Clandestine, Controls and Crossing the Sahara

Can a White person be a clandestine? Is it possible? With so many Africans risking a small fortune, not including also their own personal safety to cross the Sahara and make their way to Europe, I imagine it is ironic that I did the reverse and traveled from Tunis to Niamey. Why? It is a matter of funds. And perhaps it is also to better understand the experience of crossing the paths that Black Africans move through illegally.

The route I ended up traveling was a bit illogical, but perhaps that is common experience. I initially planned on traveling first through the Tunisian cities of Gafsa, Tozeur and Nefta to cross into Algeria, but the authorities at the border refused to let me through without a guide. Since I was using forms of community transit, I had no choice but return to a border post further north, one called Bou Chebka and cross into Tébessa, Algeria. There, the authorities were surprised to see an American with an Algerian visa and on foot but after the stun of my presence, they allowed me to pass. From Tébessa, I moved on to Constantine where I was able to find frequent traffic for the south, first Ouargla, then El Goléa, In Salah and Tamanrasset. Travel from Constantine to Tamanrasset took approximately 33 hours directly. In Tamanrasset, I waited roughly 30 hours for my driver to find a sufficient number of clients; many who are illegal aliens who have run into difficulties with the Algerian authorities and are looking to cross through Libya.

So what is it like? There is the initial challenge of finding someone to trust to take you where you need to go. That in itself is difficult as people are abandoned frequently by their chauffeurs, particularly in the Sahara desert. After that, it is a matter of negotiating the fare for passage. As one can imagine, if one offers too little the chauffeur will refuse and if one offers too much, there is the concern that they will not have enough to offer the next driver for the next leg of travels.

Insecurity and harassment from authorities is a constant concern. For me, northern Algeria was a danger zone as there have been terrorist attacks aimed at foreigners recently. The authorities constantly asked for my papers: at road blocks, bus stations and along the streets. Furthermore, the looks I was receiving from young, unemployed men on the streets in Tébessa and Constantine where enough to push me further towards my goal of returning to Niger. I was a target there.

For Black Africans, the Sahara (southern Algeria) is problematic. Starting in Biskra, Algeria (the northern frontier of the Sahara) the authorities began to ask for the papers of anyone resembling Black Africans on the buses and other forms of transportation. In most cases, those who do not have their papers in order are pulled off the bus. In rare cases, a few have the chance to pay a small gift to avoid being deported. At the frontier town of In Guezzam as I was going through the formalities of crossing into Niger, I witnessed the scale of this operation. Large Mercedes freight trucks rolled by with hundreds of illegal aliens standing up in the truck beds to be dropped off in Assamakka, Niger. I estimated around 250-300 per truck from the way people were lined up.

Assamakka is a Kel Tamasheq name and actually a famous water source for their animals. There is a legend around it where in the past; a traveler who had been suffering from thirst for days arrived here at night and saw the well thanks to the moonlight reflecting off the surface of the water (the definition of Assamakka). So excited he was, that he rushed over to quench his thirst and tragically fell into the well and drowned. There is of course, a moral here and any Tamasheq who suffers from thirst or hunger will only take a small amount of water or food to begin with once they have arrived to safety.

Assamakka has transformed considerably since its days as a source of water for caravans and legend for practicing patience. There are small restaurants opened by Black African women, little ‘informal’ markets selling cheap goods from Algeria and furthermore the village is swollen with Africans from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. There is ongoing theft, hustles and cons. But more overwhelming than the crimes that take place in the corners of the town are the rows of illegal aliens from Algeria. It was intimidating when I arrived to the control. They looked like army divisions standing in formation, thanks to their Algerian overseers.

If the large Mercedes trucks and the way Africans were lined up in them is not enough to recall the diagrams of slave ships from the 17th-19th centuries, perhaps the collective transport between Assamakka and Arlit will recall the image. The transport is a Toyota Land Cruiser, from the early 1990s, with the back seats removed in order to fit as many people as possible into the vehicle. The driver and the front seats remain, but the cost is double to sit up in front with the driver (which most Africans cannot afford, especially if they have just been deported from Algeria). The ‘back’ becomes full at about 14 or 15 people. Exhaust from the vehicle and dust kicked up from the tires enters through the back window. The distance between the two towns is about 210 km and the road is sometimes sand, sometimes rock. Ideally, the voyage should take 4 to 5 hours but the vehicle I was in had flat tires constantly and since there is a rebellion on hold in the region, a curfew in Arlit prevented my arrival into town the same day I left Assamakka. We slept about 40 km from the town, which was actually refreshing considering the lack of leg room. I arrived in Arlit the next day: dirty, unshaven, bruised from the transport and my companions had to carry me out of the back of the cab for a 20 minute rest in orer for the blood to return to my legs (I had lost feeling of my legs several times during the travel).

In all fairness to Algerian authorities and those who have created enterprises around clandestine operations, no one forces Africans from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa to make this crossing, unless one wishes to personify poverty. Ask any illegal alien in Europe/North Africa or those deported back to Mali or Niger why they cross the Sahara and they will tell you, "There is nothing for me back in -choose a sub-Saharan African country and place here-" The conditions one experiences in traveling through the Sahara illegally are miserable and geared to maximize the returns for entrepreneurs running transport. It is an abuse of human rights, but one that Black Africans choose to enter considering their lack of opportunities at home.

Cultural Misunderstandings and Theft

I am in Tunisia right now making my way gradually down to Algeria, and back into Niger. Part of the reason why I ended up here has to do with modest means for transport. I don’t mean to be cryptic, this is just a polite way of saying I am doing my best to budget and stretch out my finances.

Whenever I have the chance to meet up with a family of herders, though, I do my best to visit and communicate with them. They are, after all, the subjects of my study and I am always interested in hearing what they have to say about their lives and other information they wish to share. I met up with a family just outside of Gaafour, Tunisia. And at first, I did not even know that they were herders but the son and the father who talked to me first were very welcoming and invited me to stay at their tent for the night, the night before Ramadan started. I figured why not?

They were nice but I had noticed one of the sons was a little too nice. When I left the camp the next morning, he followed me to the road and was playing with things on my sack, like a map I had tacked away in a pocket and my 5-liter water container that was hanging on a belt clip (empty, but as I go farther south, it will be filled and used). This experience would haunt me later.

I made it to this town called El Aroussa. There, I was befriended by three Tunisians by the names of Mohammed, Brahim and Hassan. They are a little more older than I, but Brahim lived and worked in France for 5 years and Hassan is well-educated so this gave me a chance to learn more about Tunisia. It was the first night of Ramadan so they insisted that I stay and break it with them. I couldn’t refuse and why would I? The food was phenomenal!

The next day, I had plans to move on but when I prepared I noticed my GPS was missing. I thought, where did I leave it? I retraced all my actions from Gaafour to here. And this is when I thought of the son of the pastoral family. Could he really have taken it? I remember when I shook his hand before he left me to continue my walk, he wouldn’t even look me in the face. The more I thought about it, the more I realized, he took it.

So I went back to the camp. He had left with his father to Tunis, but the mother and sisters explained that they were going to return the next day. I gave the kid the benefit of the doubt at first, looking around the trail where I was walking the day before and telling the family, it is likely, it dropped from my sack. The mother and girls of the camp said they did not know if their brother had found anything and the other brother said he did not know either. I wasn’t ready to give up.

When I went back, I explained things to Mohammed, Brahim and Hassan. They were very, very suspicious and Mohammed told me to wait another day so we could go back and investigate. The next day, Hassan drove Mohammed and I to the camp. We arrived there right when the father and son had returned, though I did not see the younger son, the one who was playing with my sack a couple of days before. Mohammed talked to the father and when we went back the paved road, Mohammed saw someone he knew driving the way towards El Aroussa and asked that he drive me back there while Mohammed continued ‘the investigation.’ I went back and waited. A couple of hours later, Mohammed shows up with my GPS unit in his hand, the batteries drained, but in good shape. He had to call on the police as the family was denying having it but once police show up at the tent, the device became ‘found.’

I am not angry at the events that passed because it has only made more cautious of my possessions but there is a cultural misunderstanding between both the family and I. They, for the most part, saw me as a tourist without the time to wait and retrieve my device and hence denied having possession of it. I like to believe that I can simply walk into a camp of pastoralists, explain my mission and walk out with the information I am inquiring about. But that is not reality. Even if I only walked into the camp with some pens and paper that is more than what they posses and some, by temptation, will try to beg, borrow or steal that possession from me. I offer a word of warning to those doing research in developing nations. Even though they know it is wrong, the temptation to take what you carry into their tent is there and must be discouraged in a diplomatic fashion or in cases such as this one, met with force.

Panaceas and Buzz Words

I recently attended a United Nations Conference in Vienna thanks to an opportunity someone offered to me. It was rushed and I wish I had more time but I did my best to sit in on forums that were relevant to phenomena that I witnessed during my stay in Mali, particularly policy workers promoting decentralization and governmental reform in developing nations. The following are notes and comments I drew up while attending these meetings.

The dialogue and rhetoric in many people’s speeches had the tendency to rely on certain buzz words or phrases such as ‘marginalized’ and ‘most vulnerable’ instead of using the simplistic word ‘poor.’ Regarding the efforts to improve conditions for the ‘marginalized’ and ‘most vulnerable’ the orators were using concepts such as ‘civil society,’ ‘good governance,’ ‘transparency,’ ‘capacity building,’ and ‘up-scaling knowledge.’ To make things simple to the layman, this rhetoric was used in the promotion of decentralization, handing the decision-making processes and financing for development and regional planning to local communities. It is a practice that most countries around the world are at least talking about if not implementing and part of aid package programs that come from industrialized nations and international aid agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Decentralization, however, is not a panacea, a cure-all for the ills of corruption, stagnation in development and the improvement of infrastructure, health, education and other opportunities to local peoples. Malians I had interviewed or became friends with had cynically commented that local leaders organizing and making new communities are the latest con men in their society. Yet, speakers at the conference talked of the importance of decentralization and threw in buzz words like ‘civil society’ to promote it. A few at the conference, however, such as Kumi Naidoo, a South African NGO worker, asked participants to take a deeper, critical look at these concepts and how they affect people worldwide. For example, ‘civil society’ is not always a positive in every circumstance. Examples where this is a negative for local people are the Ku Klux Klan in the United States or Interahamwe in the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s, both voluntary societies with goals and membership.

In addition to the eloquent points Kumi Naidoo brought up I would also like to add the most important point he emphasized during his speech. In the United Nations, there are many countries signing treaties to end conflicts and arms proliferation; fight world poverty; improve human rights particularly for women; conserve natural resources and protect the environment but few nations, both industrialized and developing, comply with these treaties. If the United Nations has a future role in providing a forum where countries and different groups meet to argue, debate and compromise on political, economic, social, and environmental issues there has to be more than panaceas and buzz words at these forums. There has to be compliance and accountability for those who break the treaties that they sign.