We pulled our dresses over our swimsuits and picked up the remains of the picnic. Tricia and Peggy hurried across the beach.
I paused and turned for one last look. The town glistened in the late afternoon sun like a bowl of ripe fruit.
“
Adieu,
Gorée.” I sighed.
Sunburned and covered with a thin layer of salt and sand, I slipped my feet into my sandals and followed Tricia and Peggy toward the dock and the ferry ride back to Dakar.
Chapter 17
The Streets of Dakar
April/Jumada-al-Akhira
I stood on the curb, Tricia and Peggy behind me. Cars, trucks, and motorbikes raced past, honking their horns in the universal language of big cities. For three days, we had shopped the European-style stores, explored the markets and crowded backstreets, and dined on buttery
escargots
,
crevettes
, and
langoust
in the French restaurants of Senegal’s capital city, Dakar.
I stepped off the sidewalk. In a rush of honking and exhaust, I was jerked back out of the path of a taxi that sped by, inches from my face.
“
Attention!
” The driver called with the hand signal of an upturned palm that said, “Idiot!” in every tongue.
Time stopped. My life had nearly ended, just then, in an instant. Someone still grasped the back of my T-shirt. I turned to find Tricia, pale and round-eyed, holding onto my shirt with a white knuckled fist.
Checking both directions, we crossed the street to a city park and sat on a bench perched a few yards in from a high cliff that overlooked the ocean. I took in gulps of air, trying to steady the trembling in my knees. The grass and bench quivered bright green and red in a sheen of heightened reality. Near the bench, a striped spider hung in the center of a web spun between two branches. How could you chase away death when you didn’t even see it coming?
Tricia sat beside me, still pale beneath her tanned cheeks. “You were almost killed back there.”
I nodded.
“I have a terrible feeling I’ll never see you again.” In a few hours, Tricia would be on a plane, heading home to the States. She faced out to sea where the sun, settling closer to the horizon, expanded into a huge orange ball.
“You felt that way the last time we said good-bye. We’ll see each other again.”
A breeze dried the sweat on my face as the sun painted Tricia’s skin a soft orange. A tear dribbled down the side of her nose and off her chin.
Peggy sat on the other side of Tricia. She, too, faced the ocean that spread before us wider than I could stretch my arms. From our high perch, the vista was so broad, the horizon seemed to arc slightly, tilting down at each end as the earth rounded beyond our sight.
“I went to Lily’s funeral,” Peggy said. “Just before I came here. Everybody from our group was there except the few of you who were overseas. Her parents talked about all the wonderful things she had done in her life. All her travels, everything she had strived for.”
The wind from off the ocean pushed against the spider’s web. The silken threads dipped with the branches and rippled in the air but held fast.
“I’ll never forget her,” I said.
“When I die, I don’t want a funeral.” Tricia still stared out to sea. “I don’t want people to be sad, I want them to celebrate my life.”
Peggy and I nodded.
“Let’s make a pact.” Tricia put out her hand, palm down. “Whoever dies first, the other will make sure there’s a celebration instead of a funeral.”
“It’s a deal.” Peggy and I piled our hands on top of Tricia’s.
The sun sank into the sea, a great molten ball of wavering colors. We sat in our own quiet for a long time with the noise of Dakar at our backs.
“So, when do you think you’ll come home?” Tricia finally asked.
I took a big breath, held it for a few seconds, then blew it out. “I don’t know.”
Out on the ocean, the sky shed pink light over the water’s surface, hiding the depths below.
“Sometimes I get the strangest feeling that up until I came to Africa, my whole life was”—I shook my head—“some kind of TV show. And now its finally real.”
Peggy nodded. “And you’re afraid when you go home, you’ll fall back into that black box.”
I rolled my shoulders, remembering the Christmas night Philip tried to shake me into awareness.
“I just need to be here, now.” I turned to Tricia. “Until I find something. Until I figure it out.”
“Like Unanana-Bosele,” Peggy said, still looking out to sea.
I turned to her. “
Ubungqotsho
.”
Peggy’s eyes shone and she nodded. “
Ubungqotsho
.”
We smiled at each other.
“Do you want to let me in on this?” Tricia put her fists on her hips.
“It’s a myth,” Peggy said. “About a woman swallowed by an elephant.”
As the clouds caught fire, Peggy told the story of the woman who built her house in the middle of the road. About a great elephant with one tusk who swallowed Unanana-Bosele and her children. About what happened inside the elephant, and how she and her children returned.
“Anything a person does to gain self-confidence, power, strength, or passion, ‘all of this is
ubungqotsho
,’” I said, remembering my house that was so close to the road in Foequellie, one could have said it was almost in the middle.
The strength of Wagadu comes from the north, the south, the east, and west and endures no matter whether she be built of stone, wood, and earth, or lives but as a shadow in the mind and longing of her children.
We sat a long time, staring out to sea until the colors faded to dusk, and Venus shone sharp and clear in the western sky.
“Pan Am Flight 347 to New York is now boarding at gate three,” a generic woman’s voice announced in French and English.
I stood at the airline gate, holding Tricia’s hand.
“I guess I’m ready to go back.” Tears pooled in her eyes.
“You’ve relaxed a lot on this trip, Trish. I hope you take it home with you.”
She smiled and nodded. A mix of people thronged the airport—white, black, and brown, some dressed in western suits and dresses, others in
boubous
and embroidered caps.
“Why is it I’m the one leaving, yet I feel like the one being left behind, again?” Tricia sighed.
“Give Bob a big kiss for me.”
“So, what am I’m supposed to tell Mom and Dad?”
I lifted my shoulders. “Tell them I’ve been swallowed by an elephant.”
She shook her head at me.
The loudspeaker announced the final boarding.
“You be careful, take care of yourself,” Tricia said, tears rolling down both cheeks.
We embraced.
She picked up her leather bag and walked through the departure door. Turning briefly, she mouthed “I love you.” We smiled at each other, and she disappeared down the long corridor that led to the plane. For an instant, I saw Lily wave her last goodbye in the Paris airport.
I stood for a few minutes, then turned toward the exit doors. Tricia had been with me for six weeks. Now she was gone. My feet were suddenly light, as if I were walking a few inches off the ground. I passed the
Air Afrique
gates and saw the flight I would take in just over twenty-four hours: Dakar to Ouagadougou. Back to Dori and to work, back to Laya, Gray, Hamidou, Fati, Adiza, and all the other members of my Sahel family. That would be good.
I walked out into the warm evening that bustled with the energy of Dakar and hailed a taxi.
When Unanana-Bosele reached the elephant’s stomach, she saw large forests and great rivers and many high lands. There were rocks and people who had built their villages. She saw many dogs and cattle. All of these things were there inside the elephant. She found her children and rejoiced. Unanana-Bosele and her children stayed in the belly of the elephant for many days.
Part II
Inside the Elephant
Chapter 18
Abundance
May/Rajab
We sat in our usual places around the conference room table. At the head, Djelal, dressed in a short-sleeved leisure suit, prepared to start the meeting by ruffling through some papers. To his left, Adiza fiddled with the cornrows of her newest hairdo. Jack winked at me from across the table, his new ag assistant Nouhoun next to him. Nouhoun’s eyelids closed and his head nodded. Fati giggled and nudged him awake. We were waiting for Luanne. Next to her empty chair, Nassuru sat, chin in hand. I finished up the circle on Djelal’s right, facing the double doors that opened to the courtyard.
Outside in the afternoon sun, Hamidou tinkered with the truck engine, the top half of his body blocked from sight by the open hood. Luanne hurried across the courtyard. In her haste, the material of her blouse molded over the hillock of her abdomen. Luanne was four months pregnant by her boyfriend, John. Her face flushed, she came into the conference room, laughed her apologies for being late, and sat between Fati and Nassuru. She had on a new outfit with puff sleeves and folds of extra material in front.
Fati and Adiza were also dressed in maternity outfits. All three happily pregnant. Fati was nearly seven months, Adiza not yet showing. And Amina, the secretary, had just had a baby. Either God had decided it was time for everyone in the office to procreate, or there was something in the water. Not that I was in any danger of getting pregnant, but I was considering boiling my drinking water a few extra minutes every day; just in case.
Fati touched Luanne’s sleeve, clicking her tongue in approval over the new print. Maternity clothes in bright batiks were suddenly the rage around the office. Still donning my worn dresses from last year, I was definitely passé when it came to fashion. Though I did feel somewhat left out, I was glad there was no need for me to be ordering new clothes. I mean, yeah, I wanted a baby at some point. But the Catholic/Mormon in me thought it might be a good idea to get married first.
A cross breeze blew from the windows through the doors and cooled the sweat on my face. Ribbons of bright blue sky colored the spaces between the window slats.
To the delight of everyone, the first rains had come right after my return from Senegal, breaking the worst of April’s heat. But early rains had meant a rush to get the seeds loaned out for this year’s garden projects when we had yet to evaluate last year’s results. Slow April had turned into time-accelerated May. I had only ten months left on my contract, ten months to complete what I had started. Fired by a sense of urgency, I had spent the first few weeks after my return racing around the office, blathering that there was too little time!
Hamidou’s shoulders and head appeared from underneath the hood. He took a piece of cloth from his back pocket, wiped his brow, then shook his head at the engine. Weeks before, he had shaken his head at my panic over the projects, saying, “Suzanne! Work that can be finished in one day is not real work.”
In his gentle way, Hamidou had reminded me what I already knew but couldn’t seem to remember in the rush of day-to-day activities. Good projects that achieved lasting results could not be done in a day, a week, or even a year. Working with communities to improve health care, agriculture, and income generation was a process that would take generations. I was part of one tiny step in a journey of a thousand, a little drop in a great big bucket. After the initial seed loans, we had taken Hamidou’s good advice and spent all of May evaluating last year’s projects.
Hamidou unhooked the bar that held up the hood and let the hood fall closed with a
bang
. Nouhoun jumped awake, and Fati covered her mouth with a dainty hand. Djelal still searched through his papers. Adiza yawned and Luanne doodled spirals around the edges of her notebook.
Only ten months left. Panic jumped on my stomach like a kid on a trampoline. My problem was I looked at time as a straight line stretching into a limited future. Hamidou saw life as circular—the way most wise people did. How foolish to say there was too little time when time was an infinite spiral. I sighed. It was the short line of my life that was going by too fast.
Outside, Hamidou got into the truck and started up the engine. The truck moved past the frame of the doorway, leaving behind a picture of a neem tree and two windows with green shutters.
Djelal cleared his throat and the meeting started.
The first stage of the stove project was complete. We had introduced three stove models in nine villages. Village women were testing the models and making suggestions for improvement. Construction, preparing weaning foods to demonstrate the stoves, and discussions of desertification had all gone well. However, in many cases, the women had stopped using the stoves after a few tries for various reasons. Old habits were proving hard to break.
The blanket weavers had begun reimbursing thread loans but were not left with enough profit to buy their own thread for next year. We would have to loan thread again when cold season arrived. And what would happen to the artisan center if FDC were to leave? The women’s cotton project had failed. They had weaved the cotton into thread, but traded the thread for cloth and utensils instead of weaving it into blankets as planned. Since they did not sell any blankets for a profit, they could not reimburse the loans.
Our late night meetings with the villagers had uncovered the fact that the village central committees formed in the first years of FDC had fallen into disuse. No one in the village was responsible for collecting reimbursements. In short, credit and loan structures did not exist outside of the FDC office. The villagers still clung to the idea that a loan was a
cadeau
. If FDC ceased to exist, so would the projects.
The breeze had died away and the room turned hot. Nouhoun’s eyelids fell to half-mast, Fati looked dazed, and Nassuru half-dozed, chin in hand.
“It’s just not working.” I slapped both palms onto the tabletop, and everyone jerked up with straightened backs. “Why?”