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I don’t really know him. Just a contact on Facebook. A humanitarian. I have been for a few years now. Over the past few years, he has had some “hard” missions to his credit. He uses writing as a viatic to his suffering, a means like any other to evacuate his anguish, his overflowing emotions. He has a style of his own, striking, poignant, even disturbing. He keeps a blog: http://whiteshamanroad.over-blog.com.
Here are two excerpts, followed by some of his FB Posts, made during his RCA mission in 2013. Sensitive souls abstain. His lyrics are really both hard and beautiful. His texts are punches in the mouth. But not a single one. Not every sentence.
A girl walks
there’s this girl whose feet each exceed the other on a destiny of earth….
his arms seem to dance like drunk along his hips to accompany the run of his steps….
his eyes look at nothing, his eyes are lost in a world without thoughts…
she has a frail fabric that hangs on her shoulders like a leaf already dead in a country without autumn…
old clothes in the colours of the past, a little dirty, a little punctured, a little useless, which clumsily try to hide a nudity of which she has no use….
she is old enough to sit on the benches of a school, old enough to play, laugh and not have hatred…
she’s that age, but that age doesn’t have it…
she has a little blood stain between her legs, like the tears she couldn’t shed when five men raped her as if to punish her for being right there.
AN OLD MAN CRYING
there’s an old man crying…
I’m not used to seeing old people cry,
I usually see the heavens crying instead….
he cries because his hand is crying too…
but her tears are of blood…
and the grimace on his face is reflected on his hand….
he has three fingers that hang stupidly….
Yes, it’s silly a finger hanging…
and three even more…
a very young stab wound,
younger than him anyway….
a knife that must have known more blood than his…
he was passing by,
he didn’t want to obey crazy young people,
there were three of them…
like these fingers…
they too hang….
to the sons of the parks….
waiting for the same knife…
they’re not far away…
they laugh like a successful joke….
he cries beside me….
his tears flow like his blood,…
without restraint…
but what can I do?
there are already too many tears and blood…..
he wants me to take him to the hospital….
but there’s more risk in going there than leaving him here….
even for both of us….
I could cure him,
even sewing it up maybe….
it wouldn’t be any worse than what’s waiting for him…..
gangrene at worst…three fingers less at best…
but I can’t….
he cries….
an old man crying, it makes people doubt…
the children cry,
not the old ones….
he has two or three times my life…
and he’s going to stay here…
because I can’t….
and I have to tell him no…
I have to tell him to handle it…
I give him 2000 francs,
a quarter of a pack of cigarettes…
but I can’t do more…
I don’t have to do more…
the sacrifice of one for the group….
until we’re the one here….
and the world seems unfair, so…
the shepherd abandons his flock
to search for the lost sheep….
but I am no longer a shepherd….
I’m facing my choices,
and my choice is to leave it there…
and it’s the right choice….
and it’s horrible…
he cries…
but I don’t think the pain makes him cry…
I think these tears are her screams.
that burst into his eyes….
his cries of non-understanding,
its why….
to which I have no answer
except a smile that comes from the heart…
as the only bandage I’d have…
as if to silence my deep and terrible anger,
as if tonight, again…
I was more hurt than he was…
by my powerlessness and powerlessness more…
to determine who should be saved and not the other…
it’s this anger that makes me stand up…
it gives me a terrible strength….
an incredible power over myself…
where the disease bends the head,
where fatigue does not dare to say a word even if it is there…
there’s this anger…
disguised as an old man crying…
and these laughing children,
other disguise….
an old man crying,
it’s worse than a library burning down…
an old man crying,
it’s like a library full of blank books….
It doesn’t make sense anymore……
it scares the hope….
and it makes the librarian stupid…
I don’t want to cry even if I want to,
tonight, I’m not allowed to…
so I use my fingers to tell all this…
3 different lives,
3 fingers hanging down
Three young fools who will soon die,
3 cigarettes…
and henrich schliemann who follows a tale to discover a treasure…
(Well yes…troy!)
The forgotten: “Once again, rain saves lives, but the end of the rainy season is approaching… people are getting tired of it, and tired of the international community ignoring them…bad luck for them, when the media started to get tired of Syria, they could have had some space, but the Filipinos took over… jealousy rumbles… thousands of soldiers in Mali, even in Somalia, and for CAR almost nothing….. after the rainy season, the flame season!”
“Central Africans have been training for fireworks since this morning, everyone is participating… except us, pfff… we really haven’t had any fun… anyway, CAR is bullets… well… it’s not funny, people are dying nearby…”
“Does plastic bag recycling take into account bags that prevent the dead from decomposing in the open air? Hey!! the eco-lovers?!!! shouldn’t we make recyclable plastic body bags?because in some countries, there are more people in these kinds of bags than there are leaving the supermarkets!!!!!!!!! then what???!!!!!! We’re waiting for you… the worst thing is not to see… but it’s still not cool…”
“It’s nice to invite me to play all the FB applications, you see, I’m in the heart of Bangui, making tents and latrines in a hospital in the middle of shots and explosions, among other friends around me and with whom I work, among dozens or even more injured…. overflown by fighter planes and helicopters in low clods, so play multiplayer belotte or some other bullshit… not too much… but it’s nice anyway…”
“the night is quiet in Bangui, even if a machete makes no noise, a full moon for a moment, at least there will be light in the camps”
Christmas 2013 in RCA
Dear Santa Claus, I haven’t been very wise this year but I did my homework, if you have time, I would like to send you my gift list for your visit:
- 110,000 tarpaulins to cover children and mothers from the sun and African night cold -15,000 plastic slabs to make emergency latrines -50,000 blankets -50,000 20-litre jerrycans -15,000 rafters -5 trucks of 23 tonnes – 4 cars -250,000 soaps -1,000 kg of nails -100 hammers -50 wood saws -100 minebars -100 minebars -1,000 courageous people -30 tons of rice -5,000 litres of oil -60 water tanks of 5000 litres with pipes -1,000 kg of chlorine – and a little courage if you have some in stock too…
- and then if you can prevent children from taking axes, bows or old rifles to provoke and fight against Kalashnikovs or rocket launchers, if you can prevent men from separating into religions, ethnic groups or countries, but that they appropriate the earth as their only homeland… if you can give a smile against each weapon, a hand extended against each weapon…
- if you can make people’s eyes extend to the universe and not to their own personal happiness, so that they understand that personal happiness is common happiness, and that the only thing to accomplish in life is to know how to say thank you… I know you have yield statistics to provide to coca cola, in any case, if you come to us, be careful, guys with beards that distribute stuff get their trucks burned…
- “a black Santa Claus? God is black, Santa Claus, he’s normal “fox”
gives me the strength to change what I can change, the serenity to accept what I cannot change, and the wisdom to make a difference… - why should we wait to die to understand that the world is beautiful?
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