Kira Salak - Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea

I ts not true about time healing the wounds left by certain memories; it only dulls them, takes some of the sting away. Dreams are when I realize how thoroughly my mind has grown around a memory, claiming it, absorbing it the way a tree will enfold a bullet shot into it.

Last night I dreamed about Mozambique. My dreams always start out as repeats of the actual memories until the end comes, and I become truly superhuman. I can suddenly jump over peoples heads, soar up into the sky, and land in four different places at once. No one ever catches me in my dreams. I always get away. No one puts their gummy hands on me.

Then I wake up, my mind lingering in the past. Its July 1992 again. Im in south central Africa, in Malawi, trying to hitch a ride to Tete, Mozambique, along a road appropriately named the Bone Yard Stretch. Blantyre, Malawi. Dr. Banda keeps me company. Everywhere I look, a picture of him flutters in the wind. On every street lamp, on every overpass, Dr. Banda. Dr. Banda. His scathing eyes, the incongruously friendly expression. A formidable man. Except for him, the streets are completely deserted. Only my footsteps give voice to the silence.

Im 20 years old and my age feels comical. What do I know about anything? And more to the point: What is this place that Ive reached now? Two summers working in a factory packaging croutons to get myself dumped off here, in yet another dark, dusty African town. Nowhere to sleep.

The towns endlessly coming before me. My feet, as usual, keeping me in motion so I wont panic and stop moving. Stopping is when I question the sanity of it all, and tonight more than any other night, I must keep going. I head resolutely out of town, my backpack heavy, the sweat like oil upon me. Dr. Banda smiles benignly as I approach another of the distant street lamps. I tell the Malawian president that I know about him. So many Malawians have come up to me and secretly told me about their sons or daughters disappearing in the night. Im American, and so they think there is something I can do. I havent had the guts to tell them otherwise. I have all these peoples namespeople probably dead nowand I dont know

what to do with them. From the banners, Dr. Bandas face snickers.

Around me is the Malawi most visitors dont hear about. If there are visitors, they can usually be found in the old resort town of Monkey Bay on Lake Malawi, though Malawi isnt the tourist destination it used to be. The large country of Mozambique with its civil war is an inconvenience for overland tour buses from South Africa and Zimbabwe. Now theres no safe way to get to Malawi except by air or through Zambia, and all I ever hear about is what a corrupt, exhausting pain in the ass Zambia is, all of ones money going for customs officials bribes.

I spent a few days in Monkey Bay with some South African tourists. It was from them that I first learned of the insanity of Mozambique, woeful Malawi sounding like an Eden by comparison. Think of the worst thing one human being can do to another, I was told, and youll find it in Mozambique. Worse than anything Dante could have thought up and all of it honest-to-God reality. Babies used for target practice. Little girls kidnapped and made into sex slaves. Torture. Mutilation. Killing sprees. The army, on both sides, composed mostly of adolescents conscripted into one side or the other after their families were butchered. You name it.

And I was only 20, I reminded myself. I was nearly as old as Mozambiques war. The entire situation there had sounded nearly inconceivable.

The South Africans said they hadnt wanted to get near Mozambique and had flown into Malawi. When I told them I was interested in crossing through the country to Zimbabwe, that Id heard it was possible to do so along the Tete Corridora single road used by convoys of trucks transporting goods from the east of Africa to the souththey shook their heads: not possible. That route was too dangerous now, was always being sabotaged by rebel soldiers. But I had never been more serious in my life. I wanted to try to get across, see that other world.

It was hard for me to understand the idea of a civil war. Id glimpsed such wars on the news, but the images never seemed to gel in my mind as being real , reality. I wanted to see what was actually taking place. And in the process, the crossing would be a sort of test for me. I would see if I had the strength and determination to get through such a place. If I did, then maybe I would have proof that I could do anything, that I could change as a person. Maybe I could believe in myself for the first time. I would just try to avoid getting embroiled in the politics of it all; I would stay as neutral as possible, focusing instead on the crossing itself, on the idea of making such a trip on my own.

I headed to the Malawian capital of Lilongwe to try to get the elusive transit visa to cross Mozambique. The South Africans had said Id never be able to get one, but uncanny luck intervened on my behalf: When hitchhiking in town, I was picked up by a man who claimed to be best friends with the Mozambican ambassador to Malawi. As everything in Africa seemed to depend on who you knew, I received my visa in a miraculous five minutes. Suddenly there was nothing stopping me from crossing the country, except finding someone to take me through.

And so the town of Blantyre now. I search for a truck depot, and the chance of finding someone going across the Tete Corridor. I continue up the highway under Dr. Bandas watchful eye and arrive at a lighted area, which is filled with parked trucks. As I approach from out of the dark, I must look like an apparition. An Indian manager in an office stops talking midsentence. The truck drivers standing near him fall silent. Im profoundly conscious of being the only woman among them, and they struggle to account for me.