She was back home.
The air was rich and heavy with the smell of wet earth. Bubel sat just outside the hut, laughing and splashing his tiny feet in a puddle of muddy water that had formed where the compound floor dipped. His giggles rose and fell with the tapping of rain against the palm-thatched roofs.
Borogie stepped out of the hut, shielding her eyes from the rain with one hand as she moved to check the pans and gourds placed strategically beneath the thatched eaves to catch the runoff. Most were filled to the brim, glistening like little silver pools. A few had been knocked over by the mischievous wind that whipped through the compound during the heaviest downpour earlier. She bent to rearrange them, her bare feet slipping slightly on the slick earth.
Overhead, the sky churned with dark, towering cumulonimbus clouds, pregnant with more rain, rumbling gently like a sleeping giant. The air felt expectant, as if the whole world were holding its breath.
Inside the hut, the scene was a portrait of childhood innocence. Matou, Nata, and little Khadjel were seated at the far corner, their small bodies curled around a cowhide mat. Beside them, a kerosene lamp flickered uncertainly, casting long, warm shadows against the mud walls.
Their game of choice was simple but fiercely competitive: molding three rounded lumps of damp sand, hiding a cowrie shell inside one of them, and challenging the others to guess where it was.
“Where do you think it is?” Matou asked, a mischievous grin tugging at the corners of her mouth as she flattened the last lump.
Nata pursed her lips, her sharp eyes darting between the molds. “Here!” she said confidently, tapping the middle one.
Matou sighed dramatically as the shell was revealed under the exact mold Nata had pointed to. “You’re cheating!” she cried, pushing Nata’s shoulder playfully.
“I’m not!” Nata retorted, laughing. “You just make it too easy to read your face.”
“You always win!” Matou protested, her lower lip trembling with frustration. Her competitive streak was as fierce as her spirit.
“Because I’m smart,” Nata teased, leaning over and ruffling Matou’s hair. “And older than you all.”
Khadjel giggled, clapping her tiny hands. Even at four, she knew enough to side with Nata to avoid Matou’s pouty protests.
Outside, in the small lean-to kitchen, Nenneh Dado crouched over a stubborn fire. The persistent rains had soaked the firewood, making it nearly impossible to keep a steady flame. She blew into the smoldering embers until her eyes watered from the smoke, coughing and wiping her face with her sleeve. Every so often, she would stumble out into the open air, blinking furiously to clear her vision before diving back in.
At the veranda, Yerro and his uncle, Ousman Bah, sat cross-legged, discussing the season’s harvest with animated gestures. The air was filled with the hopeful talk of groundnut yields, millet, and maize, fueled by the endless rains. Even with the gray gloom all around, their spirits were buoyant.
“We might finally have a bumper harvest this year, Inshallah,” Yerro said, nodding.
“If the rain doesn’t wash everything away first!” Ousman Bah laughed, shaking his head. “The heavens are too generous sometimes!”
Borogie chuckled from where she stood, realigning the gourds. It was an ordinary day, the kind of day that filled a child’s memory with the illusion that the world would always be the same.
And then it happened.
At first, it sounded like thunder — a low, angry rumble that seemed to roll up from the ground itself rather than fall from the sky. The earth shuddered. Dust drifted down from the hut’s ceiling.
“Run! Run outside all of you!” Ousman Bah shouted from the veranda, leaping to his feet. His voice was sharp, urgent, slicing through the air like a knife.
From where she stood Borogie screamed, “Matou! Nata! Khadjel! Come out — NOW!” She darted forward, snatching Bubel from the muddy puddle without a second thought, clutching his tiny, trembling body close to her chest.
The girls bolted from the hut on instinct, the terror in their mother’s voice propelling them forward. Their bare feet slapped against the wet earth as they fled. Nenneh Dado staggered from the kitchen, coughing and wiping her eyes, grabbing Khadjel by the wrist and dragging her along.
Matou stumbled as she ran but felt Nata’s hand push firmly against her back, urging her onward. In moments, the entire family and their neighbours had huddled under the massive mango tree that stood proudly at the edge of the compound, its thick branches providing a trembling shelter from the misty rain.
Then they turned to watch.
The hut — the heart of their home — shuddered once more. A deep, jagged crack split along the mud walls, widening like a yawning mouth. With a slow, agonising groan, one side of the roof caved inward. Another moment, and the rest of it collapsed in a heavy, final heap, sending a spray of wet mud and broken reeds into the air.
Nothing could be done. The force of nature was beyond any human hand.
Matou’s breath caught painfully in her chest. Her legs buckled, and she fell to her knees in the mud, letting out a wail so raw it tore through the drizzle and into the heavens.
Her siblings sobbed around her, little Khadjel clinging desperately to Nenneh Dado’s legs, Bubel crying in Borogie’s arms. Even the adults — Yerro, Ousman Bah — stood in stunned silence, their faces slack with disbelief and helplessness.
The home that had cradled their laughter, their quarrels, their love — gone, just like that.
The rain softened to a mist, as if the sky itself mourned with them.
Borogie crouched down beside her children, pulling them close, her arms trembling. “We are safe,” she whispered over and over, her voice breaking. “We are safe. Alhamdulillah.”
But even as she spoke, the words rang hollow against the magnitude of their loss.
Matou clung to her mother’s soaked wrapper, her body wracked with sobs. She didn’t understand how the world could betray them so suddenly, how the ground under their feet could give way, how a house full of memories could become a heap of rubble in mere seconds.
She was cold, wet, heartbroken. And for the first time in her young life, she tasted the bitterness of despair — the bone-deep realisation that safety, home, and happiness were as fragile as the mud walls they had once believed would protect them.
Through her tears, she thought of her cowrie shell, safely tucked in the pocket of her wrapper. She thought of Nata’s teasing, Bubel’s giggles, Khadjel’s clumsy games, Borogie’s soothing songs, Yerro’s booming laughter.
Would they ever be the same again?
Matou didn’t know. All she knew was the ache in her heart, the cold rain soaking her to the bone, and the image of their broken home, crumbling silently into the earth.
And then she opened her eyes. Standing over her, looking big and menacing was Aunty Bae. “What does it take to wake you up, little wench. It’s morning and there is a lot of work to do in the house before you head to school,” she spoke angrily.
Matou jolted awake with a start, her cheeks damp from the dream that clung to her like mist. For a moment, she lay still, disoriented, the collapse of their family hut still vivid in her mind — the sound of the cracking mud walls, the cries of her siblings, her mother’s arms around her. But as her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the unfamiliar room, reality settled in.
It had all been a dream.
A dream so real that her heart still raced.
Slowly, she slid her hand into the folds of her wrapper, feeling for the familiar shape. Relief flooded her when her fingers closed around the cowrie shell Nata had given her. It was still there, her talisman, her link to home. She pressed it tightly to her chest, murmuring a silent prayer of thanks.
Then, carefully, she rose. Just as her mother Borogie had taught her, she folded the thin piece of cloth she had slept on — each movement neat and precise, despite the stiffness in her limbs from sleeping on the cold tile floor. The other children remained asleep on the bed, sprawled across each other in deep, peaceful slumber, unaware of the small girl moving quietly around them.
Aunty Bae was already waiting by the door. Without a word, she motioned for Matou to follow her outside. The sky was still wrapped in the heavy darkness of early dawn, the air cool and sharp. Crickets chirped from the hedges, and somewhere in the distance, a rooster gave a tentative crow.
In the faint glow of the streetlamp, Aunty Bae handed Matou a broom — an old one, worn at the bristles — and pointed towards the backyard.
“Sweep everything,” she ordered in a low voice. “I want it spotless before you head to school.”
Matou swallowed hard and nodded. She had never swept such a large area before. Back home, the sweeping was confined to their small compound, and even then, she had done it alongside Nata. Now, facing the vast expanse of uneven ground alone, her small body seemed even smaller.
Still, she got to work, dragging the broom across the earth, raising small puffs of dust and damp leaves with each stroke. Her arms ached, her back soon throbbed, but she did not complain. She dared not complain…
To be continued.
