From La petite Peule

For several days, I had been in the grip of a vague uneasiness, without knowing why. I could have figured out a real threat by hidden signs, the way you stalk small game on the savannah. I was powerless when it happened. Even yesterday, I was happy just listening to the sound of the beads strung around my skinny waist. These beads were on several strings of multi-colored lozenges and crescents. I also had a number of charms—some slashes and crosses (to protect me against the evil eye and gossip); I was wearing a copper ankle bracelet instead of the little bell I had worn to keep my mother aware of my whereabouts when I was little. I was wearing; dibés (earrings).

All these decorative objects together were fairly heavy. I didn’t even know how long I had been wearing them. Forever!

Mama was embroidering some other charms on a piece of white cloth to wear around my neck.

“We’re going to Fann to stay with your uncle. Now I’m going to take off all those charms you’re wearing.”

For the first time in my life, I found myself without a single string and I had the impression of being completely naked. What kind of bizarre ceremony was I headed for without my beads?

Under any other circumstances, I would have done anything to go to Fann! There were playing fields and toboggans there. I loved to go, which was a way of getting out of our ghetto. But now, I was stripped of all jewelry and light as a leaf that might be blown away at any instant by a whirlwind.

“We’ll go to the dressmaker’s first to get your outfit.”

The outfit was a red boubou printed with drawings of ducks.

“You’ll find some other girls there. . . .”

Mama had begun to list the names of girls who were not my usual playmates. The only thing these unknown girls and I had in common were the customs our parents persisted in making us follow by all possible means.

We were ndjouddou (Peul children born in Senegal), part of the first or second generation of Peul parents from Guinea. We used to see each other when we attended Peul festivities with our families, but not very often. My own playmates were the ones I played with all the time around home—we shared everything, including punishment.

I had simply been separated from them all day. I wasn’t free to do anything. I couldn’t go play. Strange! There wasn’t even the sound of their games. Had they been playing? I would never know.

I kept asking my mother why we didn’t leave. Mama knew I was impatient as soon as there was any talk of travel or play.

“Your friends won’t be long coming,” she repeated.

The muezzin’s call rang out for the last evening prayer and I was beginning to ask myself questions. Papa had not come home; he was with my brother, Laye; even when he was late, Papa usually came home to sleep. I would have liked for him to be there. He would touch our breasts in a habitual gesture, as if he wanted to make sure we were still alive. Since I was very little, I had always played a game by lying down in a place other than my own and pretending to be asleep. Then, my father would come to pick me up and carry back to my own sleeping place. I would hug him and burst out laughing.

He always answered, “You won again!”

Only then could I go to sleep.

Instead of the routine, my mother was standing guard, without making it obvious, as if she thought I might escape. She gave me a ritual bath, made me drink some holy water, and massaged me with the rest of it.

Someone knocked at our door. A middle-aged woman (about 45 years old) came in—someone who was always at our feasts. I didn’t like her. She was followed by...