The Road to Ramadan: The Prologue

They say God protects fools and the innocent, but when Dexter Wilson first saw Cameron Morris enter the City Hotel, he couldn’t make up my mind which one he was. Cameron was a brown man in his early twenties, dressed as a Tuareg from the desert. His head was wrapped in a turban, he wore amber beads around his neck, his feet were bare and dirty, and he had a look of wild adventure in his eye. The prostitutes took to him immediately; much to the chagrin of the bar’s other clientele. These were politicians, pimps, and the begging flotsam of Freetown’s society—all of whom gathered daily in this watering hole to concoct deals, spread rumors, start scandals and play out the petty distractions of ex-colonials, as the country ambled toward disintegration and war.

“Lef him go now!” screamed Miriam as Mamadou, the resident police spy, grabbed Cameron and pulled him towards the door. Wilson was just inside the main doorway, in his usual seat, where he could observe all those who came in or out of the bar-cum-gossip conclave.

“Him say bad ting ‘bout nar go’vment,” bleated Mamadou. “Him nar say ting, yu lie Mamadou,” said Miriam

The whores held onto Cameron while Miriam, the Madam of the City Hotel, beat Mamadou with her umbrella, screaming at him to let the boy go. Unphased, Wilson studied the aged neo-colonial Georgian wood paneling that clung to the walls, trying to ignore the noise.

“Lef him go, lef him go now!” The din penetrated his consciousness. “What’s seems to be the trouble here?” Wilson rose to his feet. At six foot six inches tall, he dwarfed Mamadou and everyone else. His shock of white hair, stern white face, and authoritative voice demanded attention.

“Him canna say bad ting ‘bout go’vment, me ‘ere im!” remonstrated Mamadou, quieted and stunned by the shadow of the Englishman.

“What’s all this palaver you’re causing here?” said Wilson looking at Cameron. “No palaver mate,” said Cameron, “I was just having a beer with the girls and this dick head…” Mamadou threw a hard right fist, which caught Cameron on the side of the face. The young man crumpled to the ground.

“Hold it right there,” ordered Wilson, putting his body between Mamadou and Cameron. The girls jumped Mamadou en-masse, and beat him with anything they could grab to hand.

“Hold it right there, I said. Stop this fighting,” Wilson booming voice commanded. He pulled Mamadou up and away from the swinging arms, and put a hand up to Miriam and the whores. Cameron had bounced to his feet, and some of the whores attended his wounds while others continued to rain blows on Mamadou.

“Will you stop hitting me?” said Wilson, releasing Mamadou and absorbing some blows as Mamadou scurried thankfully out the door. “Now, what’s this all about?” Wilson continued, regaining his composure. “What’s your name young man?”

“Cameron. Cameron Morris.”

“You sound English. What are you doing dressed in those desert rags?”

“I’ve just spent the last three months coming through Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and across the Sahara desert,” Cameron replied.

“What happened to your European clothes?”

“I traded them for these. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

“And now?” said Wilson, looking down at Cameron with disgust, “You do realize you look perfectly ridiculous dressed like that here in Sierra Leone?”

The bar clientele, having taken in the commotion, turned back to their drinks. Their machinations were immune to the whore’s pantomime, or the Englishman ‘pulling rank.’

“Well, maybe I do. But I have some contacts here in Freetown,” Cameron continued, “from my friend in London. I was hoping to get settled a bit, y’know, and maybe get a job.”

“Hah! A job? Are you kidding? This isn’t London, there are no jobs here. And anyway what do you want to stay here for?” Wilson was beginning to wonder why he’d got involved with this lost character to begin with.

“This is the land of freed slaves,” said Cameron. “I’m an escaped slave.”

Dexter Wilson was frankly taken aback by the bold sincerity of Cameron’s declaration. In his five years teaching history at Fourah Bay College, and his many years teaching in England before he came to Sierra Leone, he had never had a student who responded with such a simple straight statement about his identity.

“What do you mean?” Wilson asked, becoming intrigued by this young colored man who only moments before he’d dismissed.

“Well, this is the place created by Granville Sharp and the British abolitionists,” said Cameron. “They collected all the ex-slaves from the Americas, from Britain, and the rebels the British had imprisoned from Jamaica, Ghana, Nova Scotia and the liberated slaves from slave ships, straight out of various West African nations as they were being transported. Those guys founded Freetown, back in the 1700’s.”

“Did you study how they bought the original land for the Freetown colony from a Temne Chief, King Tom, the area just beyond where we’re standing right now?” said Dexter. “And about how, after he died, troubles broke out between the settlers and the native peoples?”

“I was getting to that,” said Cameron. “But what really interest me are the Creoles.”

“Don’t get me started on the Creoles young man,” said Dexter, thinking to himself that he would like to find out more about this young man. “But you’d better rejoin your friends now; I see them looking this way. We can talk about this again later. Just one word of advice before you go. If you want to survive in Freetown, trust nobody and stay observant. Also, if you insist on staying here for a while, remember that all the lessons you learn here in your first month will merely repeat themselves, many times over, because in Freetown nothing changes.”

THE ROAD TO RAMADAN
 by Ian C. Dawkins Moore

amazdah3@yahoo.com
HOW TO GET THIS BOOK
$12.95

The Road to Ramadan: Chapter 1

 It was the beginning of March, and the Harmattan winds from the Sahara were blowing cool, dusty particles up into the air. The dust colored the sky a pink-orange at sunset, and added an extra, irritating mood to everybody’s usual daily difficulties.

When Dexter Wilson left the City Hotel later that night, he caught the last rays of the sunset over Bond Street and stepped gingerly down the hotel stairs, he’d had a few more drinks than usual tonight. He tried to drown out the frustration he was feeling towards the bureaucrats in London, who insisting on making petty comments about his monthly reports on the activities of the Government and the diamond dealers of Sierra Leone; but he’d not succeeded. ‘You must make your reports on the appropriate forms, Wilson” came the most recent rebuttal. There was never a word of appreciation for the difficult circumstances he was working under. He was not a covet spy, for goodness sake. He had been recruited to just keep his ears and eyes open, and make reports from his observations as a Professor at Fourah Bay College. His pay was no higher than a British Council administrator. His reports were always accurate, timely and efficient. He gave details when necessary, and always provided a historic context in his reports.

Wilson’s pedantic commitment to accurate historical references was one of the reasons his wife, Chrissie, had moved out of their bedroom and taken to sleeping in what used to be the servants quarters. Dexter had had to build on an extension to their rented house for the servants, at his own expense, just to keep some kind of handle on the scandal that everyone knew about but few of his colleagues would openly discuss—the other reason Chrissie left him was that he was a homosexual.

“You’re a bore and a Poofter,” said Chrissie as she collapsed onto the sofa. She was drunk, a gin and tonic still grasped tightly in her hand.
“I wish you wouldn’t drink so much, my dear. You know how it gives you such violent migraines.”
“I’m taking a lover,” she said.
“I see,” he replied.
“Is that all you can say? ‘I see!’”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say you’ll stop fucking that college kid you have over here nearly every night. That’s what I want you to say!”
“Chrissie, I’m not fucking that boy. He’s in need of special tutoring.”
“Special, my arse! Ha ha ha, I made a pun. Did you like that, dear?
“You’re getting ridiculous now.”

Chrissie had wanted to get away; Tunbridge Wells, in Kent. The comfortable, verdant garden of England where stock brokerage mansions dotting the undulating northern downs. A safe distance from London and the crush of city life, yet close enough to get ‘up to town’ within the hour.
Chrissie and her sister Anna use to stay outdoors all day walking the downs, finding hiding places and generally avoiding their parents, whose emotional coldness only heated up when they both went on drinking binges and spent the evening screaming at each other, followed by two days of hibernation and remorse. It was not that Chrissie’s parents’ generation were incapable of expressing love, it was just that they had never been taught.

Chrissie met Dexter at Canterbury College. She was studying Art, he, History. They managed not to annoy each other for the three years it took them to graduate and when it came to sex the less the better as far as Chrissie was concerned. For Dexter even then, the decision to have sex was greater than the act itself. They drifted apart. He went off to teach in Yorkshire, and she went up to London to be a part of the post-swinging sixties. She came back with a child. He was on the run from an ‘indiscretion.’

The Church council had an assignment for him—teaching African students at the pre-eminent West African college of Fourah Bay, in Sierra Leone. MI5, the British Secret Service, interviewed him as a matter of course before he went out to West Africa, and realized that Dexter was susceptible to manipulation. He needed to get out of England to avoid any investigations into his activities in Yorkshire. He needed money as was determined by his not so elegant suit that he wore to the interview. Their investigations of him had also revealed that his wife could use the opportunity to get out of the country to save herself and her prominent family any further embarrassments; and he had a convenient cover as an instructor of students. All in all he would be an ideal man to have in Freetown, and he would be cheap too.

Wilson’s unofficial position was as the Commonwealth Diversity Programs Coordinating Representative (CDPCR). It was the British Government’s modern attempt to soften MI5’s image without compromising the extraordinary reach that the British government and its secret service had over its former colonies. Dexter’s responsibilities included documenting the activities of the government on the ground. He complemented his Professor’s role as an import- export consultant, for those who were doing business with British companies. This brought him into contact with Government officials and many businessmen who were always a good source of unofficial, but well founded, information. Dexter also took it upon himself to keep an eye out for any new travelers in town. Cameron Morris had surprised him with his bold manner and bizarre behavior and dress. But Cameron had reminded Dexter of his own youthful dreams of travel. He thought how excited he was when he first left England to start again in West Africa and he recalled his own sense of adventure and the desire to put all that claustrophobic world of England behind him when he was Cameron’s age. Alas, it had not worked out like he dreamed it would. He had no children; Chrissie’s child was being raised in England. But somehow, he reasoned, he might be able to help this young man. ‘Perhaps’, thought Dexter, ‘I could help him avoid the pitfalls that my life has succumbed too? But maybe,’ acknowledged Dexter, honesty, ‘I just want a new lover!’

Dexter monitored Cameron’s activities, from a far and sometimes up close, over the course of the next several months. When Cameron finally moved on from Freetown, Sierra Leone, six months later, Wilson came across a collection of his diaries. In the hands of one of the girls Cameron knew in Congo Town, the diaries followed the story of Cameron’s journey across Africa, his confused beginnings in England and his evolution as a follower of Islam. This is his story.

                             

THE ROAD TO RAMADAN
by Ian C. Dawkins Moore
amazdah3@yahoo.com
HOW TO GET THIS BOOK?
 $12.95