Impossible Odds

hold.
    A few hours later a local doctor was brought in. Nobody told me where they got him or what he had been told about us. He may have been a freelancer, or he could have been part of their group. Their number seemed to grow larger all the time.
    But there he was. He brought a little bag of tetracycline to fight the bug and some Buscopan tablets for the stomach cramps. His exam consisted of taking my blood pressure and tossing the bag of pills at me—not to me, at me. I guess he wanted to make it clear whose side he was on. With that, he went off to chew khat with Jabreel and the other men instead of returning to wherever he came from, saying he needed to remain close by for the night to “check” on me. He never came back. However, since ordinary sleep was out of the question, I was up often enough to observe him throughout the night, motor-mouthing his way through the khat supply. In the morning, I watched him leave after sticking around long enough for Jama, the supply guy, to show up with the group’s daily ration of khat .
    The degree of control exerted by the ultimate operator of this venture was apparent in the handling of the khat deliveries. Each day’s ration came in an amount limited to what the men could use in a single day. The fact that khat has to be chewed fresh-picked meant nobody could build up enough of a personal stash to walk away. Yet the delivery brought plenty for all, leaving the true khat aficionado with the taste of what it was like to have all the khat he could chew while knowing the supply would stop the instant he strayed. The luxury of that steady supply was an impressive binding force. It struck me that these guys were prisoners just as much as I was, maybe more so. At least if I could get out of there, I would be free. Addicts pack their troubles along with them.
    Once everybody had a good chew going with the new supply, Abdi assembled his “militia,” or unemployed pirates, or random criminal kidnappers, or whatever name best suited them. The purpose of the meeting appeared serious. He and all the men were in a somber mood. Poul and I kept out of the way and quietly attempted to decipher their purpose.
    My natural optimism had me hoping they were meeting to discuss accepting a ransom settlement. That thought didn’t last.
    Instead the very nightmare that first called me to the African continent played itself out in front of us, because Abdi’s current manic swing had convinced him the “militia” men needed some early morning training. Many of them were boys. Teenagers. And yet most appeared to weigh something like a hundred pounds. They were nearly skeletal.
    Abdi ordered them to assemble into marching lines, and there I saw it: child or teenaged soldiers, in the terrible flesh, alongside the other grown men. Most were still in their underwear and all looked badly strung out or hung over.
    More information was conveyed to me in that instant than I could absorb for many days afterward; those boys-who-were-not-boys had come to this place to do this dark workbecause somebody promised them all the khat they could chew, and maybe some goat meat once a week with a little powdered milk. And if the ransom came through, there might be some share of the spoils.
    I figured that each guard’s share would be minuscule. As bargaining positions go, what could be offered by any one of those boys? Each one knew there were countless lost souls who would do the same thing he was doing for the same compensation and same hope of reward. His share, if he ever saw it, would certainly not be enough to change his life. It would not buy him a new home. It wouldn’t get his family out of poverty or even feed them for long. If he brought home significant money and allowed it to be known in a region so desperately poor, the word would spread like radio waves until the entire family was besieged by demands from every quarter.
    It was a desperation they, as the new “rich” folks, would be obliged to relieve by Somali customs, whether from the kindness of their hearts or simply out of knowing what was good for them. If a soldier boy lived alone, the simple fact that he had anything more than the rags on his back would reveal money to one and all. His friends would be as desperate as anyone else, perhaps even more inclined to use violence, and here again the boy would share, either out of kindness or because he wanted to stay alive. I had lived with this culture long enough to know that whether he