Their sobs were comical.
At first, I was unable to distinguish their crying from the chorus of roosters and donkeys that usually wakes me.
Recently, I had begun to joke with women in the market about Ba Juka. Grandchildren and grandparents have what is referred to in English as a joking relationship. With my grandma, we playfully mock each other. I make fun of the way she eats; toothless, gumming her food. She has occasionally challenged me to get up and fight her. With Ba Juka, the joke was that he was my husband and I was therefore the lowly third wife, after my two grandmas. And so it came to be that every time I went to Soma to buy vegetables for my family, the Pulaar women would jokingly greet me as Ba Juka’s newest wife. “How is your husband?” they ask, “what will you cook for him today?” Lately though, our joking had taken on a more somber tone. “How is your husband?”
“He is there, but he is sick.”
“I hope he is getting better.”
“Yes, he is getting better, slowly, slowly.”
Their sobs were hysterical.
I could not help but stare at these seemingly exaggerated displays of emotion. Were these people for real? I had to try to see their eyes or a smile; some tell that would let me know this was all a big show.
I sit on the edge of my grandma’s bed surrounded by women I’m not sure if I’ve met before. My grandma lays curled up with her eyes open, as if in a trance. Her frame is so small and fragile; her skin hangs on her bones like tissue paper; and her nightgown seems to swallow her balled up body. She begins to cry softly and one of the women starts to lecture her. “Don’t cry, this is the way of the world, everyone will die, and it is Allah’s will.” I find the woman’s tone aggravating but I say nothing. My grandma’s cries become louder and more drawn out, each somehow increasingly more sorrowful. She begins to thrash around on the bed, swinging her arms and bucking her legs. She kicks me two times before I move to a spot further away on the bed. My aunt and some of the women go to her to hold her down and console her. My grandma is so frail that I’m not sure her body can handle such violent displays of grief. Before I understand what is happening, I am being ushered out of the room to sit under the mango tree with the children. There, some children weep while others sit and stare in stony silence as we all listen to my grandma’s wails grow more and more hoarse.
Their sobs were beautiful.
Like singing. It wasn’t until the long, drawn out notes were caught by short, choking gasps that I was brought back to the reality of this strange, beautiful song.
Ba Juka was the head of my village-the village alkalo. As the head of a village, it seems natural that he touched the lives of many people. I know this to be true because of the hoards of Gambians that poured into my village on foot, donkey cart, and by car, to attend his funeral. A greater testament to the person that Ba Juka was is the love and devotion his children and grandchildren show. My father, an adopted son of Ba Juka, models his own life and the way he raises his children on the life and child rearing practices of Ba Juka. Near the end of Ba Juka’s life, his children were at his bedside in shifts, some travelling from far away villages, to massage his frozen muscles and respond to his delirious ramblings. Since I came to the village, I have visited Ba Juka on many occasions. I interviewed him to learn about the village, I shared his favorite meal-ground cous with a leaf sauce, and I sang him my song about the days of the week in Pulaar. Each time I visited him, Ba Juka would say our last name, “Sallah, Sallah, Sallah,” as if to reaffirm my connection and acceptance into his family.
Their sobs were disparaging.
Day after day, I watch Gambians struggle. I watch women performing labor intense chores without complaining. If they are sick, the work still must be done. I watch men who struggle to feed their family and worry about how long this expensive bag of rice will last. I see men, women, and children facing sickness and pain through gritted teeth. Crying because of physical pain is shameful. Gambians, no matter how sick or distraught they are, still greet each other with smiles on their faces saying, “Peace only.”
On the day of Ba Juka’s death, the floodgates opened. I saw all of the swallowed cries of pain from the work of the bonesetter or childbirth; every time they stifled their crying for fear of the punishment it would bring. It was as if all of this bottled up emotion finally had an acceptable occasion to be released. By midday, most fell silent from exhaustion.
My tears were silent.
On the day of Ba Juka’s death, my role is sponge. I try to absorb this foreign situation in my new surroundings. On this day, there are enough tears to saturate me. As I sit with the children, my thoughts fly home. Home to where my own family is facing sickness and the prospect of nearing death. I feel so much all at once. I feel helpless because I can’t stop time and I can’t stop disease. I feel distant because of the space between us, physical and otherwise. I feel lost because I have never had someone close to me die and I don’t know how to let them. I feel guilty because I am not able to be present and support my family. I feel sad because time is a tricky thing and now I’m feeling like there will never be enough.
The Gambia Files 