Free Born of War by Anderson Harp Page A

he convoy of white Land Rovers bounced across the path through the desert heading east. The vehicles tossed and turned like small dinghies in a violent storm. Some seemed, at times, to come close to flipping over. The roads of east Africa could barely be called roads. They were more like paths occasionally passing through outcrops of sandy rocks. Each of the trucks was marked with the logo of the MSF. Doctors Without Borders had another encampment somewhere farther southwest, near Dolo. But this encampment was far more remote.
    The rains had started to come to east Africa, and with the rains, the danger of roads becoming torrents of water. When the ruts dried out, the mud and potholes full of water remained for several days. With the water came the mosquitoes. Sleep required a net or skin so toughened by a life in this wilderness that it was difficult for the insects to penetrate their prey’s skin. In all likelihood, many would get malaria and there was not enough medicine for all.
    Karen Stewart tried to concentrate on the vehicle in front of her. It seemed to make the vertigo less painful if she watched the vehicle ahead. They were a fleet of ships at sea. She held on to her backpack in her lap. She was in a rear seat with the security guard sitting directly in front of her in the passenger seat. He held his AK-47 out of the window. It had a rope as a sling. He had big white teeth in contrast to his dark face and a smile that helped put her at ease, but she had never been this close to a weapon before.
    As they passed through a village, the children and women would stare at the run of vehicles. Sometimes the children would hop onto the running boards and ride until they either got bored and jumped to the ground or were shaken off by a particularly bad bump in the road.
    Karen didn’t feel well. She knew it was a mistake but she drank some of the camel milk that the women carried on the top of their heads in large plastic jugs. It was intended to be a special treat. She could tell from their eyes as they pulled a jug down and offered to pour the warm liquid out into a steel cup. It tasted oddly sweet and did not sit well.
    The malaria pills didn’t help either. Her stubbornness did not let the thought of turning back enter her mind. “I warned you!” Dr. Pierre DuBose shook his head at her. He was sitting in the seat next to her. A veteran of this part of Africa, this was his third tour with MSF and he had learned from his many mistakes.
    â€œOkay.” She tried to lean her head against the truck’s brace but every time she did, another thump would knock her about.
    â€œIt will be better when we get to Ferfer.” He was in his mid-thirties, a surgeon from Paris, and on his last tour. This was not his first tour to the eastern village next to the Shebelle River. The mud huts that formed the small circle on the rise next to the river had been in the same location for well over a thousand years.
    â€œThe Shebelle has a cruel heart.” DuBose spoke above the noise of the truck as everything not tied down rattled. Occasionally, they had to stop when they noticed that something had fallen off onto the side of the road.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œIt is only a cut in the rocks and the sand. When the rain starts it becomes a viper.” DuBose had a flair for the dramatic. “It will spread like a plague.”
    â€œBeyond its banks?”
    â€œYes, it has swallowed up many children who got too close.”
    â€œOh.” She wiped her face with the once-blue-and-orange blouse. It now had a tint of red from the constant dust that clung to everything. The rivers turned red and the water that they drank, even after filtering, had a red tint.
    â€œHow far to the border?” She knew that the Somali frontier was close.
    â€œProbably a hundred meters or so. They don’t have borders out here unless they want to.”
    The neighboring countries knew more by tribes or villages what