Ghost train to Mandalay
It’s not the first time I’ve entitled a post with one of Paul Theroux’s books or chapters, nor is it the first time I’ve followed in his tracks. In August of 2008, I traveled from Paris to Tehran by train, and a few months later was given the book of the original *Ghost Train to the Eastern Star * journey - The Great Railway Bazaar, chronicling Theroux’s similar journey of which I had just completed a small leg. Then, when I read it, so much of what he described seemed exactly as I had experienced, thirty years on.
I don’t have my copy of Railway Bazaar with me, so can’t compare his 1970s trip from Yangon (then Rangoon) to Mandalay. But not much has changed since he repeated his trip in 2006.
I noticed that the ticket-seller was looking at the wrong day when he said “no space” for the following evening’s night-train to Mandalay. When I pointed it out to him, “you, very lucky” came the reply. There was not only seats, but for $3 extra, the option to take a bed in a couchette, rather than the reclining seats of “Upper Class”.
At the station the next evening, the train was bathed in the orange glow of the late afternoon soon. Yangon’s station seems like a pretty quiet affair, with no shops or the usual outlets catering to those about to embark on a fifteen hour journey. Once in the train, though, all that changes. Children run alongside the other side of the train, sandwiched in-between the carriages and a wire fence, selling snacks, water, and most importantly for any long-distance, over-night journey, beer.
As the decrepit carriages of the train pulled out, the stations got smaller as the city became distant, and soon we were drifting through vast stretches of seemingly untouched countryside. Every now and then, bamboo houses on bamboo stilts rose out of the wet grassland around paddy fields.
Night drew in, and in the blackness outside ghostly shadows emerged from the fields, returning to their homes. The silhouette of an old, bamboo watchtower stood out from a woody thicket.
The influx of more pedlars announced our arrival at a pitch black station; a man with a shortwave radio, hissing in the dark, illuminated by the grilled light from the carriage.
Later, the only sign of another darkened town was the silhouetted rooftops, illuminated by a glowing, golden stupa. The Buddhist shrines seemingly the only buildings to receive artificial light in these villages.
Laying on my bunk, I bounced up and down as the train rattled along the tracks; a near feeling of sea-sickness brought back memories of a boat to a Thai island two weeks previously. These tracks were old, and badly maintained.
It was time to brave the restaurant car. Theroux had written of not risking “the fried rice being jogged and swilled in a blackened wok by the churning wooden paddle of the chef in his sweat-soaked undershirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips” and “the plates being dunked in the sludgy water of the washbasin”. The scene was no different - was this indeed the same chef, the same, stained, undershirt? Perhaps. But the rice and noodles that came out of that blackened wok were good.
My arm rest against the side of the plate as I stuck a fork into a plate of noodles. My other hand gripped a bottle of Myanmar beer. If one let go for a second, the rocking carriage would whip the meal out of the window and onto the sides of the tracks. Behind me, a man sucked on a cigarette in the near darkness.
An unfortunate policeman had seemingly been seconded to our carriage due to the presence of foreigners on the train; not many come this way it seems - all the hotels recommend taking the bus to Mandalay - it is faster and cheaper. He appeared as I sat down to eat.
His English was about as strong as my Burmese, but with the help of the waiter (who himself had less than a nominal grasp of the former colonial language) I understood what he wanted. It wasn’t tickets, and it wasn’t a spare seat (as I had first believed), but it was the security of the foreigner - and that of his bags. Having waved around copies of the train manifest showing my reservation, he disappeared off towards the now empty couchette - one of only five or six in the only sleeping coach on the train.
After a couple more wine-bottle sized Myanmars, it was time for bed, and as I stepped through the doorway of the carriage, I find him horizontal, sleeping diagonal across the floor in the corridor. He opened up the stubborn door to the couchette, pointed towards the sheets laying in a pile on one of the four beds, and motioned to lay them out, lock the door and go to sleep. These last two instructions repeated a second time to ensure there was no confusion. The sooner I lay down my head to rest, the sooner he can too.
Come morning, the paddy fields were dotted with water buffalo, mist rising off the sodden green as the sun crept up into the sky.
Three hours after the stated arrival time, the train pulled into Mandalay’s station, and the tri-shaw drivers waited outside to whip away the drowsy passengers in their bicycle side-cars.
So this is The Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s always a bit suspect when countries feel the need to declare their democracy in their name. I’ll save the history lesson on Congolese elective government for another post. But here I was, in Lubumbashi, the capital of the mining province—Katanga—which flirted with independence in the early sixties.
A last minute assignment had brought me here, solo, instead of up in the Kivus with a good friend & colleague, as I’d planned. Cue some very last minute—and frenetic—reading about this city that I hitherto knew nothing about. (“Lubum’-where?” I seem to remember replying, on the phone.) Copper, Belgians and Moise Tshombe seemed to sum it up. And the odd spot of strife several weeks previously, as supporters for, and against, the incumbent president, Joseph Kabila, clashed in the streets, choosing violence over votes.
My arrival proved less, expensive, than I expected. Most of what I heard about working in the Congo was bureaucracy and bribes, the latter causing my wallet to overflow with small denominations of US dollars. (Most other places don’t like anything but crisp 100’s to change.) Despite a small disagreement about the validity of my Nairobi-issued visa (I’m not a resident of Kenya), the reams of official, stamped paperwork I poured over the immigration official seemed to satisfy him, rather than kito kidogo greasing his palm.
Campaigning for the elections ends tomorrow, and the streets are a-blast with speakers mounted on trucks blaring out slogans in Kiswahili and French. Lubumbashi has over 500 parliamentary hopefuls, vying for just 13 seats; André Kalonzo was one of them, and stood on a side-street in the city centre handing out photocopies of his campaign poster.
Every wall in the city seems to be smothered in posters for men and women like André, complete with the page number of their name on the ballot. (I dread to think how much the printing of ballot papers cost, with over 32 million voters registered. So far, I’ve seen posters going up to “page 19”.)
Under a small arcade leading from the main square, men huddle around newsboys hawking photocopies of news articles printed off the internet. Headlines from international publications such as Jeune Afrique all talk of Kabila or Tshesekedi, the main opposition candidate. Who said print media was dead?
Now all I need is Kenya Airways to find my bag. Batteries are running low, and I am without power-cord and pyjamas.
Nairobi’s Urban Food Crisis
There is food in the markets, but people can’t afford it.
The drought that has been hitting the headlines in the Horn of Africa is not just limited to the arid scrublands of Somalia and northern Kenya. In the slums of Nairobi, the drought has contributed to an increase of food and fuel prices, meaning that people are going hungry whilst the shops next to their shanty houses are stocked with goods.
Milicent, above, is sixteen months old, and was suffering from malnutrition. Her mother, Rosemary, noticed that she was not putting on weight, and sought help from an aid group working in Nairobi’s Korogocho slum, where they both live.
“Sometime we eat just once a day”, says Rosemary, who describes the food prices right now as very high. Milicent is one of five children, and a typical meal is ugali, a Kenyan staple made from mixing maize flour and water. To feed her children, Rosemary will sometimes have to skip a meal herself, drinking just a cup of tea.
Her husband is a casual labourer, and with irregular work, the family has problems affording enough food for the family. They moved to Nairobi two years ago from the country in search of work. “Life is much harder in the city, if there is no work you won’t eat” Rosemary says.
Fleeing Drought
Hassan Ali has a canteen of water slung over one shoulder, in his right hand he holds a walking stick, and in his left, a blackened kettle. A scarf is draped over his head to protect him from the midday sun, he stands in thin, cracked flip-flops, and wears a blue, short-sleeved shirt over polo-shirt, with a Somali wrap-around skirt around his waist. This is all he has left.
With the sun beating over-head, he pours a little water from his kettle over his feet to wash them, ablutions before the dhuhr (noon) prayers.
Hassan is forty-two years old, and fifteen days ago he left his home in Dinsour, Somalia, his livelihood destroyed by the drought that has ravaged Somalia. Two kilometres behind him stands the Somali-Kenyan border, and ahead of him lies the Dadaab refugee complex - the largest refugee camp in the world.
This is where Hassan and his five compatriots are heading. Hassan’s wife and children left Dinsour for Dadaab several weeks previously, whilst he stayed on to try and struggle through the drought, to save his home and land. Now he is walking to join them, a small family amongst 380,000 refugees.
When he arrives, Hassan will register with the camp authorities, and try to locate his family. The camp is already several times over capacity, and it can take days to register, and weeks to receive a refugee—and therefore ration—card.
But before he can do that, Hassan has over one hundred kilometres across the hot sands ahead of him, with little respite. The few, small villages en-route are themselves suffering from the drought, and have already seen so many refugees heading to Dadaab.
