By the time Ousman Bah made his choice, the town already knew. Choices like his rarely stayed private; they traveled on the backs of morning greetings and evening whispers, slipping through courtyards like smoke. Still, when it finally happened, when the marriage was announced and sealed, it landed with a weight that could not be softened by ritual or prayer.
Ousman married Kumba Wandianga’s daughter.
He called her Gidelam, a name he rolled gently on his tongue, as though naming her again might anchor the feeling she stirred in him. He was infatuated—there was no dignified word for it. In Gidelam, he saw what he believed life had denied him: calm without bitterness, youth without recklessness, respect without fear. She laughed easily, listened attentively, and moved through the world without the sharp edges that had cut him for years.
To Ousman, it felt less like betrayal and more like survival.
He did not leave Mbentoung Mballow. He did not cast her out or deny her name. In his mind, he followed the law, the custom, the precedent set by generations before him. Men like his nephew Yerro had more than one wife and were praised for their households, not condemned. Ousman told himself he was simply doing the same—seeking peace where it could still be found.
But Mbentoung did not see it that way.
For her, the second marriage was not a quiet addition; it was a public verdict. It said what words never could: you were not enough. It confirmed every fear she had fought, every insecurity she had disguised as anger, every wound she had tried to cauterize with pride.
When she heard the news, she did not scream. She did not rage. She did not insult.
She went quiet.
A quiet that frightened even herself.
Ten years earlier, she had arrived in The Gambia with hope tucked into her wrapper, believing that marriage—any marriage—would give her roots. She had stayed, endured, argued, schemed, softened, tried again. She had bent herself into shapes she did not recognise. And still, she stood childless. Still, she stood replaceable.
The shame came first.
Not the kind shouted across compounds, but the kind that sat in her chest, heavy and immovable. Women stopped meeting her eyes. Some pitied her openly; others masked satisfaction behind polite greetings. She heard it in the way her name was said now—lowered, shortened, followed by silence.
The first wife.
The barren one.
The difficult one.
And worse still, she felt abandoned not just by her husband, but by the version of herself she once believed in.
The anger returned, but it was tired now. It had no sharpness left. Only residue.
She went to Ousman one evening, her voice steady, almost formal. “I want to go,” she said. “Let me return home.”
He looked at her for a long time, surprised not by the request, but by the calm with which it was made. In that moment, he saw what he had not seen before—not a combative woman, not a bitter wife, but someone exhausted beyond repair.
“You are free to go,” he said quietly.
There was relief in his voice. That, more than anything, broke her.
She asked for a divorce.
Not because she suddenly believed in freedom, but because staying would require a humility she no longer possessed. She could not watch another woman live the life she had begged for. She could not share space with youth when her own time had slipped through her fingers unnoticed.
And so, Mbentoung Mballow returned to Fulladu—ten years after she had left it.
…………
For Nata, time did not move forward at all. It circled.
After the first stillbirth, grief had been sharp and singular. After the second, it became fear. By the third, it hardened into expectation. By the fifth, it was no longer grief—it was identity.
Five children. All carried to the eighth month. All born without breath.
Her body learned the pattern before her mind did. Every time her belly grew heavy, so did the dread. Every time the eighth month approached, her sleep thinned, her appetite vanished, her hands shook. The women whispered behind her back now with less caution. Some said her womb was closed. Others said it was angry. A few suggested that perhaps she had angered God in a former life.
One afternoon, a passing seeker—half mystic, half charlatan—looked at her palms and said softly, almost kindly, “You will never produce an heir with this man. Your bodies do not agree.”
The words lodged themselves in her chest like a truth she had always known but never dared to speak.
By then, Nata was eighteen—still young by years, but old in sorrow. Something in her shifted. The girl who had once lain silent on mats, swallowing pain, now began to speak. Quietly at first. Then with insistence.
She wanted out.
Her father, Yerro, would not hear of it. To him, her marriage was not merely a union—it was honor, continuity, obedience. Her refusal felt like betrayal. When she persisted, his anger erupted in ways that stunned even those who knew him well. Words turned to threats. Threats turned to beatings. At one point, he declared he would disinherit her entirely if she continued this madness.
But Nata did not bend.
She endured the punishments, the scoldings, the curses spoken over her head. She endured being called stubborn, ungrateful, possessed. For the first time in her life, she chose herself—not joy, not happiness, just survival. She wanted her body back. She wanted her nights back. She wanted to stop burying children she never got to name.
………
She listened more than she spoke. In school, she discovered that books offered a fairness life had not. She engrossed herself in fairytales. She excelled quietly. By Grade 6, courage bloomed in her chest. She asked—politely, carefully—if she might go home during the summer holidays.
Home!
But home had shifted.
The family no longer lived in Jeshwang in the way they once had. What had been open land when Yerro first settled there had slowly been swallowed by people—new houses rising where cassava once grew, footpaths cutting through what used to be quiet fields. Each year, the soil yielded less. Each year, Yerro walked farther to find space enough to plant. Jeshwang was becoming a place of walls and voices, no longer a place of breath.
Yerro saw it clearly, even if he spoke of it little.
One evening, as the light softened and the compound settled into its familiar rhythm, he spoke first to Borogie. She was sorting groundnuts, her hands moving automatically, her thoughts elsewhere. He sat opposite her, unusually quiet, watching the dust settle.
“This land is closing in on us,” he said at last.
Borogie looked up, startled more by his tone than his words. Yerro was not a man who announced doubts lightly.
“Closing in how?” she asked.
“There is no space anymore,” he replied. “Not for farming. Not for the children. Soon we will be planting between people’s feet.”
Borogie did not argue. She had felt it too—the way the garden shrank, the way neighbors built closer, the way disputes over boundaries multiplied. She had learned to read Yerro’s silences over the years, and this one carried resolve.
“You are thinking of moving,” she said, more statement than question.
“Yes,” he answered. “Somewhere with land. Somewhere the soil can still breathe.”
Borogie nodded slowly. Her first thought was of Matou, growing tall and clever in a house that was never fully hers. Her second was of Nata—how could she leave her behind. And then Khadja Bobo and Bubel. They were all growing up steadily. Their school was close by. Life had rhythm in Jeshwang.
“If we move,” Borogie said gently, “it must be for good. No half-decisions.”
Yerro met her gaze. “I don’t move my family twice.”
That was enough for her. Borogie had never feared labor or hardship. She feared stagnation more—the slow death of possibility. “Then it is right,” she said simply. “The children need room. And so do we.”
After Borogie, Yerro spoke to Nenneh Dado.
That conversation was harder.
Dado listened with folded arms, suspicion flickering across her face. She had grown comfortable in Jeshwang, comfortable with the nearness of people, the small advantages of proximity to town. Moving meant starting again—new neighbors, new hierarchies, new uncertainties.
“And leave all this?” she asked, gesturing around the compound. “To go where? Bush?”
“Not bush,” Yerro said evenly. “Land. Real land. For farming.”
Dado scoffed softly. “You always think like a farmer. What of the children? School? People?”
Yerro did not rise to the challenge. “Children grow better where their parents are not struggling,” he said. “And schools can be found. Hunger is harder to outrun.”
Dado studied him, searching for weakness. She found none. Over time, her resistance softened—not into enthusiasm, but into acceptance. She, too, had noticed the crowding, the tension, the way small disagreements escalated too quickly in tight spaces.
“If Borogie agrees,” she said finally, “then I will not stand in the way.”
That was as close to blessing as she would give.
Only then did Yerro approach his uncle, Ousman Bah.
He did not go lightly. Ousman was more than an elder; he was a gatekeeper of belonging. Jeshwang had been theirs through his generosity, his standing, his quiet authority. To ask to leave was also to ask for permission—to untie oneself without breaking respect.
Yerro greeted him properly, sat low, spoke slowly.
“Uncle,” he began, “this land has served us well. You have served us well.”
Ousman listened, his face unreadable.
“But it is no longer enough,” Yerro continued. “The soil is tired. The space is gone. My children are growing, and I cannot raise them on borrowed breath. I ask to move—not out of ingratitude, but out of necessity.”
There was a long pause.
Ousman sighed, a sound that carried years. He had seen Jeshwang change too—watched it swell, watched disputes grow sharper as space diminished. He understood farming. He understood pride. And he understood when a man spoke from reason, not restlessness.
“You have thought this through,” he said.
“Yes,” Yerro replied. “With my wives. With care.”
Ousman nodded slowly. “Then you are right.”
Relief loosened something in Yerro’s chest.
“You cannot farm where there is no land,” Ousman added. “And a man who knows when to move knows how to survive.”
He waved a hand gently. “Go. Find soil that will answer your work. Jeshwang will still know your name.”
And just like that, a chapter closed—not with drama, but with quiet understanding.
The family would move again.
But this time, they would not be chasing survival.
They would be planting it.
Ousman listened for a long time. He had his new wife. His own life had tilted into another shape. After much consideration, he agreed. He saw the logic in the request. Land was life. Congestion strangled both.
And so the family prepared to move again—carrying with them grief, unfinished marriages, children half-raised by absence, and women whose bodies remembered too much.
What none of them knew yet was this:
some lives break loudly.
others break quietly, over and over, until the breaking itself becomes a way of being.
And Part Three of Echoes of Fulladu would not be about beginnings.
It would be about what remains after hope refuses to die—but changes shape.
To all my dedicated readers, I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year, 2026!
To be continued…
