Chapters 11-15

CHAPTER 11

We found a place to live in the Zone Industrielle area, just south of the Koulikoro Highway, and east of the city center.  The small K-8 American School was an easy fifteen minute walk from our house, so Josh and I made the trip on our own most days.  The school was just a house too, surrounded by a wall, and safeguarded by a gate and a guardian all of its own.

We lived at the end of an alley.  As Josh and I walked down the alleyway to the road, we passed a tree just to the left on the corner, growing out of the dirt next to the wall.  It grew the most peculiar fruit called Zaban.  We would pick the fruit and break them open, finding tightly packed seeds inside.  Each of the seeds was a little bigger than an almond, but covered with orange fibery flesh.  We sucked on each little pebble of the tart, sour fruit.  “Mmmm, it’s like candy,” Josh said.

We stood there eating our Zaban fruit, gazing up and down the dirt street.

“Look, Josh, is that a school?” I pointed just across the street to a blue gate that was closed off from the street.  There was a big gap under the gate, though, and we could see the feet of what looked like lots of African kids playing games.

“Hmmm, I don’t know.  Kind of looks like it, huh?” Josh said.

Just then, the gate was unlocked and the double doors flew open, coming to rest against the wall.  A wave of kids poured out of the schoolyard, flooding the street with scuffling feet, and filling the air with their chattering voices.

“Whoa, I didn’t know we’d have a school so close to our house!” I said, already inventing visions in my head of how much fun we were about to have with this endless supply of playmates.

“Me neither,” Josh admitted.

The kids started kicking a deflated soccer ball around, working it between their bare feet with fancy footwork.  A little boy wearing only a pair of ragged shorts pushed the tireless rim of a bicycle in front of him with a stick, running after it and steering it with the stick that fit into the groove where the tube would usually go.

I noticed the girls jumping rope and singing a song that was so rhythmic and metrical; their jumping was more of a dance that kept time with their tune.

“They’re on recess, Josh!” I said, as we both just stood under the Zaban fruit tree, observing these kids as if we couldn’t be seen.  But we had been.

“I think they just saw us,” he elbowed me.  He was right.  A lot of the kids had stopped what they were doing; they were bunching up together, very curious about these Toubabs that had suddenly appeared at the end of the alley.

“Bonjour!” I said, waving my hand at them.  I saw some girls smile and wave back at me, then shyly hide behind their older friends.

We sauntered back to our house, hearts lifted by new friendly possibilities, and tongues tingled by tart seeds of the Zaban fruit.

A few days later, though, my heart sank with disappointment when my innocent imaginings of playing soccer with our newfound friends were shattered.  We weren’t so beloved by our new neighbors after all.  In fact, instead of gaining friends, we had unwittingly acquired a schoolyard full of enemies.

This was so atypical for our experiences in Africa – usually we were met with open arms and a welcome everywhere we went.  Whether in the city, or in villages miles away, we found people interested in us because we were so different from what they were used to; they wanted to show us how welcoming their countrymen could be, and how helpful they were.  We were usually met with smiles, friendly faces, helpful hands, and warm embraces.

So this school at the end of our alleyway was really an enigma.  We could never figure out why we were so despised by these kids – but we were certainly determined to defend ourselves!

It all started when Josh and I drove our family’s moped – a small motorcycle that had pedals that we turned until the motor started – down the alleyway to run an errand for our mother.  She wanted us to go buy some baguettes at the nearby bakery, so we set out on our task.

Josh was driving, and I was riding on the seat behind him.  We were in shorts and tank tops, and of course wearing shoes.  Unlike back home, we had to wear our shoes here all the time so that we didn’t incidentally pick up a worm through the soles of our feet by stepping in some stagnant water.  Schistosomiasis is a vile worm that can enter your body through your skin, just by playing in contaminated water. 

The grossest worm we could ever think of, though, was the Guinea worm – the one you could get by drinking contaminated water.  That’s why we boiled, filtered, and treated with iodine, our water before we could drink it.  A Guinea worm was worse for me to imagine than a tapeworm would be – at least you could just poop out a tapeworm, but a Guinea worm would bore itself out of your leg or foot, right through your skin. 

Kéta was plagued by the Guinea worm once.  I saw him nursing his foot, and came up behind him to see what he was doing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I got a worm, and it’s coming out of my foot,” he explained.

I came closer and stood next to him.  He pulled back the cloth bandage that he’d wrapped around his foot, and I saw a puss-filled wound that was swollen and red, with a round bulbous thing poking out.  The worm was captured in the “V” of a small stick that kept it from pulling itself back inside his foot.

Bile came up the back of my throat, threatening to erupt.  “Ew!  That’s disgusting!” I offered, as if this would be something of which he wasn’t yet aware.  “What’s that stick?” I asked.

“I’m helping this worm get out of my foot,” Kéta patiently explained.  “I twist the stick every day, and little by little the worm decides to get out.”

“Can’t you just pull it all the way out now?” I was curious enough to keep staring at the ugly wound, but sickened at its sight so much that I pled silently to God that I’d never get one of these worms myself.

“No!” Kéta exclaimed.  “No, no, you cannot just pull the worm.  He will break.  And then you have a terrible infection.  No, you must be patient, helping the worm to come out when he feels like it, but making sure he never goes back inside.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling so sorry for Kéta.  I wondered how many more days until his parasite would finally crawl out of his foot.  “Does it hurt?”

“Yes, it hurts.  My foot is on fire.  But, I’ll be ok.”  He reassured me, not wanting to worry me.

“I can bring you some water so you can soak your foot.  Would that help?” I offered.

He agreed that might help, so I ran inside to get a little basin of water.  I carried it carefully outside to the alley where Kéta was waiting with his foot still exposed.  He gently immersed his foot in the tiny bath.

“Ahhh,” he breathed a sigh of relief, leaning his head back, and closing his eyes.  “Yes, that feels better.”

“Good,” I smiled, happy that I could help. 

As he soaked his foot, the worm was expelling thousands of its larvae – contaminating the water.  Kéta threw it out onto the dirt when he was done soaking his foot, leaving the contagion to soak into the dirt and die.

It was a poignant lesson.  I dutifully wore my shoes, and I faithfully drank only boiled water.

Josh turned the pedals and the moped started up.  “Get on!” he instructed.  I climbed aboard, and we were on our way down the alley.  We turned left past the tree with the Zaban fruit, and were suddenly faced with the crowds of school children playing on the road.  When they saw us, they stopped and stared, and started to gather together. 

Josh stopped the moped because they were directly in our path.  Instead of the friendly waving girls, suddenly there were older boys standing in our path; admittedly intimidating.  There was a boy I’d never seen before who seemed to be the oldest, and the rest were looking to him for direction.  I tried waving again, showing him that I wanted to be friendly.  But he wasn’t having any of it.  He made a rude gesture back to us, and the chorus of kids crooned their laughter. 

“Let’s go back home, Josh,” I said into his ear, my grip around his waist tightening with anxiety.

“Okay,” he answered, and turned the wheel to make a U-turn.

The dirt caught the front tire, though, and made his turn too tight.  The moped fell over, and the engine died.  We jumped off as it fell and stood next to it as Josh grabbed the handlebars to pick it up again.  I looked at the crowd and saw that they were walking closer. 

Suddenly, I realized that they were gathering up rocks from the dusty red dirt road; once the tall boy started throwing them in our direction, several more of them followed his example.  One rock scampered across the dirt and hit the moped with a loud clang against the metal frame.

“Hurry!” I was getting scared now.  “They’re coming, Josh!”  My heart came to life, pounding harder with fear.

“Help me pick it back up!” he ordered.  I grabbed the seat, and helped him heft the moped to an upright position.  He hopped on, ready to pedal the engine to life.

“Get on!” he barked.

Right then, a rock struck him in the arm, and he reflexively covered the spot with his other hand.  It hurt, but all he cared about was getting the two of us back inside our heavy grey gates.

I climbed on back and we sped away, but not quickly enough.  A rock hit me on my back, just under my shoulder blade.  It hurt, but not too badly.  Not enough to make me cry, or anything.  I looked over my shoulder and saw them flinging rocks at us still, but we had made our escape.  We pulled the moped back into our yard, telling our mother that we’d wait until their school was out before we went for bread.

We couldn’t believe it.  Completely unprovoked!  That tall kid was looking for a fight, and for no good reason. 

“I can’t believe I waved at that kid,” I told Josh.  “What a waste of trying to be friendly,” I added with some resentment.

“Don’t ever be sorry for trying to make friends,” Josh imparted.  “Maybe he just needs to get used to us.  He probably thinks we’re just a couple of Toubabs invading his territory.”

“Doesn’t mean he has to throw rocks at us!” I defended.

“No, you’re right.  All I’m saying is…of these days maybe he’ll wave back.”

I furrowed my brows together, pulled my chin down with the corners of my mouth pursed together, displaying my doubt in his optimism. 

∞∞∞

Everywhere I turned in this new city – whether it be downtown, or in the suburbs, or even on the outskirts – all I could see was litter.  Trash literally lined the streets, blowing along in the breeze, and gathering in the gutters or along mud brick walls.  Paper, plastic, cardboard, banana peels, discarded food, old shoes, pieces of furniture, cans, bottles, and all manner of refuse.  It was everywhere. 

I know I became accustomed to it, because when I got back to the States and threw a can out my friend’s car window after I polished off a soda, she slammed on her brakes and made me get out and pick it up off the street. 

I looked at her in surprise.  “What did I do wrong?”

“We don’t litter in America,” she looked me up and down like I was some sort of heathen.

That was the first time I longed for my African home, and her beloved dark-skinned people.  I longed for their rhythmic songs and matchless cadences of their mystic dancing.  I missed their slow and easy pace, their vivid fabrics and deeply soulful eyes, the sound of their voices, and the inflections of their speech.  I missed my friend Modibo. 

CHAPTER 12

                  Our yard was full of tropical foliage and was surrounded by the wall with broken glass.  We even had our very own swimming pool!  Josh and I couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw it.  We spent countless hours in that pool, playing games, competing in elaborate contests, and most of all, keeping cool.

 There was a giant mango tree next to the pool, and on the other side of it, my dad set up the trampoline that was sent in our sea freight.  My parents were allotted a wooden container in which they could send any household items.  The trampoline was part of that shipment, and it provided us countless hours of entertainment.  Dad had to cut the legs of the trampoline so that they would fit into the shipping box.  He welded them back together when it arrived, and it was like new.

                  “This isn’t my Joshua Tree, but it sure is a lot easier to climb,” Josh said, as he made his way up the mango tree, with me in short pursuit. 

                  We made our way out onto the limb that hung over the pool, and he said, “Are you ready?”  We crouched down on the branch, holding on to other smaller branches for support and balance.

                  “Yep,” I answered.  Water was dripping from our hair, soaked from having repeated this routine five times already.

                  Our toes were curled around the branch as far as they would go, but never as adept at holding on like the monkey at the hotel.  Josh squatted there, ready to jump, and I was right next to him, waiting for his count.  “One, two, three, jump!”

                  We both pushed off with our feet, sailed through the air from the tree down to the pool, our faces glowing with glee.  We landed in perfectly synchronized orchestration, composing two of the most picturesque cannonball splashes ever seen.

                  Our heads surfaced, and we shook the hair out of our faces, bellowing our approval. 

                  The pool wasn’t just used for our childhood enjoyment, though.  The first few months at our house were miserable as far as the heat and humidity were concerned.  Bamako, despite being the capital city, had just one main hydroelectric plant in a small dam of sorts that was made in the Niger River to the east of the city.  But when the rainy season ended and the dry season emerged, the waters receded significantly, and that power plant didn’t produce electricity. 

The smaller backup power plant had a generator that was not powered by water, but rather by diesel fuel.  The power during the dry season was unreliable at best because sometimes the delivery of the diesel was delayed – sometimes re-routed to corrupt officials and sold on the black market.  We went three weeks straight without electricity during the hottest time of the year.  It was not unusual for temperatures to be in the 115 degree range.

                  During those three weeks, my parents took our three mattresses out onto our porch, along with the requisite mosquito nets.  Malaria was common in Africa, so we slept under the nets at night, and we also took a quinine pill once a week.  These little white pills had antimalarial properties, but they were the most bitter things known to man.  Josh and I just pushed those pills as far back in our throats as we could, and then gagged them down with a full glass of water, trying desperately to wash away the bitter taste.  There were wimpy kids at our school, though.  Their moms spoiled them by putting little chunks of the pill into peanut butter or jam that they got from the Embassy commissary, and tried to coax their bratty kids into downing the pills that way.  We thought they were fragile, little, overindulged kids who needed to toughen up.

                  Our mattresses were on the porch at night during that time, so that we could benefit from any breeze that might come our way. 

“Ok, time for bed.  You can dip in the pool if you want.” Dad said.

We jumped into the pool and then lay down on our mattresses, soaking with water.

“Maybe we’ll get a little breeze tonight, and you’ll get some natural air conditioning on your damp skin,” Dad offered.

“I wish we had our fan,” I said.

When there was electricity for a day, or a few hours, we had an oscillating fan that would rotate back and forth, moving the air with its miniature propeller blades.  When the air blew on me, it was heaven…and then pure hell when it turned its head away from me.  Heaven……and now hell.  Heaven…..and now hell.

“Just be sure to keep your legs and arms away from the mosquito net,” Josh reminded me.  “You don’t want a giant welt again.”

                  We learned to keep our limbs away from the mosquito nets that were tucked under our mattresses.  Once I fell asleep with my knee up against the net.  By morning, I had one giant mosquito bite all over my knee cap.  The mosquitos had bitten me through every tiny square opening of that net where my knee had touched it. 

                  Dad came down with malaria – maybe from camping out in the “bush” on his work trips all the time.  He had to stay in bed because he was so sick.  He got the sweats, and then the chills, over and over again.  It went away after a while, but he had one relapse of malaria a few years later.

                  “Dad, when will the current come back?” We tried to be patient, but oh, how we missed our precious current.  Our dialect was infiltrated with French words the longer we lived there.  We called the melding of the languages “Franglais” – a mix of French and English.  If it was hard for us to go without power, I knew it was even more of a hardship for our mother.  I think we got the generator and the air conditioning just in time; otherwise, mom would have been on the next boat home.

∞∞∞

                  “We need to be ready for those kids at the end of the alley,” Josh told me as we swam in the pool one night a few weeks later.  The power was back on, and there were a couple of short lamp posts in the yard that provided enough light for me to see Josh’s face hovering just above the surface as we tread water.

                  “How do we do that?” I asked.  “There are way more of them than there are of us.”

                  “Well, I was thinking…really there’s just that one taller kid.  All the other kids follow him around, so I guess that means he’s in charge.  Right?”  Josh was pedaling his feet under the water, and waving his arms back and forth on the surface.  He spoke a little haltingly, breathing between phrases.

                  “Yeah, I guess so,” I agreed.

                  “We should call him Kuntigi.” Josh suggested.  “It means ‘boss’ or ‘chief’ or something like that in Bambara.  At least that’s what Sungalou told me.”

                  I thought that was an appropriate nickname, since he seemed to be the boss of his gang of school kids.  He stood almost a foot taller than most of them, although he had a few lieutenants that were closer to his size.  He was the one we saw when we wrecked the moped, and all of the other kids looked to him for direction.

                  “Kuntigi?  Sounds good to me,” I said.  I spotted a bat swooping down from the mango tree to take a drink from the pool and then fly away again, leaving concentric rings of ripples where it quenched its thirst. 

The light from the lamp posts glistened on the surface of the water, the undercurrents from our movement making small waves that bent the light in every direction, shining fleeting liquefied spotlights on the wall around the yard.  Our heads bobbed above the silvery skim and our churning arms formulated ripples just under the plane where the water met the warm nighttime air.

The comforting halo of light around the pool faded into immediate blackness beyond its boundaries; the heavy atmosphere dampening the usual nocturnal commotions.  Only the sounds of our breathing and our diminutive splashes filled our ears, until Josh continued his original thought.

                  “Ok, so we need to be ready for Kuntigi and his gang,” he said.

“They are always trying to throw rocks at us, and we need to defend ourselves.  It’s like we can’t even leave our own house by ourselves unless we climb over our wall.”

                  “They really aren’t that great of rock throwers, Josh.” I said.  “Especially the girls.  You can tell they play soccer here, and not baseball.”

                  “Still…until I can figure out a way to make peace with them, we’ll have to take the short-cut, and start gathering rocks for our protection,” Josh planned.

                  “Peace?!” I asked incredulously.  “Why would we want to make peace?  They started it!”

                  “I don’t want to have enemies, do you?  I mean, we have to be smart and keep our guard up – don’t get me wrong.  But one of these days I would like to not have to worry about the end of the alley.  Wouldn’t you?” he asked.

                  “Well, yeah,” I submitted, still pedaling my legs through the heavy water, the liquid flowing swiftly between my toes and through my fingers as I skimmed the surface with my arms.

                  “Besides,” he said with his voice a little lowered, almost reluctant to admit what he said next.  “It bothers me when someone doesn’t like me for no good reason.”

                  I stopped treading and tipped my head backward, floating effortlessly now on top of the surface.  I breathed deeply, enjoying the break from keeping upright in the water.  I stared up at the darkness.  Poor Josh – he was such a peace-loving soul.  He was right; he didn’t like confrontation or bad feelings.  His world was upside down when someone held a grudge against him, or didn’t like him.

CHAPTER 13

                  Despite the hardships of the Third World, mom was such a trooper.  She melded herself into the African way of life quite seamlessly.  She’d go to the Grand Marché in the center of town with the two of us in tow to do her shopping.  The smell of the fish market was almost unbearable, the fish having lain in the sun for hours, drawing thousands of flies to feast on their scaly slimy bodies.  The odor of the fish was mixed with the open sewage that ran along the streets.  I don’t think I’d ever seen so many people in one place at the same time.  The scene was almost more than I could take in; all of my senses were dynamically working, trying to absorb and consume every morsel of sound, smell, and sight.

                  There was a contrast of colors – some people dressed in vibrant clothing, while others were barely clad in the drab rags that were clearly all they had to wear.  There were burlap bags of spices set out for sale, so piquantly pungent to my nose that I could almost taste the chilies, peppery grains of paradise, curries, and the cardamom and coriander seeds on the back of my tongue.  People rushed by on mopeds, the wake of their breeze fluttering my hair and shirtsleeves.  

The streets were the antithesis of order.  It was a mass of chaos: cars and motorcycles, women with babies slung to their backs carrying huge bowls of fruits and vegetables on their heads, and even cows and goats wandering through the throngs.  My ears were encumbered with the honking, the motors, people talking or yelling, dogs barking, and other daily sounds of a major city in the Third World.

                  “Mom, what are we going to buy today?” I asked, as I held tight to her hand so that I wouldn’t get sucked into the black hole of the massive market mob. 

                  “I thought we’d get some meat for dinner, and then maybe some rice,” she answered.  Rice was a major staple in our meals, just like it was for the Malians.  We even fed rice to our dog, Rotchy.  He was a little white dog that we inherited from our neighbors when they moved away; such a good dog.  There wasn’t any dog food here, though – not like we know in the States.  So we fed him rice and table scraps. 

Most people in Mali were Muslims, so they saw dogs as filthy animals and wouldn’t have them as pets like we had Rotchy.  My dad’s driver, Pierre, was a Christian from a village south of Bamako, though, and his family actually ate dogs for dinner.

                  “Dogs are delicious,” Pierre would tell us.  We’d scrunch up our noses and act like we were going to vomit. 

                  Josh told Dad in English, “Don’t let Pierre get too close to Rotchy.”

                  While we were walking toward the area of the market where they sold the beef, we saw some older people sitting under a covered portion of the sidewalk, holding out their hands begging for money.  One old and frail woman was blind, her eyes clouded over, with her hands reaching out to us, and her mouth making sounds that I didn’t recognize.  My heart tightened, and I felt sad.  Another man was asking us for money, but his hand was missing all of its fingers.

                  “What happened to his hand, Momma?” I asked.  I couldn’t help but stare at him, sitting there on a piece of cardboard, bony legs crossed underneath him.  The flies were everywhere.  If we were back home, these flies would be considered a plague.  We make up songs about how annoying flies are:  “Shoo, fly, don’t bother me!”  But here, people didn’t seem to care if flies were scurrying all over their faces, on their lips, and eyes, and noses. 

I go crazy anytime a fly brushes my lips; I have to rub them raw to get the tickly feeling to go away.  But they just didn’t seem to be bothered; flies were at home on the eyelashes of children, and on their runny noses.  They were so much a normal part of their lives that they didn’t even realize they were bothering them.  I wanted to yell “shoo, fly!” for them, and wave them away from the babies.  But it was a lost cause.  The flies were there to stay.

                  “His fingers had to be cut off because he had leprosy, sweetie,” she said.  There was still a Leper Colony somewhere nearby where amputations happened frequently.

                  “What’s Leprosy?” I responded.

                  “It’s a disease that affects a person’s skin and limbs.  Sometimes they have to get their fingers or toes cut off so that is doesn’t get worse.”  She explained.

                  “Oh,” I replied.

                  “That’s gross,” Josh added.  “I hope we don’t get it.”

                  “You won’t get it, Josh.  Now go give these centimes to the man.”  Mom gave Josh some coins, and pointed to a younger man who had just scooted himself across the road on a piece of cardboard.  His legs were so skinny that they didn’t even look like legs; they were withered and small like a little bird’s legs, and they didn’t move.  He sat on the piece of cardboard and pushed himself along with the sheer strength of his arms and upper body.  When he got across the street, Josh added the coins to the little can that was hanging around the young man’s neck.  He smiled at Josh.

                  “Did he have Leprosy, too?” Josh asked mom. 

                  “No – his legs are that way from Polio.  That’s another disease.  I had a friend in high school who had Polio, and one of his legs is smaller and doesn’t work very well, either.” Mom said.

                  We continued on our way, and came to the beef vendors.  The cut of meat that you got on any given day just depended on how many other people had already purchased some ahead of you.  The side of beef was just hanging from a hook out in the open market, flies crawling here and there all over it.  The butcher just hacked off the next piece from the bottom.  If we were lucky, we’d get a good piece of the cow.

                  ”C’est combien?” Mom asked the man with the machete in his hand, ready to chop off the next piece of meat.  My mom was getting really good at bargaining just like the locals, so she started out asking how much.

                  When he told her a price, she said, “Oh, non…c’est trop chèr.”  He looked at her and smiled; she’d earned some of his respect already, having told him it was too expensive.  They bantered back and forth for a while and finally settle on a price.  He whacked off a piece of meat, put it in a small plastic bag that had probably seen some previous use, and handed it to her.  She placed the coins in his hand, and off we went.

                  “Can we have some ice cream today?” I asked Mom anxiously.  Josh eagerly joined in the pleading; we couldn’t have ice cream from the local shop very often at all, because the milk that they used wasn’t pasteurized.

                  And that was the same today, too.  Mom said, “Not today, kids.  But dad’s going to take us on a picnic next week, and we’ll make some homemade ice cream then, ok?”  We cheered our approval.

                  I held my mom’s hand as we walked back to the car, and Josh carried the meat and the produce and rice we had picked up at the marché.  My hand felt secure in hers, and my confidence flourished when I was with her; she always knew how to make me feel like I could do anything in the world if I just tried.  Wonder Woman had nothing on me, according to my mother.  She filled my reservoir of self-conviction with her steady flow of encouragement and faith in me.  She nourished the tiny sprouts of my fledgling talents and abilities with her careful assurances and dutiful pruning.  I felt safe in her hands.

∞∞∞

                  On my tenth birthday, my mother gave me a gift that I still treasure even to this day.  We didn’t have a lot in Africa we could buy for birthdays; we couldn’t go to the water park, or go bowling.  And she couldn’t drive down to the department store to buy me some new clothes or take me out for an ice cream sundae.  So she did something from her heart; something that meant far more to me than any of those other things ever would.  She handed me an envelope – one she fashioned herself from a sheet of paper.  She had typed my name on the outside, and added, “From Her Mother.”

                  I lifted the flap of the envelope, and pulled out a small card on which she had typed a poem for me.  She had written this poem specifically for my birthday.  It was a poem about my smile, my laugh, and my essence.  It told me just how much she saw in me and loved me.  I put the gift in my journal for safekeeping.

CHAPTER 14

                  From the time I can remember, I’ve known that Josh was special.  I know it, not just because I can feel it.  I know it because my dad told us. 

When he married my mom in 1965, they couldn’t have kids for a long time.  They were stricken with a sense of sorrow from being the only ones among their friends without children.  My mother felt like she was broken; she was convinced that she had somehow disappointed God, and that He was keeping His favors from her, consigning to them a void of posterity. 

She prayed to return to His good graces; of course that wasn’t it at all.  She was a good and righteous woman, and God wasn’t punishing her; but she couldn’t find an answer in any other theory or supposition, so she blamed herself.   Her friends would all be pregnant with their second or third child, and would blather on about how fun it was to be pregnant, without a thought of how it injured my mother’s already wounded heart.

                  But then my dad had a dream one night – a vivid and powerful dream that he can still recount with perfect clarity.  In the dream, he was working in a wheat field, but the swaying swells of grain were a vivid white instead of amber.  He stopped to take a drink when he heard a distance voice calling him. 

“Daddy!”  He heard the voice, and somehow knew that it was beckoning him.  He turned toward the voice, and took a few tentative steps. 

“Daddy, where are you?” He heard it again, but this time a little louder.  He took stronger strides toward the voice, plowing his legs through the shafts of grain. 

Suddenly into his view appeared a young boy, maybe four years old.  They ran toward each other and my dad, in his retelling of the dream, said his heart felt like it would erupt with pure joy.  He said it was a feeling he imagined only belonged in heaven, and wasn’t known on Earth. 

When they met, my dad took the boy in his arms, swung him around once, and then hugged him tight. 

The boy said, “Daddy, you’re here!” 

And my dad answered, “Yes, Joshua, I’m here.” 

And then he woke up from his dream.

                  This was like a vision to my father – a sign.  He woke my mother and told her right away what he had dreamed. 

“We’re going to have a boy, sweetheart, and his name is Joshua.”  She looked at him a little skeptically, unsure if she should allow her heart to hope.  In the end, she believed in his dream, too, and within six months, she was pregnant.  They named their first child Joshua.

                  And that’s how I know my brother is special.

                  But I felt it about him, too.  In my gut, in my heart, and in my soul.  He was remarkable.

                  One day when I was alone with my mother on our farm, I asked her, “Momma, do you dream about me?” 

She looked at me, and asked what I meant. 

“Well, Daddy dreamed about Joshua before he was born, and I just wondered if you dream about me.” I explained, wanting to feel special like Josh was.

                  “You know what, my dearest girl?”  She had stopped what we were doing, and crouched to my level so that she could peer deep into my blue eyes.  I could see my reflection in her pupils, and I remember how tiny I looked in them. 

She made sure she had my attention, and then went on.  “I may not have had a dream about you before you were born, but I dream about you every day of my life.”

                  “Really?” I suddenly felt my heart leap a little with a sense of importance.  “Every day?”

                  “Yes, every day,” she confirmed.  “You can’t even believe how many dreams I have about you.  I dream that you will become a very important person.”

                  “Me?” I asked her in surprise.

                  “Oh, yes.  You.”  She didn’t even hesitate, certain and convinced of her own words.  “You will be so important to other people because you will make a difference in their lives.” 

I thought about that for a second, not really sure how I could do that.

She went on, “I dream that you will show so many people the special kindness that is inside of you, and you will help them see how extraordinary they are.”

I stared at her in wonder, engrossed in each of her words as she held my shoulders in her hands, our faces mirroring one another – mine just a younger, smaller version of hers. 

She continued, “I dream that you will be smart and competent, and that you will figure out complicated problems.”  My imagination started envisioning the grown-up me, wearing glasses that made me look smarter.  I saw myself going to work and doing something important. 

When I was in school before we moved to Africa, Mrs. Gonzales, the grade school secretary, told me that she just knew I would be the first woman to be President of the United States.  I almost believed her, because the birthmark on my leg just above my knee was the shape of the United States, and besides, why couldn’t I be the President?

                  My mom was fervently imparting her words to me, taking both of my smaller hands in hers as she did.  “I have a dream about you that you will be a Mommy someday, and you’ll love your kids just like I love you.” 

That made me think of Jude, because he was my future husband – at least that’s what I had planned.  I had a letter that I had written to him, and I wanted to remind my mom that we needed to mail it – but I would tell her later.  I was fascinated to learn that she dreamed about me even more than Dad had dreamed about Josh.  Maybe I was just as special as he was, after all.

                  “I dream of you each day, because you are my girl, and because I love you,” she finished.

                  “I love you, too, Momma.”  She hugged me tight, and then I ran off to play, my heart bolstered by her precious words that had been forever and indelibly written on my heart.

CHAPTER 15

                  As we drove home from the marché, my mom turned the car into the alleyway, just in time for us to see our arch-enemy, Kuntigi, standing near the gates of his school. 

As we drove by, I saw him eye us warily, lowering his lids to show his contempt for us, and even demonstrating a few choice hand motions that drove home the insult, in case there was any doubt.

                  We parked the car inside the walls of our little oasis, and unloaded our groceries.  Josh and I had some coins that we wanted to add to our savings, so we ran out to the secret hiding place in our yard: one pace north, and two paces east of the banana plant that my dad had planted when we first arrived.  He had also planted some papaya seeds, and those trees were thriving, as well as the bananas.  We were in fruit paradise, always eating papaya smothered in lime juice, mangos and bananas to our hearts desire.  Even unripe mangos came in handy when my mom would use them to make us an “apple” pie.  They were perfect for that.

                  “Ok, let’s find our buried treasure.  Start at the banana plant,” Josh instructed.

                  I stood at the banana plant and took a giant step, then two more giant steps to the right of that spot.  “Do you see the X?” I asked.

                  Josh looked down around my feet, found the spot we had marked, and started digging.

                  “Here’s mine, and here’s yours,” he handed me my film canister, just the right size to fit coins inside if you stack them one on top of another.

I added my centimes to my canister, and Josh did the same with his before we covered them again with the rich African soil, hoping subconsciously that they’d multiply and grow like our corn back on the farm.

                  My mother’s job at home was much harder than any of the rest of ours were.  Josh and I had to go to school.  This was hardly a chore – we played four-square and kick-the-can, learned French and other core subjects, but that was easy duty compared to hers.  Dad seemed to travel into the exotic “bush” and see wild animals and collect plants into his press for safe-keeping.  He met so many people, and always came home with something new that he’d bought: a boomerang from a cattle herder, or a sword from a Touareg.  Our shipping container that we brought to Mali would be just as full going home, but with souvenirs and keepsakes from Dad’s work trips.

                  Mom had the most demanding work in her kitchen.  The food preparation alone was a daunting, time-consuming task.  Water must be boiled and filtered, with iodine added before consumption – we didn’t want to be plagued with any unwanted parasites.  Lettuce and other vegetables and fruits must be washed, and then soaked in a solution of treated water and a bit of bleach.  Flour had to be sifted to eliminate the ever-present weevils, and then kept in bags in the freezer.  Meat had to be cooked thoroughly well-done, and milk came in a carton that sat on the shelf until opened – or it came in the powdered form, to which we would add water that had been boiled, filtered and treated.

                  She would make yogurt for us by adding existing yogurt as a starter to milk and letting it sit out on the counter in a covered bowl to incubate in the warm air; there was no need for warming the mixture in this tropical weather.  We would eat the new yogurt for breakfast with some sugar and sliced bananas – I can still taste the tangy sweet mixture just thinking about it.  I liked that morning meal better than rice and milk, which my dad and Joshua loved and would live off of every day if Mom let them.

∞∞∞

                  I was lying in the hammock on the porch that afternoon, watching a lizard doing pushups on our wall.  There were lots of reptiles that ran around in our yard and even in our house.  The house lizards were smaller and scaled the walls in our home, scurrying here and there, eating the mosquitos and flies.  The ones on top of the walls of our compound were a little bigger, with yellow heads and sage green bodies.  Josh caught one by the tail; it just fell off, allowing the lizard to run away and escape Josh’s grasping hands.  These yellow-headed lizards did pushups as some sort of way to communicate with their reptile comrades, but I always thought it was funny to watch them exercise each time they paused in their journey across our wall.

                  I heard Josh call my name, so I scrambled out of my lazy hammock and listened for him again.  He was calling me from up on the roof, so I climbed the stairs attached to the side of our house to join him on the rooftop.  The homes were all flat-topped in the African towns and villages of Mali, having no pitch to them at all.  From there, we could see our entire yard on one side – our pool was a clear bright blue, and I could see something glimmering from the bottom, resting on the tiles.  It must be a coin that we left there from our games in the water – we’d have our mom throw the coin while Josh and I stood on the edge of the pool, our eyes closed. When she saw that it had sunk to the bottom and rested on the floor of the pool, she’d say “go!” and we’d try to be the first to dive down and retrieve the treasure.

On the back side of the house over our wall we could see the large gardens where strawberries and a variety of vegetables grew.  The lush and fertile soil was a stark contrast to the bright green lettuce heads growing there.  Workers were bent over; they toiled in the soil with short crude hoes in hand, some with babies on their backs, weeding their crop.  Some would draw water by hand from a deep well at the side of the fields, carrying one bucket at a time to the thirsty plants, quenching their parched roots.

Further than the garden was the highway; pedestrians, cars, bicycles, and bashés crammed full of people wove in and out of the congestion.  Bashés were small pick-up trucks with wooden benches and metal frames built into their beds for people to hold on to as they were taxied to their destinations; bursting at the seams with passengers, they were small buses of a sort. 

On one side of the house was an empty lot that Josh and I cut through on our way to school.  It led to a small feeder road that crossed the highway to our school.  And of course on the other side of the house was our neighbor’s home, separated from ours only by the alleyway.  We could walk from our rooftop to the metal roof of our duplex garage, which led over to the roof of their house.  But we always stayed on our side.

                  Our garage wasn’t used for parking our car; it housed our diesel generator, and also our large wooden storage crate that had previously contained our sea freight shipment.  Each step we took echoed loudly underneath our feet, forbidding any stealthy progress on the metal roof.

                  “What’s up?” I asked Josh when stepped onto the roof.

                  “Kuntigi is in the alley right now, so let’s go onto the garage to see what he’s doing.”  He led the way over to the roof of the garage, and we stood at the front edge, staring down the alley. 

Trees lined the way, large boughs stretching their tired arms, yawning and reaching for the other side of the alley.  There he was.  Kuntigi.  He and his deputies were slowly making their way closer to our house, testing the waters and braving the enemy that now stood guard on top of their garage.

                  “Toubab!” he yelled.  Then he hollered some other words that we didn’t understand, but we took them to be slurs because he also launched a big rock toward our fortress on the garage; it hit the door below us.

                  We had a cache of rocks up on the rooftop for just such an occasion, and we launched our own stones at our adversaries, scattering them in all directions.  It was a game we played with them, and they with us.  It worked – for now.

                  “You can’t get us, Kuntigi!” we taunted, and launched a few more rocks their way.  They lobbed more at us, and we ducked to avoid the missiles.

                  I wasn’t sure how we would ever make a truce to this war – a war made up of small battles, each comprised of rocks being thrown by one side against the next.  This feud between us and Kuntigi’s little band of kids was perplexing to me; of all places throughout this country, our fiercest rivals – our only rivals – were right next to our home at the end of our alley.

                  Because they had thrown rocks at us, we retaliated, and it just continued on from there.  It wasn’t right, and we didn’t really like it.  But at this point we were scared of Kuntigi, and I didn’t see how that was ever going to change, despite Josh’s plan to somehow make peace.

                  Suddenly, they went their way out of the alley, and we went ours; it was as if their mother called them for dinner at the same time as ours called for us.  The game was over today, and it was time to go home.