another, sometimes betting money. The older people were seated in the yard. Pa Kainesi, who didn’t know about what had transpired between the principal and the two teachers, greeted him.
“Principal, welcome, sir. It is a good thing that you are doing for all the children in this area. Please make sure they don’t close our school.”
“Thank you, Father, it is great to get my small work acknowledged by such wise elders as yourselves. I will continue to work hard for our children.” He pointed toward the veranda and made a show of his support for what Benjamin and Bockarie were doing. When he was done, he went behind the house to urinate. Benjamin told his students to write a sentence so as to turn their attention to their notebooks. He also made sure that no one was looking when he climbed over the stoop and threw a stone at the motorcycle. Bockarie’s eyes caught him just when the stone was about to leave his fingers. It landed on the petrol tank and the motorcycle fell on the ground, its side dragging in the dust. The principal came running and knew one of the teachers was responsible but couldn’t prove it. He said nothing, just picked up his motorcycle and left. Bockarie eyed Benjamin hard, and he shrugged, indicating the principal deserved it.
The lessons resumed with the voice of a boy reading out loud a line from King Lear , “‘When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.’”
“Again.” Bockarie pointed his ruler at the boy, whose voice the wind carried until the appointed time when nature began its call for the departure of that day’s blue sky.
5
IT WAS A SATURDAY that everyone in Imperi would remember. They were woken by a sound that wasn’t part of the daily call for the arrival of morning. A siren began to wail around 5:00 a.m., and people came outside onto their verandas and into their yards with inquiring and confused faces. They looked at their neighbors for some explanation, but no one knew anything. The women began packing a few things and preparing the children to run away if it came to that. Meanwhile, the men hurriedly dressed and gathered at the compound of the acting chief of the town.
“I do not know what that is, my people,” the old man, who had barely been present as a chief, told the men before they even had a chance to speak. They all stood around listening to the siren that resumed every five minutes. After an hour, they saw dark smoke rising in the distance. Some guessed that it was coming from the place where a mining company had tried to set up before the war. As they whispered among themselves, they heard many vehicles coming toward town. This was unusual, so the men dispersed, running to their homes to get their families and depart. However, they stopped as they soon saw that the vehicles were filled with nervous-looking white men, more nervous than they were. Behind the convoy of about ten vehicles were several trucks filled with machinery, equipment, fridges, and boxes of food. Most of the town’s population came to the main road and watched the convoy go by to the hills beyond town, where the mining company later built one of its staff compounds.
They had come to mine rutile, a black or reddish-brown mineral consisting of titanium dioxide, which forms needlelike crystals in rocks in the earth. Rutile is used as a coating on welding rods; as pigment in paints, plastics, paper, and foods; and in sunscreen to protect against ultraviolet rays. And wherever rutile is found, you also find zircon, ilmenite, bauxite, and, in the case of Lion Mountain, diamonds. Not that the mining companies reveal they are mining all of these minerals. They obtain permits to dig up only one—rutile. So it is rutile alone that is mentioned in the reports it sends out, but the workers come to learn the truth.
Soon after the convoy passed, and people had returned to their homes, still on alert and making sure all their family members were within arm’s
“Principal, welcome, sir. It is a good thing that you are doing for all the children in this area. Please make sure they don’t close our school.”
“Thank you, Father, it is great to get my small work acknowledged by such wise elders as yourselves. I will continue to work hard for our children.” He pointed toward the veranda and made a show of his support for what Benjamin and Bockarie were doing. When he was done, he went behind the house to urinate. Benjamin told his students to write a sentence so as to turn their attention to their notebooks. He also made sure that no one was looking when he climbed over the stoop and threw a stone at the motorcycle. Bockarie’s eyes caught him just when the stone was about to leave his fingers. It landed on the petrol tank and the motorcycle fell on the ground, its side dragging in the dust. The principal came running and knew one of the teachers was responsible but couldn’t prove it. He said nothing, just picked up his motorcycle and left. Bockarie eyed Benjamin hard, and he shrugged, indicating the principal deserved it.
The lessons resumed with the voice of a boy reading out loud a line from King Lear , “‘When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.’”
“Again.” Bockarie pointed his ruler at the boy, whose voice the wind carried until the appointed time when nature began its call for the departure of that day’s blue sky.
5
IT WAS A SATURDAY that everyone in Imperi would remember. They were woken by a sound that wasn’t part of the daily call for the arrival of morning. A siren began to wail around 5:00 a.m., and people came outside onto their verandas and into their yards with inquiring and confused faces. They looked at their neighbors for some explanation, but no one knew anything. The women began packing a few things and preparing the children to run away if it came to that. Meanwhile, the men hurriedly dressed and gathered at the compound of the acting chief of the town.
“I do not know what that is, my people,” the old man, who had barely been present as a chief, told the men before they even had a chance to speak. They all stood around listening to the siren that resumed every five minutes. After an hour, they saw dark smoke rising in the distance. Some guessed that it was coming from the place where a mining company had tried to set up before the war. As they whispered among themselves, they heard many vehicles coming toward town. This was unusual, so the men dispersed, running to their homes to get their families and depart. However, they stopped as they soon saw that the vehicles were filled with nervous-looking white men, more nervous than they were. Behind the convoy of about ten vehicles were several trucks filled with machinery, equipment, fridges, and boxes of food. Most of the town’s population came to the main road and watched the convoy go by to the hills beyond town, where the mining company later built one of its staff compounds.
They had come to mine rutile, a black or reddish-brown mineral consisting of titanium dioxide, which forms needlelike crystals in rocks in the earth. Rutile is used as a coating on welding rods; as pigment in paints, plastics, paper, and foods; and in sunscreen to protect against ultraviolet rays. And wherever rutile is found, you also find zircon, ilmenite, bauxite, and, in the case of Lion Mountain, diamonds. Not that the mining companies reveal they are mining all of these minerals. They obtain permits to dig up only one—rutile. So it is rutile alone that is mentioned in the reports it sends out, but the workers come to learn the truth.
Soon after the convoy passed, and people had returned to their homes, still on alert and making sure all their family members were within arm’s
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