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11 A Basket of Flaming Ashes Nfugu* I have listened to it 15 times already What was there in my voice that sent you searching? How did you see beyond my now to reach my exiled soul? I ride the rhythm into the Atlantic. Like slaves of old, the waves lead me; A return trip to ancestral shores Shoulders tell in back and forth motions The story of the Sosso-Bala.** And Akoma Mba’s*** gyrating children. I stamp the ground and my cry beckons From the belly of balafons My self-exile is a map I don’t draw * A popular Bikutsi tune in Cameroon ** The original Balafon reputed to be 800 years old and kept in the city of Niagassola in Guinea. *** A mythic hero among the Bikutsi-dancing people of Cameroon ...

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