My eyes opened to behold pitch darkness. I soon found out I was in a camp. I had been in deep sleep the main character in a raunchy dream for which Edwina was the subject. She came to me in her birthday suit, took her time to rid me of my clothes and then anoints me with oil from head to toe her hands ever so delicate. And while I lie supine, she wraps me around her hot wetness and is about to begin the motion up and down calling my name, Samuel, Samuel, Samuel, when I wake up. Someone is calling my name but it is not Edwina.
I actually woke up in a cell. I was lying on a hard floor. I was alone. Moments later, the door opened. A huge dark complexion man emerged. He had the face of an angry gorilla. He took one look at me and I clambered to my feet the wetness from my crotch dripping down my leg.
“Come,” he said. His voice was as calm as a baby’s. That surprised me. I followed him like a sheep led to the slaughterhouse. He led me to the person I came to know as the camp leader, Campo for short. He was as dark as the man who led me to him and even more ugly.
“Welcome to the camp,” He said in heavily accented English. “All you will do here is work. Your day starts at 5.00 in the morning. You look strong. You will dig in the mines. You will do any other thing that I tell you to do. I am the leader of the camp, you shall address me as leader, do you have any questions?”
I was too dazed to say anything. I wanted to ask a thousand questions but my voice failed me. Not only because my mouth felt like shit, but also because I felt like I was in a different world watching this happen to someone else.
“Well, go with Ahmad, he will show you to your quarters. He will give you food. He will take you to the mines where you shall dig. Don’t try to escape if you love your life,” he warned.
There were two fierce looking dogs on either side of him. They seemed to be looking at me, winking. Campo carried a gun in his belt. He was dressed in a military camouflage t-shirt and khaki trousers. Ahmad was also wearing the same attire, just stained with what I fathomed was blood.
“Come,” Ahmad said once more and I followed him like a zombie. He took me to a hostel like building. There were double decked bunks arranged in many roles. He took me to one without a mattress, number 281 boldly written on it.
“From now, you are No. 281. That’s your name,” he said.
I gathered from his words that he couldn’t communicate fluently in English. He was more comfortable with something which sounded like a mix of French and a local tongue. I don’t know why but my instincts told me that Ahmad would turn out to be a friend. In a jungle like this, one needed a friend.
The food was not fit for the consumption of Campo’s dogs and they fed us just enough to keep us alive. By us I mean the many others I met in the place. A normal day in the camp began at 4.30am. They fed us that stuff, steaming hot and made sure we gulped it fast, we came to refer to it as the ‘Passover,’ then they’d take us to the mines. We were guarded by heavily armed men, no one tried to escape. They’d hand us tools and watch us work. I was a digger. It was hard work. It wasn’t easy the first day but what you will come to do with ease, you must learn to do with difficulty, so I had no choice in the matter but to learn.
While I worked I planned my escape. I couldn’t bear to think about spending the rest of my life in this place.
One week after I took residence in the camp, a terrible thing happened. One of the diggers couldn’t take it anymore so he bolted as they were taking us to the mining fields. The guards levelled their guns at him and shot at him till he dropped dead in the pool of his own blood.
There were exclamations in several languages. I didn’t mention that we were abducted from different countries and as a result, we were of varying nationalities. We were dissuaded from talking to each other, so as not to encourage our scheming to escape. This made us even more eager.
I spent two years as a slave in that camp mining diamonds. It was a terrible time. Within this time, I discovered that Campo was a businessman. His business was to capture and make people available for slave labour. There were many slaves under his guard. He had what looked like a very organised army. He was controlling many camps. His soldiers were transferred from one camp to another. This was a security strategy. Everything on that camp was done to keep the residents from thinking about escaping.
If you were patient enough, your time would come. Mine came one hot Sunday afternoon. Sunday was our rest day, the last Sunday of every month that is. I was sitting down under a cashew tree alone. It was my turn to sit under that tree. We took turns to do that. It was a privilege for diggers. Campo said it was to help us focus on the job ahead. That was when I saw her. She was dark, thin, and tall. There was something about her that reminded me of Edwina. I actually thought she’d come over to torment me.
I damned the consequences and rushed towards her. If anybody saw me, they didn’t care. I invited her to sit with me under the tree. She obliged.
“You speak fluent English. Where are you from?” I said.
“Gambia,” she said.
“How did you come to be here?” I probed.
“I was captured by Campo’s soldiers,” she said.
“What do you do here?” I asked.
“I cook Campo’s meals,” she said.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Won’t you want to leave this place?”
“I have nowhere to go to. My parents were killed. I have no family. This is my new home,” she said, resigned to her fate.
“If you had somewhere to go, would you leave?”
“Yes. I bury my grief in the work. It helps me to survive and to concentrate on my new life,” she said.
I held her hand. It was the first time I held a woman’s hand in two years. The tears came to my eyes in floods. For no apparent reason, I cried and cried. That must have sent a clear message to Marie – which was her name – clearer than if I had told her to help me escape. She left me under the tree, probably too embarrassed to watch a broken man cry.
She came back the next night looking for me. The guards let her into our hostel. She was a favourite among them. When she handed me the fresh loaves she brought, I knew why this was so. They brought her to my section of the hostel and left us alone.
“I am going to help you escape,” she said. It was the best news I had heard since I came to the camp.
“How about you? Don’t you want to leave here? We could start a new life together. Just you and I,” I said. I was grabbing at straws, for all I knew this was a setup to see if I would nibble at the bait to escape.
“I hope you are not falling in love with me? It won’t work. My life belongs here in the camp,” she said.
“I am already in love with you. Please, let us leave this place together. Let us go out there and build our castle. Let us hold each other’s hands. Let us love each other for the rest of our lives.” As I said this, I held her and kissed her. We made love like we were possessed. I didn’t want it to end. I knew in my heart of hearts that she didn’t want it to end as well.
A few months later I was on my way out of the camp in a bread van. I was torn between staying because of Marie and making my escape to freedom. I chose freedom but my heart is still in the labour camp. Marie arranged everything with the precision of a professional. She asked me to wait in the back for three hours then make a run for it when the van came to a stop. She said I should not fear; all had been arranged. The hardest part of the journey was the van. But I was resigned to my fate. What was the worst thing that could happen to me? I was already dead anyway.
To cut a long story short, I arrived in Nigeria and went straight to my colleague, Christian’s house. He gave me the bad news – I had no job, no home, nothing. But most importantly, I was a free man. But I still cringe when I think about it, for I could have been dead.