The journey to Bakau felt long. At the beginning, Matou was too excited to feel the passage of time. She had never been in a private car. The Peugeot, owned by the Owenses, was the car in 1960s and ’70s Gambia — solid, shiny, and prestigious, the kind of car you saw parked outside government buildings or driven by important-looking men in sunglasses.
This one was a pale green beauty with a long, sleek body and chrome bumpers that winked in the sunlight. The seats were stiff and hot beneath her legs, the vinyl squeaking whenever she shifted her weight. Matou sat upright, her back barely touching the seat, her wide eyes flitting from the small round mirror perched on the front fender to the dashboard dials she didn’t understand. Everything smelled faintly of fuel and leather polish, with the occasional waft of someone’s perfume clinging to the breeze from the half-cracked window.
There was a radio — an actual radio! — tucked into the center of the dashboard, humming with static and the far-off voice of a newsreader on Radio Gambia. It was the first time she had heard a voice inside a car, not coming from a person. The idea of it thrilled her.
Matou was marvelled. The steering wheel looked enormous to her, like something from a ship. The driver, Mrs Owens husband, shifted gears with a confident flick of his wrist, the stick mounted on the steering column. The car seemed to glide over potholes she was used to hopping over barefoot.
She didn’t say much, but her heart was a loud drumbeat in her chest. To be in this car, going to that house in Bakau, was like stepping into a new world.
But as the excitement settled, so too did the reality of what she was leaving behind.
She gazed out the window, quietly watching as the familiar landscapes of Jeshwang faded into the distance. The sandy roads lined with nymth trees, the compound gates painted in fading colors, the quiet chatter of neighbours sitting on low stools under mango trees—it all felt like a dream slipping through her fingers.
She was leaving the only home she had ever known.
There, in that modest compound, her whole world had unfolded. She remembered curling up beside her mother on the mat during long rainy afternoons, the warmth of her body, the soft humming of old Mandinka songs as the neighbours shelled groundnuts or pounded millet and corn. Her mother’s love was like breathing itself—so natural, so constant, it never needed explaining. It was the kind of love that wrapped around you like a lappa on a cold night. Her mother, Borogie, with her tired but kind eyes, had been her anchor in everything.
Matou’s father, Yerro, had a temper that stormed in without warning, but for reasons Matou never understood, it seldom landed on her. While her siblings ducked and held their breath when his voice rose, Matou often found herself shielded by a strange tenderness he reserved only for her. He would ruffle her hair, carry her on his arms when the family went to visit relatives, and call her “my small heart” when no one was listening. She had never been beaten, hardly even scolded. Perhaps it was because she reminded him of a part of himself that no longer lived, or maybe, she was his quiet redemption.
She loved him still. Fiercely. Even when she didn’t understand him.
Then there was Nata, her older sister, barely a teenager herself, yet already the thread that held the family’s frayed corners together. Nata was calm when everyone else panicked. She cooked when their mother was too tired, coaxed smiles from Bubel when he cried, and knew exactly what to say when Papa was about to erupt. Matou adored her. To her, Nata wasn’t just a sister. She was safety, a small mother, a keeper of peace. Saying goodbye to her had been the hardest part.
She had done so the night before.
“I’d miss you so much, our little hope of sunshine,” Nata had whispered in the dim light, just as the sounds of the compound had quieted down and the last kerosene lamp flickered in the corner. Matou lay curled beneath the thin cotton sheet they shared, her back to Nata, pretending to be fast asleep. But her heart throbbed at the words.
Nata had thought she was asleep.
A soft smile crept onto Matou’s face, the kind that comes when love is too big for words. She kept her eyes shut, letting the warmth of her sister’s voice wash over her. It was a goodbye wrapped in affection, tucked neatly between the lines of a whisper.
Then she couldn’t resist. “What did you say, our Nata?” she murmured back, her voice groggy with fake sleep, yet trembling with emotion.
There was a pause. A long, loaded pause.
“Oh… nothing,” Nata replied, her voice cracking just a little, sadness spilling into the quiet.
Matou turned to face her then. Their eyes met in the dark, glistening with unshed tears. No more words were needed. They lay that way for a long time, shoulder to shoulder, hands lightly touching, breathing in the last night they would share under the same roof.
For all her quiet strength and maturity beyond her years, Nata was still just a girl. But in Matou’s eyes, she was invincible — her sister, her second mother, her confidante, the one who patched scraped knees and broken hearts with equal tenderness. In that moment, Matou realised just how much of her courage came from knowing Nata was always there.
And now, she wouldn’t be.
She thought of little Bubel, whose giggles filled the compound like birdsong. He followed Matou everywhere, holding her skirts, copying her words, sometimes even crying when she left to fetch water. And her sister Khadja Bobo, always strapped to someone’s back, with her big round eyes blinking up at the world as if it all belonged to her. She was older than Bubel, but she acted like the baby of the family.
Would they forget her? Would they wonder where she went, or cry for her in the night?
Her life, as she knew it, was behind her now.
As she turned to watch Mr and Mrs Owens — her sponsors — each seated quietly in the front, and their four children huddled beside her in the back seat, she felt a tug of nostalgia that even her excitement could not mask. She realised, for the first time, that she was a stranger among strangers. Smiles had been exchanged, names learned and repeated, but none of them knew her story, her laughter, her fears.
She was being welcomed, yes, but she did not belong. Not yet.
Outside, the streets of Bakau buzzed with a rhythm different from Jeshwang. Market women called out from under their umbrellas, children chased tyres with sticks, and men huddled in groups, arguing over football and politics and whatever… The houses were closer together, many of them bigger, brighter, with iron gates and wooden windows that refracted the morning sun. Matou marvelled at the shops with printed signs, the tar roads, the fast pace of it all. It was a world she had only heard about in bits and pieces — from visiting uncles or passing travellers who spoke of Bakau as if it were a kingdom of opportunity.
She was heading into that kingdom now, dressed in her best clothes, her hair oiled and neatly parted, clutching the little raffia bag Borogie had sewn for her. Inside it, tucked beneath a folded wrapper, was a large cowrie shell Nata had given her, with the words: “Don’t forget who you are.”
She repeated the words over and over.
The Owens family was kind when she visited their home previously. Mr Owens, a tall, broad-shouldered man with glasses that slid down his nose, had spoken gently to her during their first meeting. Mrs Owens, dark-skinned and soft-spoken, had smiled a lot, though Matou sensed she was not easily read. The children were all close in age, except for the eldest, – polite, and curious. But they didn’t speak Fula or Mandinka, her newly adopted language. They laughed at things she didn’t find funny. They were kind, yes, but different. Everything about this new life was different.
Matou pressed her forehead against her tiny hands, letting it cool the rising heat of her thoughts. She watched as the car slowed near a roundabout where a boy no older than Bubel ran barefooted across the street. Her heart squeezed and she gasped loudly.
“You okay?” Mrs Owens turned from the front seat, her voice breaking Matou’s thoughts.
Matou nodded silently.
She wanted to speak, to say something, anything — but her voice was tangled in the lump in her throat. She looked down at her hands instead. They were small, calloused from chores, but they trembled now with something she couldn’t name.
She didn’t know it then, but that car ride marked the start of a journey far greater than the miles between Jeshwang and Bakau. It was the beginning of letting go, of growing up, of shaping herself in the forge of new experiences.
That day, she left behind a life of familiarity for one of possibility.
And though the road ahead would bring loneliness, lessons, and transformation, a part of her heart would always remain in the dusty compound of Jeshwang — with her parents, with Nata, with Bubel and little Khadja Bobo.
Because love, as Matou would come to learn, never really let’s go. It only stretches across distance, waiting to be remembered…
To be continued.
