The last day of school never seemed to end.
The morning lessons were little more than formalities. Even the teachers understood that books had already lost the battle against anticipation. Exercise books lay open, but few pupils wrote more than their names. The younger children fidgeted endlessly, while the older ones spoke in whispers about villages, grandparents, cousins and mangoes already ripening in distant compounds.
Outside, the sky had changed colour.
The heavy clouds that had been gathering for weeks now stretched from one horizon to the other like great grey blankets pulled across the heavens. Every now and then a breeze swept through the classroom, carrying the unmistakable smell of damp earth before the rain. The first storms were close.
Matou barely heard the lessons.
Her eyes wandered constantly towards the windows.
Beyond the classrooms.
Beyond Bakau.
Beyond the roads she knew.
Beyond everything.
To Farato.
For days she had been counting backwards.
Ten days left.
Three days left.
Two.
One.
Now there was nothing left to count.
Home waited.
When the final bell rang, the compound exploded into noise.
Children poured from every classroom carrying slates, books, bags made from flour sacks, baskets, old satchels sewn by mothers whose hands had become expert at making something from nothing.
Some shouted.
Some ran.
Some cried because they would miss their friends.
Others laughed because they would soon be climbing mango trees instead of reciting multiplication tables.
Matou stood quietly for a moment.
She looked once at the classroom.
The wooden desks.
The chalkboard.
The windows.
The place where so much of her loneliness had slowly transformed into hope.
Then she picked up her little plastic bag.
It was all she owned.
Two wrappers.
Three dresses.
A faded school uniform.
One toothbrush.
A nearly finished tube of toothpaste.
Two pairs of pants carefully folded by Mrs. Owens.
An exercise book she intended to continue writing in during the holidays.
Nothing more.
Yet the bag felt rich.
Because it was travelling home.
Mrs. Owens walked her to the front verandah.
“You know the way?”
Matou smiled.
“I remember.”
Mrs. Owens adjusted the knot of the plastic bag in her hand.
“Behave yourself.”
“I will.”
“Greet your parents.”
“I will.”
“And tell Borogie we are grateful for the vegetables.”
“I will.”
There was an awkward pause.
The sort that comes between people who care for one another but have never quite learned how to say so.
Mrs. Owens finally rested a gentle hand on Matou’s unscarred cheek.
“Enjoy yourself.”
Matou nodded.
“Thank you.”
She meant it.
For everything.
And for everything she still struggled to forgive.
The Bakau garage was already alive.
Lorries stood waiting beneath clouds of dust.
Conductors hung from open doors shouting destinations.
“Banjul!”
“Serrekunda!”
“Brikama!”
“Sukuta!”
The smell of diesel mixed with roasted groundnuts, dried fish and ripe bananas.
Women balanced impossible loads upon their heads.
Children clung to mothers.
Men argued loudly over fares.
Goats bleated beneath seats.
Someone somewhere laughed so loudly that strangers turned to look.
The Gambia travelled on lorries.
Matou climbed carefully into the one heading towards Brikama.
She squeezed herself onto the wooden bench beside an old woman carrying three chickens tied neatly by their feet.
The birds protested continuously.
“Don’t mind them,” the woman laughed.
“They complain before every journey.”
Matou smiled politely.
The conductor slapped the side of the vehicle.
The engine coughed.
Then roared.
Slowly the lorry lurched forward.
Bakau disappeared behind them.
As the road stretched westward, Matou rested both elbows on the wooden side of the vehicle.
She loved journeys.
Not because they were comfortable.
They rarely were.
The benches were hard.
Dust found every eye.
The sun entered from impossible angles.
But journeys gave her something else.
They gave her permission to imagine.
The wind lifted loose strands of her hair.
Villages drifted past.
Women pounding millet.
Children chasing tyres with sticks.
Old men sitting beneath baobab trees discussing politics and rain.
Goats wandering lazily across compounds.
Everything looked familiar.
Everything reminded her of somewhere.
Then suddenly—
Memory found her.
Farato.
Not the house.
Before the house.
Before there had been walls.
Before there had been rooms.
Only land.
She could still see it.
Bush everywhere.
Tall grasses brushing against her knees.
Wild shrubs.
Birds darting between branches.
The sound of insects hidden beneath thick vegetation.
She remembered holding Bubel’s hand tightly because snakes, adults said, preferred places like that.
She smiled.
Their father had stood in the middle of the land looking strangely emotional.
“This is ours,” he had whispered.
She had not understood why grown men became quiet over empty land.
To her it looked like every other bush.
But not to Yerro.
To him it was possibility.
She remembered Baa BocarJawo.
The village Alkali.
A dignified Fula elder with a white beard that moved gently whenever he laughed.
He had planted his walking stick firmly into the ground.
“From here,” he had said.
Then walked several paces.
“To there.”
Then further.
“And beyond.”
Yerro’s eyes had shone.
Borogie had smiled without speaking.
Nenneh Dado had begun calculating where the kitchen might stand.
The children—
They had simply run.
Everywhere.
Claiming imaginary bedrooms.
Imaginary trees.
Imaginary compounds.
“Mine!” Bubel shouted, standing beside a termite mound.
“No!” Khadjel protested.
“This side mine.”
“You can’t own bush.”
“I can.”
Matou remembered laughing until her stomach hurt.
The elders had arrived carrying cutlasses.
Axes.
Hoes.
Strong hands.
The first trees fell with deep cracking sounds that echoed through the bush.
Grass disappeared beneath swinging blades.
Sweat covered every face.
Yet no one complained.
They were not merely clearing land.
They were clearing tomorrow.
At that time there had been no discussion of building.
Only farming.
The soil had to prove itself first.
Only afterwards came the hut.
Only afterwards came permanence.
The lorry jolted violently over a pothole.
Matou returned to the present.
Passengers laughed.
One chicken escaped briefly before being caught again.
Someone began humming an old Mandinka song.
Clouds darkened further.
Rain would surely fall before evening.
The conductor announced each village loudly.
“Abuko!”
“Lamin!”
“Banjulinding junction!”
People climbed down.
Others climbed aboard.
The journey continued.
Matou’s thoughts drifted again.
To Khadjel.
She would not be home.
That thought saddened her slightly.
Only days before the holidays began she had discovered, quite by accident, that Khadjel now attended Bakau Nursery School.
She had met Demba Saidy near the market.
A distant cousin.
He had recognized her immediately.
“Matou!”
“Demba!”
“What are you doing here?”
“I school here.”
“So does Khadjel.”
The words had stunned her.
“Khadjel?”
He laughed.
“You don’t know?”
Minutes later she was standing outside the nursery classroom watching little children sing alphabet songs.
And there—
There was Khadjel.
Tiny.
Hair neatly braided.
Uniform slightly oversized.
Concentrating so seriously on repeating English words she barely noticed visitors.
Matou had cried afterwards.
Not from sadness.
From relief.
Her sister was learning.
Growing.
Safe.
From that day onwards, every school break became sacred.
She and Haddy and Yassin visited the nursery.
She carried groundnuts.
Sometimes half a bread roll.
Occasionally a piece of sugar cane.
Whatever she had.
She shared.
Always.
Watching Khadjel eat filled her with a satisfaction she struggled to explain.
She felt older beside her sister.
Protective.
Almost motherly.
Perhaps because nobody had protected her when she first entered the Owens household.
She silently promised herself that Khadjel would never feel alone at school while she was nearby.
Now—
She smiled.
Khadjel would remain in Jeshwang.
She would miss her.
But Bubel would be there.
Borogie.
Nenneh Dado.
Her father.
That thought filled the empty spaces.
The lorry slowed.
Busumbala.
Matou immediately sat upright.
Her heartbeat quickened.
Everything beyond this point belonged to memory.
She pressed closer to the open side.
Searching.
Watching.
Recognising.
Trees.
Footpaths.
Compounds.
Then—
There it was.
The great sedame tree.
Standing exactly where memory had left it.
Immense.
Patient.
Its branches spread like open arms over generations.
She almost laughed aloud.
“It is still there,” she whispered.
The old woman beside her looked puzzled.
“What?”
“Our tree.”
The woman smiled knowingly.
“Ah.”
Some trees become family.
The lorry moved on.
Soon Farato market appeared.
Small.
Busy.
Alive.
Women sold smoked fish.
Groundnuts.
Fresh cassava.
Children darted between stalls.
Men loaded bicycles with bonga.
Someone called greetings to another across the road.
Matou stood before the vehicle had fully stopped.
The conductor laughed.
“Easy, little sister.”
She barely heard him.
The moment they reached the nymph tree near AblieGurow’s compound—
She climbed down.
Plastic bag in hand.
The lorry pulled away in a cloud of dust.
She remained standing.
For one long moment.
Listening.
The wind.
Birds.
Voices she had almost forgotten.
Then she crossed the main highway carefully.
Looked both ways.
Just as Mrs. Owens had taught her.
On the other side began the narrow sandy road.
The road home.
Every step felt lighter than the last.
The path curved gently between scattered compounds.
Children played beneath mango trees.
Women pounded millet rhythmically.
Goats lifted lazy heads as she passed.
Further ahead—
She knew—
Beyond the bend.
Past the silk cotton stump.
Beside the cluster of young neem trees.
Her father’s house waited.
And somewhere inside it—
Without knowing—
Home was preparing to be surprised.
