The Bang-Bang Club (20 page)

What Joao and Kevin did not know was that the UN was having great difficulties in securing funding for Sudan. An appeal earlier in the year for 190 million dollars had barely raised a quarter of that. The UN hoped to publicize the famine in which hundreds of thousands of southern tribesmen faced starvation. Without publicity to show the need, it was difficult for aid organizations to sustain funding. There is nothing like a disaster to boost an aid agency’s profile, and they needed to have the media cover the existence of the emergency. There are those who insist the war in Sudan would have ended decades ago if food and other aid had not been allowed to sustain the fighters; that the aid agencies and their food were manipulated, used by both government and rebels as a weapon of blackmail against the civilians in their areas of control, but Joao and Kevin knew none of this - they just wanted to get in and shoot pictures.

Kevin flew off to Juba while Joao sat brooding in the depressing hotel room. It was still daylight when Kevin returned. The trip had been a waste of time, he told Joao. They had landed, been taken to a pier on the While Nile, shown a barge with food being unloaded, suffered through a press briefing - and that was it. Despite the barge having had to travel for two months up the great river, during which it had been raided for over half of its cargo by famine-stricken people on the way, the only half-way interesting pictures Kevin found were of children scrambling for some grain that had spilled on to the dock. Kevin tried to alleviate Joao’s sour mood by showing him the negatives to prove just how useless the trip had been. Though Joao realized he had missed nothing, the knowledge did not make him feel any better. Joao was given to omens and they were looking pretty bad at that moment.

They decided to give it two more days and if nothing changed, they would head home. But then they received the news they had been waiting for: one of the rebel factions had given permission for the UN to fly in. In addition to the cargo plane carrying the food, Rob was going in on a light plane to assess the situation on the ground. Joao and Kevin were welcome to join him, but there was no guarantee as to when they could be picked up again. The following afternoon they were in the air, once again buoyant at the change in their fortunes. Three hours later, they landed just inside Kenya’s northern border, at the settlement of Lokichokio, just a few hundred metres from Sudan. Lokichokio was a tent-city, an UN forward-base for the big Hercules cargo aircraft that flew food and medical supplies into the famine areas.

Kevin and Joao were allocated a tent, then they had dinner out in the open, under a crystalline African sky. Dinner was good and the beer was cold, and they hoped to have more under the seamless canopy of stars, but the bar closed soon after ten. Back in their tent they could not sleep - too much excitement, too many thoughts of what might happen to them tomorrow.

‘What do you think is waiting for us there?’ Kevin asked, his voice loud in the dark silence that had settled on the camp. Joao could see Kevin’s profile, lit by the glowing tip of his cigarette.

‘Flies and hungry people, from what I’ve heard,’ Joao replied.

Their conversation skipped from topic after topic, but unlike all other similar conversations Joao had persevered through with Kevin, this time it was all positive. No self-indulgence, no self-pity. The future looked bright: Kevin was confident that the trip would be successful, that he would be able to cover his costs and make some money. This new girl, Kathy, was going to be just right for him. But mostly they spoke about South Africa, their work, the violence and where the country was heading in the coming years and the upcoming vote. The first elections that all South Africans could finally take part in were just 13 months away.

The conversation came around to Kevin’s tattoo. He had a
misshapen map of Africa drawn on his right shoulder, clearly the work of an amateur. Joao told him he had seen better tattoos on convicts. Joao also had a tattoo on his right upper arm showing a winged angel, with the motto ACCEPT NO LIMITS on unfurled scrolls. It was also less than fantastically well drawn, but it was a work of art compared to Kevin’s.

After a lengthy discussion of tattoos, they decided Kevin’s should be re-done, reshaped so that the continent would look like the real thing, all in black, but with a single red tear coming out of South Africa and spilling on to his arm. The tear would somehow signify Kevin’s own pain as well as the pain of those whom he had photographed. They laughed that it would at least look better than his current tattoo. The pilot, who was trying to sleep in the adjoining tent, pleaded with them to keep quiet. They lowered their voices, noticing that dawn was not far off - they could hear the sounds of workers preparing breakfast.

Two hours later, their plane touched down in the tiny southern Sudanese hamlet of Ayod. It taxied to a halt at the end of the dirt airstrip and the pilot turned the plane in to position for a quick take-off, should it prove necessary. Half-way through the turn the front of the little plane lurched to an abrupt halt. They climbed out and saw that the front wheel had sunk into thick sand and the plane was stuck. It was nothing serious, the plane was undamaged, and they had started to push it out of the beach-like sand when they saw the massive cargo plane approaching. The cargo plane was making its approach for descent. Fortunately, dozens of Sudanese had come to greet the plane, the sound of aircraft meant food, and they quickly helped to wheel the little plane off the runway, averting what could have become a complicated situation.

As the cargo plane landed, its giant propellers raised a storm of sand and pebbles. The Sudanese crouched low alongside the runway, braving the hot, stinging blasts to be nearer the food. There is never enough food in these circumstances to feed everyone and the hungry villagers rushed the plane to try to ensure that they got their share of nutritious biscuits and maize meal. Those too weak to get to the runway
had to rely on the aid workers for food. Some 200 metres from the runway, a low brick building from which the food aid was distributed stood out among the surrounding conical huts made of long thatching grass. That was Ayod. The first food consignment after months without aid attracted a pushing crowd of hungry Sudanese. They wore patched rags or walked around naked. Mothers who had joined the throng waiting for food left their children on the sandy ground nearby. The small food aid building also served as a clinic and was full of ill and starving people. There were those who needed special care if they were to survive, and others that could only be comforted before they died. Kevin and Joao separated. There were pictures everywhere. Once in a while, Kevin would seek out Joao to tell him about something shocking he had just photographed. In one of those foul-smelling rooms, Joao saw a skinny child lying spread-eagled on the dirt floor. It was dark and he struggled with the light, trying to get a frame. Kevin joined him and went down on to his knees to shoot the picture; he then looked up at Joao, wide-eyed. Despite all the happy anticipation of the night before, all the excitement had disappeared now that he was witnessing the effects of the war-induced famine.

Joao left the room. He wanted to find rebel soldiers who could take him to someone in authority. Their plane would take off in an hour and they needed to secure rebel permission to stay on. Joao found a group of fighters. They were dressed in rags, the only indication that they were indeed soldiers were the AK-47 assault rifles hanging limply from their shoulders. Kevin joined Joao and they tried talking to a rebel with deep traditional scars etched vertically on his cheeks, but the fighter spoke no English and communication rapidly broke down. They kept frozen grins on their faces as they tried to mime their way through the conversation. The only thing that was apparent was that the rebel had developed an interest in Kevin’s wristwatch. Somehow, Kevin gave the rebel his watch. Joao was surprised, but understood Kevin to be giving the soldier the cheap watch in an effort to ease his conscience about all those hungry people he could not help - or to secure goodwill to help them get across to the fighting.

They separated again. Joao photographed a half-naked man walking past him, completely oblivious to the white stranger. He went back inside the clinic complex, where he was told that permission to stay had to be obtained from the rebel commander, Riek Mashar, who could most probably be found at Kongor. This was good news; their little UN plane was heading there next.

Joao left the cool of the clinic and returned to the harsh sun and headed in the general direction of the runway, to where he had last seen Kevin. He came across a child lying on its face under the hot sun - he took a picture. Joao assumed the child had been left there by its mother while she went for food. He moved on to where he could see a man on all fours, digging at the arid soil with a hand tool of some sort, trying to plant seeds in the desiccated ground, hoping that the rains would ultimately arrive. Kevin had seen Joao and was coming towards him, moving fast, frantic. ‘Man,’ he put one hand on Joao’s shoulder, the other covered his eyes. ‘You won’t believe what I’ve just shot!’ He was wiping his eyes, but there were no tears, it was as if he was trying to obliterate the memory of what he had photographed, of what was burnt on to his retina.