Anywhere But Here
Anywhere But Here
Container ships are ugly things. The ships are piled high with containers, huge metal boxes carrying anything from furniture to washing machines to computers.
Containers are not designed to transport humans, and no one would choose to make a long sea voyage inside a container - unless they were desperate…
Two months ago in a flat in the centre of town, I met Calestas for the first time. He was a third year engineering student from the University of Benin. We found we had similar tastes in music, films, and women. Another thing we had in common was that he had just been refused a Schengen visa for the third time, so he had no chance of visiting any of the fifteen countries in Europe that recognize this visa. And my name had failed to appear in the last four green card lotteries, which meant I couldn’t get permission to go and live in the United States.
We talked about all this and decided that ‘Nigeria no be am’ - there was no future for us in Nigeria, none at all.
Ade was a man who worked at the docks - his job was to check workers in and out of the docks when ships were being loaded. He greeted Calestas like an old friend, and they went off to have a private discussion. Then Calestas pushed some money into my hand, and ordered me to go and buy as much bread and tinned fish as I could.
There was another man, called Kazim, who got involved. I never really knew what part he was supposed to play in the plan, because after the accident he was never mentioned again. So there were the four of us.
Ade arranged everything. One night we met him at the docks, and ended up hiding in a fourteen-foot container, which was half full of boxes of office equipment. It was loaded on to a big container ship sailing to Calais in France - at least, that’s where we thought we were going.
Ade’s information was that we were on our way to France, with no stops, and we would spend about eleven days at sea. But by the fifth day, we had no food left and our drinking water was dangerously low. We managed to cut an opening at one end of the container, but the hole was only large enough for a child or a small man to get through. Luckily, Kazim was quite small, so we sent him out.
We soon depended completely on him for our food. He was like an animal bringing back food to its young, pushing his thin body in and out through the opening. The first night he came back with some tins of vegetables, but then he started to stay out longer and longer. More than once he returned empty-handed, telling us that all the cupboards were locked up and he couldn’t find any food.
Calestas and Ade were beginning to suspect that something was wrong. One night, after Kazim had left, they sat by the hole and managed to widen it a little more, until with great difficulty we were able to get through. Once we were out in the open, Ade discovered about thirty empty tins which had contained fish and vegetables, hidden under an old coat near our container. Kazim, for whatever reason, had been lying to us.
We waited silently in the shadows for his return. When he appeared, we chased him round the containers, which were piled dangerously on top of each other, and finally trapped him in a corner. He knew we would beat him if we caught him, but the stupid man thought he could escape by jumping on top of one of the largest containers. In his fear and excitement, he slipped, and disappeared over the side of the ship into the sea.
We heard shouts and running feet. I suppose someone saw him fall or heard him hit the water. But there was no sign of his body in the sea.
There and then we made a promise to tell the truth. Illegal immigration is one thing, killing someone is another.
The three of us had our hands tied and we were locked up in a room together. The ship’s officers couldn’t agree what to do with us.
We were at sea for two more days and then, when the ship arrived at Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, they hurried us off the ship. It was bitterly cold in Rotterdam.
We were handed over to the immigration officer, who was the only person we met who spoke English. We were kept there for four days at an immigration centre, then we were taken to the train station by the police and sent to Amsterdam. There we were put on a plane at the airport. Five and a half hours later we landed at Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos.
Calestas is back at university. Ade later got a job as a driver for a company in Lagos. And me? Well, I watch the ships come in, down at the docks. I’d rather be anywhere but here.