Farming Life Starting in Africa

The person with the red headscarf tumbled and crawled down the slope, waving behind him as he ran and shouting something in gibberish. The person behind him put away his gun and also emerged from behind the bushes.

Rosen then realized that the person behind him was missing an arm.

The left arm disappeared from the elbow down, the sleeve tied in a knot, dangling empty.

He used his remaining right hand to carry the AK, swaying as he followed behind the man in the red headscarf. He walked to the tree trunk, tossed the gun behind his back, secured it with the sling, bent down, and began to pry at the log with one hand. The two of them, lifting and pulling, slowly moved the tree trunk towards the roadside.

Rosen didn't get out of the car the entire time. He sat in the driver's seat, his eyes scanning back and forth between the slope, the bushes, and the two men carrying logs, occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror for any unusual directions.

About three or four minutes later, the road was cleared. The tree trunk was moved to the side of the road and leaned against the embankment.

Rosen honked the horn twice—"Beep—beep—"

He shifted into Drive, released the brake, and the pickup truck slowly rolled forward. As he passed the two men, he glanced at them. The man in the red headscarf kept his head down, avoiding his gaze. The one missing an arm, however, looked up, grinned, and revealed a few yellowed, almost blackened teeth.

Rosen ignored them, stepped on the gas, and the pickup truck shot off with a "whoosh".

After he passed the slope, the view was flat and there was nothing unusual. Only then did he use his walkie-talkie to tell the car behind him to follow. In the rearview mirror, the two figures slowly shrank into two black dots, and were finally swallowed up by the dust.

The convoy passed through the narrow road without incident, the gravel on both sides of the roadbed crackling under the tires. After driving for about fifteen minutes, scattered mud-brick houses began to appear in the distance.

Some walls were still covered with cow dung, which, after drying, looked like cement, in patches of grayish-white.

Uller has arrived.

This place isn't small, but it only has four main streets arranged in a grid pattern, which can barely be considered as running north to south.

To the southwest, there was a large area of ​​shacks, crammed together crookedly, like a pile of moldy building blocks. That was where refugees lived, poor people who had fled from various war zones all gathered there.

Several white SUVs with the words "China Aid" printed on them were parked by the roadside, their roofs covered with a thick layer of dust. Next to them were several blue tents with sandbags weighed down on the corners of the tents, making a rustling sound in the wind.

The northern side is much more bustling. The road is paved with asphalt, and there are proper brick buildings on both sides with signs in Arabic and English, and occasionally a few in Chinese. Small shops, teahouses, mobile phone shops, and car repair shops are lined up one after another.

There's a gas station at the intersection, but two of its four pumps are always broken, and there are always several cars lined up in front of the remaining two.

A little further north is the government army's garrison, where two companies take turns guarding it. Pickups with machine guns are parked at the entrance, and black soldiers in camouflage uniforms stroll along the roadside, smoking cigarettes.

Lawson parked his car in front of the Qianbida Supermarket and looked at the sign above the door. Every time Lawson saw this name, he was speechless. How could anyone name their hobby?

Several cases of soda and bags of rice were piled up at the entrance. Inside the window frame reinforced with thick steel bars, handwritten price tags were pasted on the glass, the writing faded by the sun.

Several workers in the store came out and started unloading the goods. Before they finished, Rosen took the old gun bag from the passenger seat.

"Uncle, I'm leaving now." He called out to Qian Bida and tossed him the Bigfoot car keys.

Qian Bida caught the key that was thrown at him, stood on the steps and continued to direct the workers to move things, not caring about anything, and just waved to him.

Rosen's garbage station is located directly east of Uller, in a large yard covering two acres, surrounded by a wall more than four meters high.

Several signs stand outside the wall, written in multiple languages, stating that there are landmines within 100 meters and that people should not approach from outside the gate.

Numerous surveillance cameras have been installed atop the wall, and infrared alarm devices are scattered throughout the interior. The main purpose is to educate others against taking shortcuts; no one can easily enter except through the main gate.

The main gate isn't much safer either; there's a single-person operated ZU-23 twin anti-aircraft gun right inside, pointing directly at the gate.

This perfectly illustrates just how severe Rosen's paranoia was.

The entire wall was constructed of high-strength concrete, reinforced with extra-large and thick steel bars. Only a layer of hardened mud covered the surface, and broken glass was stuck on top to prevent it from looking too exaggerated. Exposed to sun and rain, a few unidentified weeds grew on top of the wall, swaying in the wind.

In the middle of the wall is a small two-story building, also made of high-grade concrete, but painted with a layer of white lime, which makes it quite conspicuous among the gray buildings in Uller.

The scene in the courtyard was quite spectacular; the open space between the small building's courtyard wall and the surrounding wall was piled high with scrapped cars and scrap metal.

There were truck chassis, car shells, vans reduced to mere skeletons, and piles of engines, gearboxes, tires, steel plates... all haphazardly stacked together like small mountains. Under the sun, the air was thick with the metallic smell of rust.

This area is Rosen's kingdom.

Pushing open the gate to the courtyard, a cool breeze, typical of thick-walled adobe houses, wafted out. Behind the gate was a very wide corridor, which turned sharply at the end, opening up into the main hall of the small building.

On the west side of the main hall, there was only a huge makeshift shed, inside which was parked an oversized black Hummer and a six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle resembling a cat car. Further back, everything was covered with white tarpaulins, but judging from the outline of the tarpaulins, there should be at least one huge, valuable item.

Pushing open the door to the main hall, I saw that the air conditioning was on inside. A black man was lying on a recliner by the door, his head tilted to one side, drool dripping smoothly from his slightly open mouth onto his collar, and he was snoring like a bellows.

It's Patrick, this guy is Rosen's employee.

Rosen glanced at the clock on the wall; it was already 3:30 PM. This guy had apparently slept for quite a while. He didn't seem to care; this was his territory, and it had been a long time since any foolish person had dared to cause trouble.

However, Rosen didn't hold back. He walked to the deck chair, put the gun bag on Patrick, and the 30 kilograms of weight landed squarely on Patrick's stomach.

"Ugh—cough cough cough—"

Patrick suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils wide like copper bells, his hands flailing wildly in the air, his mouth agape, like a fish being pulled from the water.

The gun pouch on his stomach was still sliding down. He instinctively reached out to catch it, but he missed and the gun pouch fell to the ground with a "thud".

After a flurry of activity, Patrick finally saw who was standing in front of him. His expression changed from fear to relaxation, and then to grievance.

"Boss...boss..." he scrambled up from the recliner and said in heavily accented Arabic English, "I've skewered all the meat!"

Rosen nodded, bent down, picked up the gun bag from the ground, and handed it to Patrick.

"Put the stuff in the gun room." He said as he walked to the refrigerator, opened the door, and the light in the freezer flickered on, illuminating a row of neatly arranged beverage bottles. "Light the charcoal later when it gets dark."