. “Nawara, you know the Yorkie pup I just bought in the Netherlands? I've always envied women who had children and that mothering instinct. Sophie—that's the Yorkie's name—got out of the yard one day through some hedges and got lost. It was like losing a child. I was so distressed. I cried and cried and cried. Thankfully, I found her.”

Nawara gave her a bewildered look.

“I give her so much love, and she gives it back,” Elsa added, almost weeping like a sentimental animal lover. “She's the sweetest dog. Everyone in my district simply loves her. She's a part of my family.”

Addie seemed perplexed. But I knew what Elsa had just done. She'd done an end run to eliminate any possibility of a battle royal.

“I have always wondered why dogs sniff other dogs' behinds,” our BBC pal joked. “Even my sweet little dog does it.”

Nawara had had enough of this canine chatter. She wanted to get down to business, to discuss the logistics of our Sudan journey, the nitty-gritty of our travel to the refugee camps. After her little ASPCA stunt, Elsa got serious. She explained what awaited us: a short flight in a prop plane to the southern frontier, a hazardous road to the two Doctors Without Borders sites, a hard trek with convoys carrying USAID food and supplies to the camps, and a final destination at one of the big refugee facilities in rebel territory. Both Addie and Nawara took notes, filling up pages with important facts and figures.

“Now we're rockin' and rollin',” I shouted, turning the heads of the other guests in the lobby. This was truly the start of our Sudan adventure.