Amets Azallus Antia + Ibrahima Balde
books
Little Brother
Translated from the basque
by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Sold to Blackie Books/Spain, Feltrinelli/Italy, Scribe UK & Commonwealth and Arcade/North America
1.- I was born in Guinea; not in Guinea-Bissau or in Equatorial Guinea, but in the Guinea that has Conakri as capital; It has borders with six countries, I will only tell you the ones that affect me the most: Senegal, Sierra Leone and Mali. I am of the Fula ethnic group, of Pular language, but I can speak Mandinga and I understand myself in Susu. 25 languages are spoken In Guinea. And French makes them 26. But I only know all the words of the pularra. Mom almost agonized when she brought me into the world because I was so fat, and she lost a lot of blood (yiiyan in pularra). I was born in Conakri because Dad lived there, but we turned to Thiankoi, which is far from the sea and near Kankalabé, in Dalaba prefecture. I lived there with mom until I was 5 years old. Dad came in the rainy season, in March, to help her with the land. And behind me, my three brothers were born. We had 12 or 13 cows and I was in charge of going to the well for water and washing clothes.
2.- Dad sold shoes on the street, home shoes, and his name was Mamadou Bobo Balde. From 5 to 13 years I lived with dad in Conacri: those are 8 numbers, until my town there were 430 and I could not go alone to see mom. I had an older friend, Muhtar, who gave me shoes and food, and I asked him to write a letter to Mom, whose name is Fatimatu Diallo. She still does not know that I have arrived in Europe.
3.- I was afraid of Dad: if I didn't obey him, he would hit me with his belt. Dad didn't go to school, that's why he got angry if I didn't go and I stayed playing football instead. We loved each other. At school they taught us French and three more things: to cross the road, to respect others and another one that I do not remember now but should be important. It was a public school, but in 6th grade I abandoned it because I had no money; Money is always necessary. I wish I had followed.
4.- Dad was good but he had a disease: diabetes. I couldn't go to the hospital beacuse I had to attend to the shoes post, and when the sale fell we ran out of money. I proposed to leave school and look for money, but he told me he was a child. Dad started having a fever, a headache; He sent me for paracetamol but it was night and I didn't find. In the morning he didn't wake me up; I touched him and his skin was like ice. I asked the neighbors for help; They called the Imam, who told me that Dad had lost his life.
5. - Now I know that a dead person is cold; I don't know if it first freezes and then dies, or vice versa. I wanted to go ask mom for advice: what will I do with my life now? I had an older uncle in Conakri, dad's brother, and I went to ask him for money to return to town, but he didn't have any. I went back to the one-bedroom house where I lived with Dad. It had no kitchen, just a space for prayer and a bed; I slept on the floor on a tapestry. I had to pay 100,000 Guinean francs a month for the rent, about € 10. I started to cry, and then my neighbors, all poor, from the Conakri banlieu, raised money so that I could go back to my mother.
6.- From Conakri a bus left to Kankalabé; From there I had to continue on foot, 9 kilos (kms.). I went out on a Thursday and arrived Friday night. When I told Mom about Dad, she cried until dawn. I was with my little sisters Fatumata Binta and Rouguiatou, and with my brother Alhassane. I was the eldest of the house: I could not continue studying.
7.- Mom had a lot of patience, but little strength. Strength means power, and power means money. Mom had no education; She had cows, goats and an vegetable patch. She sold two cows and gave me 900,000 Guinean francs (€ 90), but I didn't understand business and in Thiankoi there were no opportunities. I had to go to another country. Mom cried and asked me two things: to take care of myself and pray every day. I went back to Conakri.
8.- I thought about going to Liberia because I had heard that there was work for children, although I was already 13 years old. The driver did not admit me because of my age but I traveled with a family, in the luggage carrier, sitting on a suitcase, and thinking four things: why I had chosen Liberia, what would be there, how I had left my mother and my brothers at home, and how much time would the journey take. The minibus arrived in Monrovia at dawn.
9.- In Liberia the words had onther music: they called the largest market Watazai (of Waterside, in English); There I began to help loading bales with boxes containing avocados, pineapples, clothes and other things that I don't know. They paid me in libatis and I ended up exhausted. At night I was left alone and I learned to sleep on the street, on a cardboard; I was like this for 3 months. I met a Guinean, Tanba, who had a garage, and I offered to help him, but it seemed too young to him. I always dreamed of driving trucks.
10.- Tanba appeared in the market and invited me to eat rice. He told me that my job was too heavy for a child. I became an apprentice with him: it was my first job contract. Tanba drove a Behn truck, I helped him load it, change the oil, inflate the wheels. In 6 months I learned a lot about trucks, and people. Tanba was not Muslim, but Catholic, he had other customs. He gave me food, clothes and a family; I lived in his house, with his wife and two children; I slept in the living room on a tapestry. One day I phoned my house and Alhassane told me that Mom had health problems. I asked for permission to return to Guinea; Tanba gave me the money and a bundle of clothes.
11.- Mom wasn’t well. I took her to the hospital, more than 9 kilos away; when I couldn't carry her anymore, I went on all four legs and she sat on me. The doctor said she was holding fluids, prescribed a medicine and took her in his car to town. Alhassane and I went back on foot.
12.- If I had been able to choose, I would not have been the older brother. Alhassane was an 11-year-old boy when I returned to Guinea; He asked me what I was going to do with mom being ill; I had to stay until she felt better. I got my brother an old bike to do the 9 kilos to school; he wanted new clothes and shoes like those of his friends, but he saw the misery of the house and asked for nothing. I struggled to fulfill Dad's wish: do everything you can for Alhassane to study.
13.- I spent two years at home, until I was 16. Mom had to be lying in a hammock; I took care of everything: cows, water, sisters ... The last time I talked to Fatumata on the phone she told me she wanted to study: learn to sew or embroider. And Rouguiatou, who prayed that we would see each other again; She was 11 years old, or 12.
14.- Alhassane studied and helped me but began to change: He wanted to have a job, maybe a motorcycle mechanic, or he also asked that we both left, but I told him he was very young (14 years old). Mom got better, I asked her to take care that my brother didn't leave school and I went back to Conakri to earn money.
15.- I went to Nzerekoré, 1300 kilos from Conacri. There I spent 3 or 4 years of apprentice with a truck driver who made trips to the capital. With him I learned to detect breakdowns due to engine noise. And to drive, he let me do it sitting on a drum, and thanks to him I know how to make the mechanical arrangements, but not the electrical ones
16.- One day I called Mom: She had not heard from Alhassane for 3 weeks. I went to Conakri, in case my uncle had seen him: nothing. I felt guilty about my brother's escape, for not having money to help him, and I wanted to go anywhere to look for his trail. Mom didn't want me to lose my apprentice job.
Chapters 17 and follwing:
I worked in a garage for a while, and a friend from Conakri passed by the garage with his truck and told me that Alhassane was in Libya. How had he got there, without money, without telling me anything? He had called mom and left her a phone number: she told me crying that he wanted to get to Europe, like his friends, because he saw no future at home. He was in Sabratha, in the refugee camp of one Baba Hassan, waiting for his chance to cross the sea. I told mom that only God could help us and I went to look for him, by bus from Conakri to Sigiri [in Ghana], where I arrived two days later and did not know how to follow to Bamako. Mom had given me money, but little, and a truck driver charged me 33,000 francs for taking me among his load of wheat. In Bamako, which was a crossroads, I found a bus to Gao, it cost 9000 francs from Mali, which are called CFA, they are counted differently and would be about € 13. So I crossed the desert: 3 nights, very hot, without stops.
The bus left us on a bridge with Mali soldiers on one side and Tuaregs on the other, both has weapons: they were the organizers of the migrants traffic. They put me in a Tuaregs’ van with 8 other people and asked if we were with Musa Onze or Musa Kone. Now I know that they were the warlords who, between the two, controlled northern Mali. They left me in a building with more than 100 prisoners, all like me. The jailers asked me for money to take me to Algeria; if not, they would shoot us. I gave them money from mom's 3 goats. They put me on a list and a few days later they put me in a truck. We were 94 and we crossed another huge desert: it seemed that we would never leave it. All the inhabitants of this desert look alike, they speak Arabic or Tuareg. We spend 5 days without eating, only water; in the truck, some vomited or wet themselves, because the truck didn't stop. Some were told that we were going to Italy, others that we were going to Spain ... It was a trick to keep our money.
Suddenly, we arrived in a prison in the desert, in Taalanda. The guardians were children and adults with Kaláshnikovs. All the cells faced a central courtyard of sand: it was a market of people. I spent three days locked up, they gave us the food in our hands and it burned. The Tuaregs put a price on us, the buyers examined us, all in French. They didn't buy me. There were two ways to get out of Taalanda: to be bought and be taken I don't know where, or that your family sent money as ransom. They asked me to call mine or they would kill me. I refused. Upon entering I had been frisked whole (every hole in the body) to look for money and they took my documentation. Living without papers means you're worth less than a goat. My only chance was to escape. I became friends with another Guinean and we decided to climb the wall, which had holes to climb, at night. But on the other side there was another wall, my friend fell from above and I ran because he was screaming and they were going to catch him. I fled over the sand, barefoot, aimlessly. I walked through the empty desert sleeping in the open without knowing that there were snakes, until my thirst attacked and I heard a motor in the distance. It was a biker with a Kaláshnikov; I was afraid he would return me to Taalanda, but I had no choice, I wanted to get to Timiauine (Algeria) and I would die in the desert. He took me to a place with water and indicated the direction: there were 95 kilos and I had to avoid controls.
I spent 19 hours walking, I stayed in underpants; I found water in some Tuaregs containers, I walked 3 more days when the wind allowed me, without food. I arrived at a town and went to the mosque; I fell asleep and my legs swelled up. A boy named Ismail recognized me as a Guinean, he healed my legs with massages and I spent 6 months with him, carrying sand. They paid us 200 dinars each way, which cost us 2 hours. In one day we won 800, about € 6. After 3 weeks I proposed to go to Bordj Mokhtar, the second town of Algeria coming from Mali: we did 145 kilos with another boy. It took us 5 days to arrive. There we spent two months mixing cement; They paid us little, but we collected money to go hidden in a pickup, with another 14 people, for 17,000 dinars, and then by bus to Adrar, which was another world. We did not get to pay both tickets to Ghardaia and a Muslim taxi driver and other boys from Cameroon, Ivory Coast ... helped us ... We wanted to get to Algiers, but we spent 3 months in Ghardaia mixing cement. I told Ismail that I was looking for my brother to return with him to Guinea. Ismail called me koto, and I called him miñan. When I wanted to go to Libya, we separated.
Libya is made to suffer, they had already warned me. From Ghardaia I went to Deb Deb by bus for 1300 dinars, 7 hours: it is the last town of Algeria, then there is the border, land of the Police, and I already knew torture. I had become suspicious of others, of their intentions and ambitions, and crossed the border alone, walking. In the mosque I met a man who owned a garage of pickups: for 150 Libyan dinars, which are equivalent to the euro, he took me to Sabrath. This was where my brother was when I talked to him on the phone. I traveled hidden, without seeing the outside, distrusting where the armed driver would take us. He left us 12 kilos before, we had to walk and avoid the police, who would take us to jail if we were found. Only four arrived; I don't know what happened to the others.
In Sabrath they took me to Baba Hassan, who was running the Europe program; It had a huge outdoor field, with more than 600 emigrants, where they took your data. I changed my year of birth to be 17 years old because with 18 you were already going to jail. I couldn't find another company to jump to Europe and I would pay them what they asked for. I couldn't even tell the truth (that in fact I didn't want to go to Europe, just find Alhassane) or get out of there. Europe pays Libya a lot of money to block emigration and the country has become a large prison from which it is difficult to get out alive.
In the town there was no one in the streets, only pickups and shootings. I showed Alhassane's picture, and I learnt that he had left there a long time ago. Baba Hassan was one person but had many houses; He had become rich with migration. I spent two terrible days in his field. I decided to flee to Zawiya at night.
I came walking, I rested in the mosque and an old Arab who I did not understand took me in his 4x4: he kidnapped me for 3 days and fed me enough to not die, because dead I was worth nothing. He locked me up with another hundred men and women, guarded by civilians. When I told him that my family could not send money, he took me to an alley, another old man came with a rifle and gave the other 300 Libyan dinars for me.
My new owner spoke some French and took me in another 4x4 to a metallic hangar full of chickens. My job was to feed them, collect the eggs and put them in cartons. At night he picked the eggs up and brought me food. I was there locked up. I thought that if I did the job, the old man would realize that I was a person and would help me. 19 days passed, some with only a small piece of bread. One night, the old man arrived, received a call and left quickly, without closing the door. I ran to Zawiya and started to explore their migrant fields. No sign of Alhassane. I returned to Sabrath, now without money, but others fed me. I spent two months looking for him on the trankilos, until one night I thought that, to lead that life, I preferred to die.
In the mosque, one of my Fula ethnic group told me that he met Alhassane: he was shipwrecked in a zodiac with 144 more. I didn't know what a shipwreck was, I didn't think there would be so many people in a boat, nor did I know how I was going to tell Mom.
Europe's program was that you paid € 3,000-3500; you waited in a trankilo and when they filled a list, they took you to the coast to embark. If you cracked at the last minute, they killed you so you wouldn't tell about the conditions or the abuse. And they kept your money. Many of us were afraid because we had never been sitting on the sea. And because they didn't care if the sea looked bad.
I had lost my only brother, my family was my responsibility only. I still wanted to drive a truck through Guinea. I had never hit Alhassane, like daddy did to me, I just talked to him to convince him to study. And if I had found him again, I would have spoken to him, with my eyes, so that he would understand me.
I spent 3 days without eating or drinking, I could not. I looked for Alhassane again, because I wasn’t sure about the story of the wreck. I spent 3 weeks wanting to die. Shootings no longer frightened me. In Libya, death is something banal. I became another person, I didn't even know what I wanted. A Cameroonian told me that I was looking for punishment; He took me to some Arab stonecutters to move bricks. Until I got tired and returned to Algeria, in the pickup of an Arab, both alone in the cabin. He left me at the border: Libya is over!
I continued on foot. The desert of Mali is different from that of Algeria: it is full of corpses. I walked 6 days to Ghardaia, 190 kilos only with water. But now I knew that hunger does not kill, neither does pain; something else is needed. I was dragging a terrible toothache from the chicken farm; It didn't let me sleep anymore, but I didn't have money for medication. I pulled my tooth with the thread torn from a tapestry, my face swelled up. I mixed cement again, I made money and I wanted to live again.
I remembered that before going to Libya I had friends. Then they didn't recognize me, they said I had gone crazy. I became mute, with no future or humor. I had a headache all over my body; two headaches: Alhassane and mom. I preferred to be alone, thinking. I've seen many people like that, lost, they say crazy, more dead than alive. I have also seen many dead, in the desert and in the sea. The living we move, that is the difference, but others direct our movements without us knowing where we are going or for what. A friend told me that I needed to find love. Yes I would like to start a family, but now I have my heart ready. My only question is when will I see mom and what will she think when she sees me.
I spent 15 months in Algiers, in the Birkhadem neighborhood, with 3 friends: water, sand and cement. It was full of guys from Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon ... and those fleeing from Syria. Hard work is for emigrants. We did it secretly from the Police, sleeping under the concrete blocks. I didn't even get to know Algiers. In the Maghreb we suffered continuous humiliations, they did not let us enter the stores to buy food because they “did not admit animals”.
I bought a bus ticket to Oran for 800 dinars, 6 hours. When I arrived a guy from Gabon offered to move me to Morocco through walking roads; I would pay him € 100 upon arrival. He took 44 of us by train and then we followed on foot through mountains and dangerous canyons at night, because the Moroccan Police has powerful spotlights. Beyond the mountains, a minibus picked us up to Udjara. From there to Tangier again on foot. In Tangier I went to the forest, where all the hidden ones were Muslims and were grouped by countries. We all put some money and one of us went down to buy food in the city. If the Police entered the forest, we ran to the mountain. All of Africa was there running. I was caught twice, I still have leg injuries. They expelled me and I returned. They took everything, even the photo of Alhassane, but I had money hidden in a place that only I know.
That's how I spent 3 months in Tangier. I decided to embark on a program but they asked me € 4000 and I only had € 2700. The sea is a risky tombola and it is not cheap. Another option was to buy an inflatable zodiac between 4 or 5 people and get us a pair of oars; This meant about € 100 per head. Many of those who were in the forest died in the sea. One from Mali told me that programs were cheaper in Nador. I didn't believe him but I went there. I spent 6 months in the forest of Nador. Women are arrested before men because they have to carry their children when the police arrive ad this makes them slower. In one of the raids I once saved a rice pot and was a little hero in the forest. My stomach hurt a lot and it extended to my chest and leg. In Spain they take you to the hospital, they anesthetize you, they open you, they see you have a hernia and they take it away. There a friend took me to the marabout, who gave me a vegetable that I didn't eat. My remedy was not to be found in a vegetable patch, it would have been my brother.
I finally could call Mom and tell her that she would never see Alhassane again. She cried. I also cried. Everyone in the forest had their story but didn't tell it; we were trapped between the desert we already crossed and the sea to be crossed, with the past far away and the future, without knowing if it existed. If I return home, I will not tell them what I have lived; They understand something when I call them. But the credit of the phone is short and life is long. They would want to know why I did not return home if my destiny was not Europe. But when you get to Algeria or Libya, it's too late to go back, because your house is already too far away and because I didn't deserve to see mom's eyes. I knew that God wanted me to come to Europe.
To do business you have to have a small heart, and not everyone is good at it. A Guinean went up to the forest and offered to take me for € 3,000, to other clients he asked for 3,500, everyone bargained. He took me to his house in Nador until the next program; I spent 3 months without going out, cleaning and cooking for him and his wife; I slept in a couch and my back recovered. In the end, he shipped me for € 2000. We swell a zodiac for 53 people, children included. I do not know how to swim. In the middle of the crossing, the compass broke and we drifted. We saw dolphins, I didn't even know that word. I prayed between life or death, all night at sea, with people crying, also the captain, who was from Senegal. At dawn, we realized the zodiac lost air. I felt the fear even in the bones. At 4 pm we saw a helicopter, it must have warned a Marine Rescue ship and we all shouted Boza!, a song of joy. They rescued us. I cried when I was safe and they gave me water.
Now I know: the sea is not a place to sit.
The book ends with a short poem. This is a free transaltion: Who are you? Perhaps you are the policeman who decides who is granted asylum. Or be my mom; I'm sorry, now you know what I've been through. Or my sisters; you know that Alhassane did not forget you. Or the friends who helped me; I don't know what your luck has been. Maybe who are still crossing the desert or waiting for a program; This story is also for you. Or those who have welcomed me, in Oran or Irun. Or you are simply someone who is reading this poem. I am Ibrahima and this is my life.
This book is dedicated to Alhassane Balde.
