We encountered no border controls and continued on past Ruacana Falls to Xangongo, which was once a prosperous Portuguese town, but now most buildings had no roofs and the town was quiet and overgrown.
Many of the crumbling buildings' white-washed facades were riddled with bullet holes. In some places, the road was not clear and the convoy needed to back track several times. On one such occasion, when the convoy had stopped, we heard faint music to the east.
We followed the sound and found the road lined with people walking to a nearby village, joyously singing hymns. Piet, a rugged and amiable member of the convoy team with Johannesburg registration plates, spoke in Portuguese to one of the passing Africans.
He translated that the Madala wise old man had said, "He reckons his people were emerging by the thousand each day from the jungle, children with stomachs bloated by malnutrition, scrawny mothers dressed in rags and terrified fathers who feared punishment for supporting the defeated rebels. She stepped off the road to allow us to pass and shaded her eyes against the bright sun. She hitched up the weeping child she carried on her bony hip and found a smile for the passing vehicles. Piet told all the drivers before leaving Xangongo that the Madala suggested they do not stop to hand beggars food as thousands would come charging out of the bush looking for similar sustenance.
Regardless of this caution, I could not pass the woman without rendering some aide and rummaged through the cooler box, handing her two sandwich packs. The woman gently placed her child on the gravel road, ripped open the cellophane packaging and then stared at its contents in awe. She had clearly no idea what she held in her hand. The child began to cry and held his arms up to his mother who knelt down and fed him broken off pieces of the bread.
