Witboy in Africa. Deon Maas
white idiot who thinks Africa can’t get him down, that I ignored my sixth sense. Brick’s complexion also became a shade paler, but he kept his poise. When we finished the joint he left. He knew where to find me. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Before he was out the door, I fell like a stone onto the bed. My body refused to obey my brain’s commands. Ideas flashed through my mind at record speed, but disappeared before they could register. I was in the middle of the fastest edit I had ever seen, filled with split second images, memory flashes and visions. I saw the past, present and future all at once. As a film, it may not necessarily have received critical acclaim.
And that was the good part. Within a few minutes I was in paranoia hell. I took hold of the rest of the dagga and crawled to the bathroom to flush it down the toilet. I could already hear the police coming down the corridor. At any moment they would kick down the door and arrest me. The prospect of spending quality time in a jail cell with mass murderers awaiting trial wasn’t very attractive. In Rwanda, the most macho country in Africa, inmates’ uniforms are pink – probably to discourage them from escaping. No respectable man in Rwanda wants to be seen in pink in public.
I eventually succeeded in flushing the dagga. I had to keep my fist closed and hold it in the bowl while I flushed desperately to get rid of it. I could still hear the police in the corridor coming closer. The only solution was to push the bed in front of the door. In total panic I dragged the mattress from the bed, which was just a spindly frame of pressed wood, and pushed it up against the door. At last I could breathe a little easier. The enemy’s first attack was averted. It was time to safeguard the perimeter further.
The window was next. On a building on the next hill, about 700 or 800 metres away, I could see a sharp-shooter who was ready to shoot me if the police couldn’t break through the door. The only way to cover my view of the swimming pool was to use the mattress, which covered about two thirds of the window. I covered the rest of the window with duct tape – we all know it's bullet-proof.
Although I could still hear the voices in the corridor, I felt safer. The many voices in my head now discussed what I would do once the police burst into the room. There wasn’t any dagga left and thanks to the entire can of deodorant that I sprayed into the air, I was certain they could only accuse me of spraying too much perfume in an enclosed space. Surely that would not be a crime even in such a macho country as Rwanda?
I thought about other incriminating things in my room that could lead to a stint in prison. As my brain continued to work in its uniquely disturbed way I worried that there might be very strict rules about nudity. So I tore up a photograph of my wife in her bikini and then burnt it, just in case someone tried to tape it together again.
Then, thankfully, I passed out. Twelve hours later I woke to someone hammering on my door. It was time for Lucky’s show. After the concert I returned to a hotel room that was all straightened out. Nobody ever said a word.
The night before I left Kigali, Brick came to say goodbye. It wasn’t a friendly farewell. He insisted on some kind of compensation for looking after me so well. It wasn’t a request, it was an order. He chose my most expensive Diesel jersey. Needless to say we never became pen pals.
The sun had just set over Kigali’s soccer stadium. Most of the men in the crowd had taken off their shirts. Lucky’s set went on till well after two o’clock and the audience were dripping with sweat. You could smell the crowd. In front of me 65 000 people sang: “Hey, you, Hutu man; hey, you, Tutsi man, you’ve got to come together as one” on the beat of Lucky’s big hit “Hey, you, Rasta man; hey, you, European …”
Lucky Dube
The concrete stadium looked like a trampoline as thousands of people jumped up and down hands in the air – one inyenzi mass that put their feelers up. People shouted exuberantly as if they needed to get rid of years of frustration. Talk about a wow moment – 65 000 people all doing primal scream therapy. The crowd got what they came for – this was one of Lucky’s best concerts in years. It was impossible to hold back the tears. I looked to my left and saw all the guys from the support team quickly wiping their eyes and hoping that nobody would see them crying.
If only the preceding week had gone as smoothly. There were issues about who had to pay for meals, what sound equipment had to be used and there were problems with our transport. We had to fight for everything and nothing happened as it was supposed to. Everything was an effort. De Gaulle, the promoter, obviously felt that since Lucky and his team had arrived, it was time to begin cutting costs. But Lucky was not to be bullied.
The food and transport issues were sorted out quickly, but when De Gaulle realised that a new sound system had to be imported from Uganda because the only available sound system in Rwanda was insufficient, he became as petulant as a two-year-old child. The sound system arrived on Saturday morning, a few hours before the concert was due to start. It gave Lucky very little time for his sound check. When he arrived at the stadium about 10 000 people had already gained entry, despite clear instructions that Lucky would refuse to do a sound check if there were any people in the stadium. They had arrived early to secure the best spots; it was not as if anybody had a job to go to.
For half an hour I tried to get the small crowd out of the stadium. From the middle of an empty stage I shouted instructions over the microphone, but I was greeted by silence. There was no way they were going to take me seriously. Nobody moved an inch. I’d like to think that the fact that they were French speaking and that I addressed them in English explains why they ignored me. I didn’t even get the sarcastic applause that you’d expect to get in South Africa if you tried the same trick.
After years of managing concerts I knew I was fighting a losing battle. So I discussed our dilemma with the promoter, but in a matter of milliseconds he lost his ability to understand English. I then went to the head of security who merely shrugged in a very French way, rolled his eyes skywards and continued the conversation he was having with someone else. I felt completely helpless. Was there no respect for white people in Africa anymore?
There are two kinds of policemen in Rwanda. One group looked like refugees in their badly fitted green uniforms and no one took them seriously – or at least not until they whacked you over the head for no apparent reason. The other group wore black uniforms, never took off their sunglasses and carried automatic weapons. People avoided them like the plague, nobody even looked at them. They were almost like the Johannesburg Metro Police, only worse. They even smelled like evil.
At first I did not consider approaching them even though they were responsible for security in the back stage area. But finally, at my wits end, I explained the situation to their commander.
He got onto the stage and spoke just two sentences. Within seconds there was a stampede to get out of the stadium. Problem solved. The concert could go ahead.
After less than a week in Rwanda I started to understand how things worked.
In fact, after surviving Rwandese dagga, Brick the Bodyguard and possible death by boredom, I could begin to imagine a future as a modern day Livingstone. I decided that it was not time to go home yet and that I should stay a while longer. I wanted to explore Africa’s most densely populated country. After all my hard work it was time for a holiday.
Upon my arrival in Rwanda I received a letter from the man who was appointed “security chief” for Lucky’s tour. The letter was a safe pass and clearly stated that anyone who even thought of messing with me would be held accountable by the forceful, albeit slightly overworked, Rwandese legal system. I had my own “get out of jail free” card and for once, I felt like a very powerful man.
When the security chief wanted it back a week or two later, I knew it was time to leave. With his dead eyes and face pockmarked by hand granade shrapnel he was no oil painting. He was a secretive ex-secret policeman who didn’t reveal much about his background. A few days later our once jovial relationship took a drastic turn for the worse when in a drunken stupor he almost sent me home in a wooden box …
Back in the good old days Gisenyi’s weather and its lake