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sankahjang
USA
78 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Mar 2008 : 00:15:30
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A Piece of Cloth Tied to Her Hand
It was in the dawn of the dry season, between December and the next June, when there was no expectation of anymore rain. I guess they called this time of the year winter in some parts of the world. Or perhaps spring.
But here, people don’t care. They have only two distinct climatic seasons-rainy and dry seasons. It was also in those days when parents wished for death than for their kids to have a baby out of wedlock. It used to be a big shame in this society, especially for parents.
In early December, the weather was different. It was not hatefully hot as in the days of the months in the middle of the rainy season. It was cold here for the people of this region. Of course not European or American or Asian winter cold. Perhaps here is closer to that part of the planet the geographers called the “equ-waato.” That was how my late grandfather, who dropped out of school at primary five used to pronounce it. Now I know it is pronounce as in the spelling e-q-u-a-t-o-r. He used to telling us that the equ-waato is closer to the sun than any other place on the planet that’s why it is hotter around there.
This was a cold day and everyone was camped around burning woods to keep themselves warm. I used to enjoy those moments a lot because it is one of those moments when grandmothers would be kind enough to tell us stories, sometimes our family histories.
The sun was out in full as always but of a very little help in keeping people warm thanks to the annoying blow of the harmattan wind.
Karamo was sitting by one of these morning fires that reminded me of my Boy Scouts’ camp fires in the nearby bush. He was not looking normal. He was absent minded and looking mean as always when something was weighing on his rural brain. His grandmother tried once and twice to tune him in with everyone, but he could not stay tuned.
Shortly after, he got up and bowed into his mother’s hut. He lay on his mother’s bed that always sounded as if it was saying “be gentle with me, I’m not that strong” with his mind still far from his head.
I was his best friend and he would tell me anything that bothers him. I knew almost beyond doubt that he was thinking about Sally. That girl has since in primary school stolen his heart and hid it with her left hand. His grandmother used to say that if you hide something with your left hand, no one but you alone can find it. His meanness that everyone in the village complains about is only seen in Sally’s absence. When she is around, he is the gentlest man you will see. They grew together on the same alley. Their parents are friends of each other. Karamo’s mother used to tell Sally that she will make her, sally, karamo’s wife. And any time sally hears that, she would smile coyly to show how she wished that was true.
Karamo was thinking about Sally in such a way that I never saw him do. The look on his face expressed the feelings a person gets when he thought he would not see someone again for ever.
From Manjai, Sally was in a bus traveling to Bolongkono. Her father, a well respected religious leader has sent for her to come. She was not very close to her father so she was not sure why he wanted her to come. She thought about the possibility of her parents giving her hand in marriage to someone but that thought did not stay with her for long. She was happy anyway because she missed Karamo and was going to see him again. She missed him when she was seventeen and now she is twenty. In all this time, they have been talking, talking about things that the only two of them need to know.
Karamo’s father at Karamo request sent someone the previous day to Sally’s father asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage to Karamo. That was how they do it here. Parents talk about it without the children knowing much of what is going on. In some cases, the girl will be asked if she wants the man asking for her hand. But I can count how many times that happened here.
As the bus upped and downed through the hills, and crawled through the pothole infested road that linked Manjai to Bolongkono, Sally began to recall some moments she had with Karamo. She remember an independence celebration held in the village the bus just past. She and Karamo were both sent there to represent their primary school’s athletic team. She remembered sneaking out of her tent at night just to hold Karamo’s hand for few minutes. She remembers crawling by the fence to get back to her tent before any teacher saw her. Karamo still tease her about that.
As the bus inched closer to Bolongkono, she could picture in her mind even more wonderful moments they had together, secretly. It was a taboo here for men and women to get intimate before marriage. But these two did a lot together. The most memorable moment for her was when her mother almost caught her touching Karamo’s lips with hers. He was standing with his back against the bark of mango tree with sally standing in between his spread legs pushing herself enthusiastically against him with the hope of having her first kiss of him. But just with a millimeter of air separating their lips, a noise was heard. “Ugho, ugho, ugho,” the sound came closer. As the figure of a woman approach, the two moved around the tree from the moonlight to hide from the passerby. As the woman went by, Sally noticed it was her mother. She was nervous, thinking her mother saw them. But Karamo assured her that they were not seen. She went home still thinking her mother would ask her about it but she didn’t.
By the time she came back from the memory land, the bus driver was applying his brakes getting ready to stop at Bolongkono. She began scanning the area for a sight of Karamo. “I missed him so much.” She said with no sound. As she got out of the bus, she was welcomed by Karamo’s younger brother Janko, who is one of those kids that enjoy sitting by the bus stop to see who gets in and out of the bus. She asked him about Karamo. He told her Karamo was at the farm winnowing his father’s groundnut.
Mbakaddy was in her kitchen when Janko brought Sally’s bag. She was happy and excited. She knew it was time for her daughter to get married. She already arranged with Sisaho’s mother about the two children’s marriage. Sally’s father did not know anything about this until the day before. He did not like it because he already accepted ‘Kuruwo’ from Karamo’s father about his daughter, but he mostly goes by what his wife stands for. So he did not argue it at all. Here ‘Kuruwo’-Cola-nuts, are a sign of respect and unity and are used in almost all social functions. Mbakaddy told Sisaho’s parent to send in kola-nuts, reminding them of the ‘Funto’ (piece of cloth) that was tied to Sally’s hand when she was just three months old. That was a long time custom and is still happening. A mother would tie a piece of cloth to the new baby girl’s hand and claim that she would be her son’s wife when she grew up. That’s what Sisaho’s mother did to Sally. Perhaps smiling when she did as many women would, while bragging about how beautiful the baby was.
As she grew over the years, she heard them say she would be her cousin’s wife, but she always took it a joke. Her mother was in for it because Sisaho is an engineer at a telecommunication company and that means money and everyone in the village knew how material minded sally’s mother was.
Two days later, Sally was called into her father’s house. Seated on a mat were two gentle men and an old man. Her mother and her uncle’s wife, her mother-in-law, sat on a stool on the left hand side of the room. On the right were her father and another old man. This one was funny because there were no pillars to hold the roof of his mouth. As Sally stepped into the house, the toothless man was the first one to talk, mumbling out something that sounds like “here she is.” Sally’s father was the only one that understood what he said.
Humbly and politely, sally greeted everyone and reduced her height to an unused stool by her aunt. She was a very smart and hardworking girl. One thing she could not do is to sit down while her mother was working. And she respected everyone in the village like that, except her grandmother.
Not wasting, any time, her father put it to her and the happy looking others that she is given in marriage to one of the guy sitting on the mat. The one that looked clean and commanding with a simple smile slipping through the corners of his lips. They asked her to get up and greet her husband as the tradition required, but she remained seated. She was trying to come to term with what she just heard. She could not believe it. It was the previous night that she renewed her promise to marrying no one but Karamo and now the air is filled with this heart-breaking news that clouded her eyes with tears. At the corners of her eyes, balls of tears were formed. Then one dropped into her open palm in her lap and another and finally a stream of tears was coursing through her cheeks to her chin.
Without uttering a word and hardly smiling, she got up as if she was ready to greet her husband, and headed toward the door. “Sally! Sally!” Her mother called, but she did not turn back. “She is just excited.” The toothless old man managed to say. They finish their gathering with prayers and then share the kola-nuts and disappeared.
She could have convinced her parents not to do this if they talked to her about this but they did not. So she won’t argue about it anymore. She would only do what she was thinking-go back to Manjai. She knew her uncle; her father’s brother would be on her side because he is no more into that old tradition.
By the next hour, the news spread in the village, that Sally has ran away. No one knew where she went. When Karamo heard it, he was worried. He made calls to her friends in the nearby villages but she was nowhere.
While everyone looked for her everywhere, Sally was in the same bus that brought her to Bolongkono, going back to Manjai. Few days later, she called Karamo and told him everything. Two weeks later, Karamo went to Manjai to look for a job.
Two months later, Sally’s uncle called her father. When he picked up the phone, a bombshell was dropped. “Sally is a mother-to-be,” thanks to you for not marrying her to the one she loves but the one you love. With this news, sally’s parents wished the earth is opened so they could disappear into it.
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Edited by - sankahjang on 24 Mar 2008 00:17:44 |
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