And Home Was Kariakoo by M.G. Vassanji Page B

tables have been set up under tube lights and barbecued chicken comes off the fire and is served with soggy chips, the way they like them here. A few other tables are occupied. The atmosphere is hushed, and at this time it’s mostly men who are about. On all sides of us, the normally noisy streets head off silently into residential darkness. And Karim talks.
    He talks of the gold region of Tanzania, where a few years ago people might pick up gold pieces off the ground; if he were younger he would go south and clear acres of land, bought dirt cheap, and grow cashew. He runs off a quick budget for a cashew farm managed along western lines, efficiently. Millions to be made. He’s currently surveying property in Zanzibar. His mitumba business has moved to Zambia—a country, he says, whose business potential was never realized by “us.” Corruption is not as bad as reported. Don’t believe what they say. But then he tells a hair-raising yarn about a road trip from Zambia to the Congo in the midst of the civil war. For me the very idea of the Congo is a nightmare; for him, sitting here like Conrad’s Marlow turned into a businessman, that heart of darkness is just one more wrinkle in a life of commerce. There’s no mineral the Congo doesn’t possess, there’s immense wealth in that country. And Kenya? Don’t believe what they say, corruption’s not so bad there either …
    I gape. My life’s taken an orthogonal turn to his, though I like to think that with my Gujarati heritage I understand business. I cannot but admire the sheer courage of men such as him, their spirit of adventure. Nothing fazes them, there’s no trouble they cannot, Houdini-like, walk out of. This, my classmate, who would sometimes give me a ride home on his scooter. He did not come from the more pretentious segment of our small society, whose children came every summer from London and put on airs with their Beatle haircuts and fashionably bare feet, the girls wearing miniskirts; his were the old Gujarati bania type, who had more money but never flaunted it, living across from the market, quietly going about their business.
    There are others like him. One of them, a former classmate and now a retired multimillionaire, would—I am told—take a drive through the streets of Kinshasa at night and throw bundles of currency at the despot Mobutu’s soldiers posted at the street corners: insurance for times of trouble. There’s the returnee from Toronto (a failure there) who manages a transport business in Dar. When I met him, he was on his way to Dubai to buy one hundred trucks. The rumour mill has it that the trucks are used for the stealthy transport of precious rare earths from Congo to a special location in Dar es Salaam harbour, and thence to America.
    It seems to me that my friend Karim has seen so much and it’s all unchronicled; he needs someone to tell his stories. He trusts and likes me, based on—I suppose—the ancient Indian respect for the harmless book person. I would like to raise a moral issue. Is it right to line the pockets of corrupt politicians and army men who feed on their own people? But the baby face dissuades me. It’s I who am the child; these people take risks, after all, they move the goods and open up markets, they see the world. It takes more than one hand to drive corruption. What risks do I take, who simply watch and listen?
    Recently, returning to Toronto from abroad I was with some impatience pushing my baggage cart in the customs queue when another cart nudged mine to vie for the space just ahead. I looked up to my side. Whom should I see but Karim, and we greeted each other warmly. He had flown in from Dubai. Are we always destined to meet like this?

7.
Kilwa, the Old City
    T HEY TELL US IN D AR that Kilwa—down the coast—is only four hours away, perhaps a little more, the road is all tarmac except for a small stretch; it’s definitely the place to go, with unspoilt beaches and new resorts, and there is of