The First Casualty

40

Moussa was probably the richest twelve-year-old in Sikoro-Sourakabougou. This morning, he had left the single-room mud hut he shared with his mother, grandmother, and three siblings to beg, take odd jobs, steal, or do whatever he could for a few West African CFA francs. Like all the others in the slum, the house had no running water, sanitary facilities, electricity, or garbage removal. In fact, there was no reliable source of water within a mile or so, only a well that gave out during the dry season and carried evil vapors during the wet, vapors that caused over half the children to never reach half Moussa’s age.

Had there been a school, he certainly would have attended. But there was none, so Moussa spent his days on the streets of Bamako.

That was where he had met the Arab.

Arabs were relatively rare here, and even more rare were Arabs that spoke Bambara, Mali’s largest dialect. Those that did venture this far south usually prowled the streets for young boys. Moussa had had an experience with such an Arab, a very painful one, even if it had actually put the equivalent of five euros in his pocket. But the shame was worse than the pain, a shame only slightly mollified by his mother’s joy at such a princely sum of cash.

She did not ask where he got it.

But this Arab was not looking for young boys, at least not in the sense Moussa feared. Instead he was offering untold riches in exchange for a simple task: Stand on the King Fahd Bridge and watch the river for four men. One black, two white, and one dark-skinned. They would be together and would load objects into some sort of rivercraft, most likely a pinasse. Moussa was to watch them and then call a number on the cell phone the Arab gave him.

Then he could keep the phone plus the hundred West African CFA francs the Arab shoved into his hand.

That was all. No pain, no humiliation.

Allah was indeed great.