By Rohey Samba
Yerro woke up to the crow of the cock at dawn. For a moment, he lay still, his breath rising and falling with the hush of early morning. His ears strained to catch the sonorous voice of the muezzin from afar — a familiar call that sailed in each morning like a breeze of grace, perfusing the stillness with the eternal message: I am alive. Thank you, God. How many had not lived to see this day? Both of his parents died young. His siblings too; all but one. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, whispering his gratitude into the quiet.
Only one other sound accompanied the soft rustling of dawn: the rhythmic, unrelenting thud of the pestle, pounding millet in the mortar just outside the bedroom wall. It was a solitary sound, monotonous yet steady — the sound of his first wife, Borogie, beginning her day. She always rose before the birds, moved before the light cracked the sky. Even after everything, she remained dutiful.
His thoughts drifted, unbidden, back to the conversation they’d had the previous night. Or rather, to the few, deliberate words she had spoken. Borogie, always economical with language, had managed to slice through him with a single sentence. She didn’t need to say much. Her words came like a stone dropped into a still well — deep, echoing, impossible to ignore.
“Our daughter is not well, Yerro. They are breaking her spirit where she is, and she won’t survive if you don’t act.”
He lay in stunned silence, staring at the thatched roof where a patch of moonlight touched the dried turf. For a long time, he hadn’t said a word. What could he say? It wasn’t just the message that shattered him — it was who delivered it, and how.
Borogie never cried. She didn’t raise her voice. But there was something in the way her eyes dimmed as she spoke about Matou — their daughter, his beloved — that told him this wasn’t just concern. It was dry begging, a cry for him to be the man he once was. Or at least the man he could still become.
Their relationship had changed irreversibly since the day he had taken Dado as a second wife. That decision, unlike the one to marry Borogie, had been his and his alone. Borogie had been chosen for him — a convenient union between two linked families, sealed like a pact. She was given to him the same day his uncle Samba Mawdo made the suggestion. No courtship, no flirtation, no pretense. Just a nod and an acceptance.
She was more a sister than a stranger — they had grown under the same roof for a time, especially after the death of his own father. She had been part of the furniture of his life, and he had treated her as such — useful, dependable, but never quite romantic. The idea of love, of butterflies, of longing, had come much later, when he met Dado at the lumo in the village of Sarreh Yoba.
For the first time in his life, he had wanted something just for himself. He had been like a reed in the wind all his life, bent by the expectations of uncles, elders, and the long shadow of tradition. But Dado stirred something in him — a hunger that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with freedom.
He hadn’t told Borogie in advance. How could he? She was heavily pregnant at the time, with her third child. To tell her would have been like stabbing her in the heart. And yet, the silence was just as cruel …
That notwithstanding, who in their right mind would stand before their spouse and declare that he had chosen another — not out of obligation, but out of desire. He told himself it was better this way. Let the news reach her after the deed was done. Let her adjust to it slowly. Let time do the healing. But time, he later discovered, was no balm. It only deepened the cut. She never said so explicitly. But he knew.
Since then, Borogie had changed. Not dramatically. But in subtle and more painful ways. There were no arguments, no slamming of pots or curses under her breath. No dramatic tantrums like those he heard about from friends dealing with jealous first wives. Borogie simply retreated — quietly, thoroughly — into herself. She did what was required of her: cooking, cleaning, attending to the children. But she stopped being present. And it was that silence, not her words, that haunted him through the years.
He convinced himself that what he did was not wrong. Other men — men with less means, fewer resources, smaller hearts — had four wives and felt no remorse. He only had two. It was lawful. It was culturally accepted. It was, he argued with himself, his right as a Muslim man.
And yet, he could not escape the weight of her eyes each time they passed in the corridor. The way she withheld her smile. The way her back turned just slightly whenever he entered a room. She did not punish him with drama. She punished him with indifference.
Still, she had never let her bitterness spill over to the children. Especially not her children. If anything, she loved them more fiercely because of it — protected them in the quiet way women do, by shielding them from emotional cold winds, by making sure their hair was neat, their food warm… And now, Matou, their daughter was suffering because they chose to give her away to strangers, he and his uncle.
Yerro winced. Matou. His light. His joy.
Of all his children, Matou had his heart. She had his stubbornness, yes, but also his curiosity, his sense of wonder. She was the one who waited for him at the gate each evening, the one who recited her school poems with animated hands and bright eyes, even thought the language was strange. He had promised her everything — education, a better life, protection from the cruelties of their world. And yet, he had failed.
Borogie’s news hit him like a truck.
Yerro felt the walls closing in on him. Was this how his own father had felt when he failed to protect him? Was this the same helplessness?
No. He wouldn’t be helpless. He wouldn’t repeat the silence of his ancestors. This time, he would speak. He would act.
With a heavy heart but a clear resolve, he got up from the mat, careful not to wake the rest of the household. As he walked to the veranda, he noticed a basin of steaming water waiting near his prayer kettle. Borogie’s doing. She still cared for him in small ways, ways that didn’t require words. He never thanked her. He had long ago stopped knowing how. But he made silent prayers for her — that one day, her pain, especially the part he caused, would be eased by the goodness of her children.
He bathed quickly, dressed, and left for the mosque with quiet steps. The sky was now lilac, and the birds had begun to stretch their wings. The day was breaking.
After breakfast, he spoke briefly with his uncle, who was preparing for his shift as a school caretaker. They talked about the weather, the price of kerosene, the leaking roof in the mosque — all the things men talked about when they couldn’t say what was really on their minds.
Yerro bade him farewell and turned in the opposite direction of his usual work route. Today, he would not be going to the carpentry shed in Latrikunda, where he worked as an apprentice when the rainy season ended. Today, he would walk to Matou’s guardians and make his two cents known.
His steps were slow but firm. He was not here to plead. He was here to reclaim. To reclaim his daughter’s dignity, to reclaim the voice he had once forfeited in favor of tradition, obedience, and male pride. He would go and look into the eyes of the family who had made Matou feel small, and he would make it clear — my child will not be broken in this house.
He was no longer the young man who married out of duty. He was the father of a daughter whose spirit mattered more than the fear he felt of confrontation. He didn’t need to shout. He didn’t need to threaten. His presence alone would be enough.
The duality of being a man in 1970s Gambia — proud but poor, principled but constrained — often left him torn. He had little by way of money, but he had honesty. His word was his bond. He couldn’t build palaces for his children, but he would build them self-worth. That was something he could do.
So he walked, heart heavy but full of purpose, to do what should have been done long ago — to stand up for Matou, and in doing so, perhaps, begin to atone for all the years he had let things slide.
Because silence, as he now understood, was not strength. Sometimes, it was just another kind of surrender.
And today, he would not surrender.
To be continued…
