As you might be able to tell, I've survived my encounter with the border patrols. General checks, more money changing hands. Luckily dollars are worth quite a bit around here. I've stopped worrying about funding international crime, and at least I know faces and names for when I get back to my feet. Which may never happen, particularly when one glances at the number of people exposed to the MONSTER and survive for more than a couple of years.
We've been staying here for about a week, and already there are signs coming in through the edges that Africa isn't as free of the MONSTER as I'd wished. Mostly it's in the people, in the way they tell stories, the way they glance out of the corners of their eyes and in how they constantly look at the shadows. The way they warn you about the woods. I wonder how many thrill seeking tourists have wandered into the woods looking for a tiger and ended up finding a darker fate. Not that being eaten by a tiger isn't a dark fate.
Sorry about Simone's last post. She's not the most eloquent of translators. I guess I'm stuck with her. Bless. I don't think being shot did anything for her character, either. Also, well, she hates it here. I dunno what to do. I was never any good with girls. Or guys. Or people who aren't so embroiled in the legal process that they lose all humanity. First lawyer joke's out of the way, then.
Anyway, to business. We've been asking around about papers that I wish to have in my possession, mostly financial reports. This village is small by my standards, though I did live in New York so I may have a distorted perception of scale. It's a little over two thousand people, but it seems like less. There's a school set up, a relatively good market place, and a black market for illicit trading and information gathering. I've been incapable of finding too much about that. I have, however, come across some rather interesting facts about the aid agency stationed here. Mostly about the size of the donations they give to the local and state governments.
So I'm going to visit the aid organization's headquarters, this Dande group, tomorrow, and see if there's anything odd going on. I'll probably update soonish. Sooner than usual, in any case.
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