Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree Read online

  That was what she said when her ninth child turned out to be yet another boy, after she had prayed hard for one more girl.

  “Thank God, because it is better to have more boys than one boy and many girls,” she said. “Or worse, to have no boys at all.”

  Like Mama, I also am learning to be thankful.

  Five brothers means five extra plates to wash up after breakfast and dinner, and five extra sets of laundry to tackle in the backyard every Saturday.

  But it also means five pairs of hands to sow seeds and reap crops.

  And a steady supply of food and labor when Papa becomes too old and too tired to till the soil.

  And five future brides who will give birth to five batches of sons and daughters.

  And wives who will cook and clean and make sure that Papa and Mama are well taken care of long after I have gone away to help take care of my own husband’s father and mother.

  And, even though Abraham is running a temperature and can’t join Papa at the farm today, my immediate older brother, Isaac, is the one who forfeits attending school, not me. To ensure that all clearing and plowing is completed on schedule, Isaac exchanges his notebooks for a hoe and cutlass, while I am free to go and learn.

  I thank God for Papa.

  Unlike many other girls in our village whose parents do not think that sending a girl to school is important since she will end up getting married and taking all her father’s years of investment to another man’s house, Papa wants me educated.

  He wants me to grow up and be like the women wearing white coats in the Maiduguri General Hospital, or like those he hears on his radio discussing important topics, or like those who come to our church from time to time to talk to the congregation about the importance of sending girls to school.

  Ya Ta

  “YA TA, BRING SOME Vaseline for my hands,” Papa says after he rinses the soil from his fingernails.

  “Ya Ta, come and help me comb my hair,” Mama says after she loosens the previous week’s plaits.

  “Ya Ta, bring a razor blade and trim my toenail,” Papa says when his little toe has once again grown a coarse stub.

  “Ya Ta, come and help me zip up my blouse,” Mama says when she is on her way to attend a meeting for all the women in Christ the King Church.

  Papa and Mama have only one daughter. Nobody else for them to assign special tasks but me.

  Nobody else who will hear them call “Ya Ta” and come running, nobody else who is “my daughter” to them.

  The Voice on Papa’s Radio

  “AND NOW, FROM BBC Hausa, here are some of the top stories from around the world:

  “Huge waves have battered the southern and western coasts of the UK, as forecasters warn exposed areas could see a fresh round of flooding. Waves of up to eight meters were recorded off Land’s End, Cornwall. The environment secretary said seven people have died and seventeen hundred homes have been flooded in England due to storms. There are currently three severe flood warnings in place in England and travel by road and rail is being hit.

  “Nigerian movie star Omotola J. Ekeinde, known to her fans as Omosexy, has told the BBC she doesn’t wear makeup at home and pounds her own yam, a food staple in Nigeria. The Nollywood actress was named as one of Time magazine’s one hundred most influential people in the world in 2013.”

  Calendar

  I FLIP THE BACK cover of my English exercise book and check the calendar I drew on it with blue ink.

  Only fifteen days since the top students in our school took the Borno State scholarship exam for exceptional children from disadvantaged homes.

  Obviously too early to expect any news about our results.

  Storyteller

  “THEY WERE SHOOTING FROM atop motorbikes and throwing grenades,” Danladi says, gesticulating wildly with his arms and legs.

  The entire class is gathered around his desk, listening to his secondhand tale about a shootout between the police and Boko Haram men right in the middle of a street in Damboa, witnessed by his older brother who lives there.

  “Everywhere, there was fire and smoke,” he says, adding a deafening “boom!”

  “But how did your brother manage to see it all?” I ask. “Wasn’t he afraid that he would get shot?”

  “People were jumping into gutters and hiding behind trees,” he replies. “My brother climbed on top of a roof.”

  Sometimes, it is difficult to know which of Danladi’s stories are true and which are exaggerated or fabricated.

  Fat Fish

  A DELICIOUS NIGHT OF miyan kuka with fat portions of fish, chunkier than a three-year-old’s fist. Mama serves my brothers the segments around the fin, while I get the tail.

  I imagine the clueless creature flapping in happy haste through Lake Chad, which borders Borno State, unaware that its destiny is a pot of soup hundreds of kilometers away.

  I imagine the angler, pleased with the day’s catch, eager for the traders who will travel from far and wide to purchase his ill-fated fish.

  If only we had our own freshwater nearby. If only Mama could make more dinners with fish as fat and scrumptious as this.

  At the end, nothing but fingerprints are left over in my enamel bowl. Not even the long, thin bones of the banda are spared.

  And there’s just enough remnant in Mama’s pot for a repeat session tomorrow.

  “Ya Ta, make sure you cover the pot properly,” Mama says, “so that no rat will climb inside.”

  Sleep

  MY MOUTH EXPELS ONE loud yawn after another. My mind seems covered in mist. My eyelids, too heavy, flutter nonstop.

  My body is begging for sleep.

  But there are five more pages left in chapter four of my social studies textbook.

  I must read about the three main ethnic groups in Nigeria, their different modes of dress and choices of food. I must learn in which of the thirty-six states of the country they reside. I must learn how to say “good morning,” “good afternoon,” and “good evening” in each of their languages.

  I must be ready for Malam Zwindila.

  Hausa, we all already know, of course, which means that his test questions will most likely be about the Igbo and Yoruba ethnic groups.

  Weary from my battle with sleep, I rise from Mama’s stool on the veranda and head to the backyard. Careful not to startle my slumbering family, I select one basin from Mama’s stack of enamelware.

  I fill the basin with water and set it by the stool. I dip my feet inside and resume reading.

  Impossible for sleep to come upon me when my bare soles are freezing cold in water.

  Rat Bite

  JACOB WAKES UP WEEPING.

  “My hand! My hand!” he wails.

  My five-year-old brother sheds tears of a stricken thief. The fresh teeth marks on his outstretched hand are the most damning clue.

  Each nibble of a rat’s teeth is usually followed by a blast of air from its tiny mouth, a smart trick the rodent must have been taught by its mother. In your sleep, you hope the cool, refreshing waft will never stop. You believe God has blessed you with a fan.

  It is not until you wake that you realize exactly what damage the rat has done. I know from harrowing experience.

  By then, the creature and its cool blast are gone, leaving you with the sharp pain and the dried blood and the raw wounds.

  My other brothers would have paid dearly. I would have marched straight to Papa and reported the crime.

  But I cannot bear to see Jacob’s budding genitals smeared with fresh pepper.

  Or hear his shrill yelps of pain.

  Or watch my sweet little brother, whom I have bathed, cuddled, and nestled since the day he belted his first cry, given the punishment meant for a thief—for a child who lifted the lid and pinched a chunk of fish from his mother’s pot of soup, ate his booty in bed but neglected to wash his hand before falling asleep. The rat must have mistaken his soiled fingers for a piece of fish.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I won’t tell Papa. Co
me, let me put some Vaseline on your hand.”

  He sniffles and clinches my thighs.

  The Voice on Papa’s Radio

  “THE NOMINATIONS FOR THIS year’s Academy Awards have been announced in Los Angeles. American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, Philomena, and Her are just some of the films vying for the best picture award. The announcement for best picture nominees was made by actor Chris Hemsworth, alongside Oscars chief Cheryl Boone Isaacs.

  “Fifty-five people have been killed in the northeast of Nigeria in coordinated attacks by the Boko Haram militant group, the Nigerian army said. It said one hundred and five prisoners were freed in the predawn raid in Bama, Borno State. Bama’s police station, military barracks, and government buildings were burned to the ground, said the military and witnesses.”

  Principal

  “MY FATHER HAS SEEN many white people before,” Danladi says, “not just on TV but in real life.”

  According to him, his father met the white people when he was a child, back when part of the Sambisa forest—which stretches all the way from Borno to Yobe, Gombe, and Bauchi States in northeast Nigeria, and even up to Jigawa and Kano States in the northwest—was a game reserve.

  “He said many white people from faraway lands often came to look at the animals,” Danladi says. “They were never tired of taking photos.”

  I have never seen a white person in real life, but everybody says that our school principal is a white man, never mind that his skin is black.

  He never speaks to his students in Hausa, unless our parents are nearby so that they can understand. English rolls off his tongue swiftly and smoothly, as if the words are coated in melted butter.

  He wears shiny black shoes and buttoned shirts tucked into belted trousers, instead of open-toe sandals or flowing caftans. His clothes and footwear are never speckled, not even during the harmattan season when a ferocious wind blows a steady swarm of dust from the Sahara Desert.

  He uses methods less strenuous than the koboko to compel naughty students to plead guilty. “Why have I sent for you?” he asks at the beginning of the encounter, and in nine cases out of ten, the child addressed, paralyzed by nervousness, confesses everything.

  He never attends occasions in the village, not even church or mosque, traveling to Maiduguri almost every other day to be with a family we suspect exists but have never seen.

  He lines the walls of his narrow office with books, some thin, some thick, some too soft to stand in the shelves. Students swear that he has read every single one at least twice.

  “But no white tourist can dare approach the Sambisa forest now,” Danladi says. “That’s where all the Boko Haram people go to hide from the soldiers and the police.”

  Sitting on a Wooden Stool

  SARAH PLAITS MY THICK strands into thin cornrows, the ends drooping over my ears and around the back of my head.

  I plait Sarah’s soft strands into thin cornrows, the ends drooping over her jaw and around the back of her neck.

  Romance

  ON THE VERANDA IN Aisha’s house, her husband’s head is bowed toward the Muslim holy city of Mecca, his feet bare on a turquoise mat.

  Maybe he sees us, maybe he is too absorbed to notice. We creep past Malam Isa without extending any greeting, careful not to disturb his prayers.

  As usual, Aisha wants to hear everything that happened in school from Monday to Friday: who got whipped by the koboko, who answered the most questions, who taught anything new in their subject.

  Sometimes, I bring my notebooks for Aisha to study. Sarah never bothers to bring hers because nobody else but me can decipher her handwriting. Her Is look like Js, her Ks look like Xs, her Rs look like Ps.

  “So, what’s the difference between democracy and other types of government?” Aisha asks.

  “It’s there,” I say. “I wrote down the definitions.”

  “Yes, I’ve read them. But I still don’t understand the difference. If we vote for the leader in a military government, is it still a democracy?”

  “Mmmmmm,” Sarah says.

  The Monday after Aisha’s wedding to Malam Isa at the village mosque, Sarah and I arrived in school with the flower and spirogyra patterns painted on all the bride’s friends still glistening on our arms and feet. But Aisha did not turn up.

  Her father-in-law was worried that an educated wife would be less likely to abide by the wishes of her husband and in-laws. Like many other Muslim and Christian brides in our school, Aisha has never been back to the classroom since her wedding.

  But Aisha has not changed much since her days in school with us. Her questions were rarely straightforward, sometimes difficult, and often many, even more than Malam Zwindila himself could ask.

  “The difference between a democracy and a military government is like a monkey and a gorilla,” I say.

  She adjusts her hijab and perks up her ears.

  “When a monkey comes into the farm to steal bananas, the farmer can chase the monkey and it will run away. But if a gorilla comes to the farm to steal bananas, if the farmer tries to chase it away, the gorilla can decide to not just steal all the bananas, but to also kill the farmer.”

  Aisha’s eyes are transfixed on me. Sarah’s eyes stray to the carton of DVDs beside the bed.

  “The monkey is like the government of the people in a democracy while the gorilla is like a military government.”

  “Ah, I see,” she says.

  But Sarah and I are not here just to talk with Aisha. We are here to watch films.

  A week after their wedding, Malam Isa bought Aisha a TV and DVD player. He allows her to keep them in the room beside their bedroom where she will stay with their baby after it is born. No one to tell her what she can and cannot watch. No one to change the channel when she wants to know who died next. Not even his sisters can touch the TV without Aisha’s permission. I have never known a man who cared so much for his wife.

  “I want a love story,” Sarah says.

  “No, let’s watch an adventure,” I say.

  “No, a love story. Pleeeease. We can watch an adventure after.”

  Will there be enough time to watch a love story and then an adventure before it is time to go home and help Mama with the evening meal?

  Sarah slots in one of the romance films where the actors and actresses speak nothing but Hausa.

  Once a Month

  “WHY HAVEN’T YOU BEEN in school?” Malam Zwindila asks.

  “I was sick with malaria,” I reply.

  “I hope you’re feeling better,” he says.

  Sometimes, I wonder if Malam Zwindila suspects.

  Last month, it was a running stomach. The month before, it was a fever. The month before that, I told him I was ill with a splitting headache. I wonder if Malam Zwindila is fooled by my lies, and by those of Sarah, and most likely other girls in my class, too.

  Like lending my pen to Danladi, who always chews off the cap by the time he finally hands it back, going to school when I am on my period is something I decided to never do again.

  Within the first few hours of sitting in class, my carefully folded piece of cloth is usually soaked through, defenseless against the flow of blood.

  The school’s only toilet is in Principal’s office. But he keeps it under lock and key—too many students dirtied it.

  The nearby bushes have no water. Nowhere for me to dash in between classes and swap my soaked sanitary cloth for another, or to rinse my used ones.

  During last term’s English language exam, my mind swung from the questions in front of me to my drenched underwear. When it was over, I didn’t bother to wait for Sarah. I went straight home with my exercise books shielding the stain.

  Everyone must have wondered why I had my two hands at my backside, walking like a principal inspecting rows of students to ensure that none was barefoot instead of wearing sandals. All the way home, I felt as if the ground should suddenly cave in beneath my feet and cover up after I had dropped inside.

  But I was luck
y.

  Rifkatu stood up to answer a question in class last month, unaware that her dress was soiled. Everyone stared. Some boys giggled.

  She has not been back in school since.

  Pastor Moses

  AS THE WOMAN WITH the light mustache leads the entire congregation of Christ the King Church in praise and worship to God, my eyes wander from pew to pew. Her daughter, Magdalene, who is a class ahead of me in school, was also chosen to sit for the scholarship exam.

  With each fresh song she raises, my voice sings, my hands clap, my waist jiggles. But my mind is searching.

  Searching for someone special.

  After we are hoarse from singing and drenched from dancing, Pastor Moses mounts the stage. He stands quietly for a while, then clears his throat and begins his sermon.

  “Our scripture reading is taken from the book of James, chapter one, verse two. And I read: ‘My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.’”

  Those in the congregation who are literate, those who can afford Bibles, those who received free Bibles from the Believers’ LoveWorld evangelists that visited our village last Christmas, turn to the prescribed chapter and follow his words with their eyes. The rest look at his lips and listen.

  Sarah believes that her father’s goat must have consumed her own free Bible when she forgot it on their veranda after church two Sundays ago, so I shift closer to her and place mine open on our laps.

  “As a Christian, you have Jesus Christ living in you,” Pastor Moses says. “This makes you a victor in life, irrespective of what you pass through. You’re unconquerable. Every challenge you pass through is just a springboard to your next level of glory, no matter how dire the situation.”