When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

     “All Mormons go on a twenty-four-month mission normally right after high school,” John explained. “We took French at Highland High School in Salt Lake City. Then, before we left Utah, we picked up some Bambara, the dialect of the dominant Malian tribe, at the LDS language center. Elise has a knack for languages and she learned Tamasheq after we got here.”

     Kella and Elise exchanged a few words in Tamasheq, each surprised and delighted that the other spoke the language.

     “We could have been sent to Poughkeepsie or to Vladivostok, just about anywhere,” John said, as the waiter poured coffee for the four of them. “But we were sent to Mali and here we are, on the edge of the Sahara. We normally work out of Beautiful-Downtown-Timbuktu-on-the-Niger.”

     “I’ve dreamed about a mission like this since I was fifteen,” Elise said. “It’s important for all of us to spread Jesus’s word.”

     Kella had been listening closely, leaning back in her chair. She took a sip of her orange juice and asked, “This is so interesting. Are there other Western organizations around Timbuktu?”

     “There are at least a dozen NGOs in Mali with different goals, humanitarian, medical, religious, and sometimes, political. The United Nations has its groups. The United States has the Peace Corps; Medecins-Sans-Frontieres is here. Cuba has medical technicians; the International Red Cross also.”

     Steve looked at his watch and asked, “How about Muslims? Have you met anyone from IMRA?”

     The Wests glanced at each other and John said, “Yes, Sunnis. They don’t mix with the rest of us. Although their boss, Tariq al Khalil, claims Belgian nationality, I’ve heard that he has little use for Europeans. We’ve never met those people.”

     “But what do they do here?” Steve persisted.

     “They’re supposed to be helping the people in the region with health and social services,” Elise answered, “and they use that as a springboard to urge their audiences toward a pure brand of Islam. Rumors are rampant that they have a dark side, that the Malian authorities don’t dare interfere in their activities, and that they’re forming a secret army.”

     “Are they successful?” Steve asked, looking at John.

     “I’m not sure. The brand of Islam around here is more basically Sufi than strict Wahhabist, so there is natural resistance. The strict Muslims don’t even believe the local Muslims are Muslim at all because their religion has marabouts, saints, and worship images. Some of the rumors about IMRA claim that they are responsible for the deaths of several of these holy men who were not interested in the IMRA version of Islam.”

     The Wests offered to introduce Steve and Kella to their world by inviting them to their going away party the following week in Timbuktu. Many NGO workers would be there as well as Malian employees and friends. They accepted the offer.

***

From Goundam, Atrar left the track and headed straight west in the desert and then found a path on the western side of Lake Kamango that took then north toward Lake Faguibine.

     In mid-afternoon Atrar stopped the car and pointed toward the horizon. Steve took out binoculars and said, “It sure looks like the camp we saw from the air.”

     “Can I have the binoculars?” Kella asked.

     In the far distance she saw dark rock outcroppings above the desert floor. After a few kilometers of rough, off-road driving, she saw a track heading up a long, sloping incline, and at the top, between the two lakes, a number of horizontal slashes in the landscape as the land rose again.

     The Tuareg camp was at the bottom of the outcroppings. Atrar stopped the car beside a steep rock wall. A hundred and fifty feet away a dozen camels looked down at a herd of cattle drinking in clusters from metal drums almost completely buried in the ground.

     A barefoot boy in a loose white garment that covered him to his elbows and knees used a stick with his left hand on a short-horned bull that, with the exception of his black nose, blended with the hard-packed brown sand. In his right hand, the boy held one end of a rope that curled almost down to the ground to a tight noose around the animal’s horns. His long muscular neck held his head low but his eyes looked up to his left and his horns were at an angle that pointed the left horn directly at the boy’s waist. Another rope tied to his horns trailed on the ground behind him toward several branches planted in the ground like tent poles the height of a man. A pulley hung under the apex of the branches over a well. Kella realized that it was the boy’s job to draw water from the well.

     The animal suddenly swung his horns toward the boy who nimbly jumped out of the way. A blue-clad adult shouted at the boy who stepped behind the bull and hit him several times with his stick. The bull’s defiance flagged; he pulled and the rope tightened behind him.

     Kella and Steve followed a path around the rock wall. A young boy about age seven or eight ran up to them and said, “Welcome” in Tamasheq. Kella replied with the normal courtesies of the desert and asked him about Azrur and Thiyya. “This way,” he shouted as his bare feet took him running and bouncing like an élan up the path.

     “Oh it is so familiar,” said Kella as they followed the boy. “I can’t help but remember my own childhood.”

     The boy had run ahead to the camp ground, a wide plateau with perhaps fifty tents made of black animal skins with open sides. As Steve and Kella entered the camp, a couple emerged from their tent. The man was tall and wore a beige robe. His head,