POLUKU

                   

By William M. Balsamo

 

    The ferry was late. We had all been standing at the dock waiting for its arrival. Delays are common in Uganda and people learn to wait patiently having been conditioned to accept delays as a way of life.

 

    It was a hot day and people either fanned themselves or wiped their foreheads to prevent beads of sweat from dripping down their faces. Before us was Lake Victoria named after the British Queen whose power once extended over this part of the world. No one nowadays gave it much thought and no one really cared whether or not she was a queen at all. Their only preoccupation was to get to the other side. The final destination was the Sesse Islands scattered in the waters off Uganda’s southern lake..

 

    The ferry boat appeared as a speck on the horizon. The water of the lake was wide enough to seem as the sea. The surface was as smooth as glass hardly rippled by a breeze in the noonday heat. Cars gradually came down the hill and parked randomly at the sore of the lake. The drivers sat in their cars. Some slept while others fanned themselves but very few dared to venture out in the noonday heat.

 

    I found refuge in the shade of a sprawling tree where I escaped the heat of the sun but spent time fanning off flies which swarmed around me. No one spoke. The energy needed to evoke a conversation was more than anyone cared to exert. So everyone sat somewhere in self-induced meditation and waited.

 

   In the distance the sound of a truck’s engine broke the silence. It approached the shore letting off spurts of shots and exhaust bangs obviously in a hurry to meet the ferry. When it came into sight the driver realized that the ferry had not yet arrived and he uttered a sigh of relief.

   Next to him was a young man in uniform with a rifle. He opened the door to the truck and stepped out. He was a well-built stocky man slinging a large loaded rifle over his right shoulder. In his left hand he held a small plastic flask container filled with a liquid. No one paid him much attention and he reached up to the sky with both hands and yawned while stretching. Then he took a sip from the container he was holding.

   He walked down to the water and looked out over the lake searching for the ferry which was long overdue. With a shrug he walked back to the truck and murmured something to the driver. With his rifle pointing up into the air he came over and sat on the ground near the tree where I was standing. Wiping his forehead with a handkerchief he began speaking in French eager to engage me in conversation.

    I knew it was French only from the intonation but I had forgotten all of my high school French ages ago and could only say, �E#060;span class=SpellE>Je ne comprends pas.�E#060;o:p>

    “Oh, sorry. I thought you were a Francophone.�E#060;o:p>

    “No. I don’t speak French. Only a few words.�E#060;/span>

    “It’s o.k. I can speak some English.�E#060;o:p>

    So with a language barrier between us we managed to carry on a conversation using the few verbal resources at our disposal.

    “I am from the Congo. That’s where I learned French,�Ehe said. “I work here as a security guard for this bank in Kampala. We have to go to the inland to pick up money from the bank. We do this everyday.�E#060;o:p>

     I learn from his conversation that he hates the job but does it to make some money. He fled the Congo because of security. There were too many children using guns and acting like soldiers when they should have been going to school.

     I quite agreed with him but he was not much interested in my part of the conversation. I gathered after a while that he just liked talking with foreigners.

He punctuated almost every statement with a laugh. It was a hearty laugh, the one you hear at parties when someone has had too much to drink. I then made the connection. He was having too much to drink. The clear liquid which he was sipping from the plastic container was not water, but gin. He was nursing it slowly and enjoying the numbing effect it was having on his mind.   

     “I hate this job,�Ehe confessed, “But I like carrying a rifle. It’s the good part of the job.�EHaving said that, he swung the rifle off his shoulder and twirled it with one hand into the air. This set off a ripple of laughter which amused him thoroughly while taking large sips from the container.

     “When I am sober I ca hit my target, but when I drink I can hit anything.�EThinking this was funny he continued to laugh and it sent an echo across the lake which ran of beyond the waves.  

    I learn from his unsolicited discourse that he was 26 years old and had been a soldier back in the Congo where he learned how to use a rifle. He made his first kill before he was twenty and found it easier as the years went by.

    “I really wanted to go to college and become an engineer. But, they came to my village and made me a soldier. I was dragged away from my family and sent to a camp to learn how to fight but I didn’t know what I was fighting for.�E#060;o:p>

    I learned that his name was Poluku. He was rather intelligent and a sad case of good talent going to bad use.

    “How did you end up in Uganda?�EI asked.

    “I escaped from the army. It was very dangerous. In the night I ran off into the forest and kept running until I could not run any longer. Somehow I learned that I had crossed the border. I ended up in a refugee camp but after a few weeks I escaped from there too. Then I go this job. They don’t care where I come from and what happened in my past. I ride with the truck everyday to collect money and use the rifle if I have too.�E#060;o:p>

    Poluku’s driver was asleep in the truck behind the wheel. The truck was a security vehicle which transported money form one bank to another and it sat on the shore of the lake unprotected with the security guard sipping gin from a flask container slowly getting drunk.

    After several moments a speck appeared on the horizon and within minutes was recognizable as the ferry. Its approach was gradual and those who had been waiting moved towards their cars eager to go on with their journey. Poluku lay back on the ground disinterested in the ferry’s approach. It was always late and he knew that when the time came to get moving the driver would fetch him.

   “I’m just gonna lie back and take a nap.�E#060;o:p>

   With that he finished off the gin and tossed the flask into the shrubbery near the tree. He spread out under the tree with the rifle by his side and began taking a short siesta. 

    No sooner had he closed his eyes that the driver ran up to him, �E#060;span class=SpellE>Poluku, up! Quick! Get back into the truck! We got to get ready to oad onto the ferry.�E#060;o:p>

    Poluku was annoyed that his reverie had been disturbed. He yawned and reach instinctively for the flask of gin having forgotten that it had already been discarded.

    “What’s the hurry? It takes an hour to unload and load again.�EHe stretched, got to his feet and picked up the rifle lying on the ground.

    The ferry was in no hurry to make up lost time and the process of unloading and reloading was a gradual business putting the ferry another hour behind schedule.

    None of the passengers seemed to mind. Wherever they were going was much like where they had been and where they were now. The security truck was eased onto the ferry which was being loaded to capacity. It was guided into place in the front of the ferry so that it would be the first vehicle off. Gradually other vehicles were finding their way onto the ferry and those on foot found convenient places on board to shelter them from the sun.

    When I finally got on board I noticed the cabin of the truck where Paluku was sitting guarding the cash. He sat with his legs on the dashboard, his cap over his eyes, taking a nap with the loaded rifle at his side keeping silent watch.