The Interlude #WattysShorts

Chapter 2

My mother woke me up at the bus stop. One of the passengers was helping her put the big green bag on her head. She took my hand to climb the hills surrounding the valley where my aunt lived.

"Can you hear?" my mother said. "The birds announcing sunset are already singing. We have to hurry before night finds us on the road."

Then something unexpected happened that made us hurry and walk even faster: fear and dread could be seen on the faces of everyone we met. They would retreat and hide in the bushes or thickets that lined the road, shouting things that we couldn't understand.

As we passed by, they would abandon their bicycles, baskets, goods and run frantically towards the woods. The shops pulled their shutters, the villagers locked themselves in their houses. Faced with this strange attitude, I wondered what unusual adventure my mother had taken me on. Apparently everyone was afraid of us. The stay promised to go well....

From time to time, my mother would stop and watch the sunset, calculating the moments of light we had left before it was completely dark. She was moving so fast that I would trot behind her all the time. On her rare breaks, I would take advantage of the time to get ahead of her and rest a little. I was exhausted from this long, endless wandering. I was exasperated by this expedition. After climbing up and down several hills, we finally came to a flat path.

We entered a rugo where two adobe brick houses were built. In front of the first one sat a toothless old lady with milky eyes chewing tobacco and holding a stick in her right hand. She did not respond to our greeting and did not seem afraid of our coming. Had she even seen us? We went on to the other house with the door and windows painted black. Everything was closed. There was no living soul. My mother put the bag on the floor and knocked on the door gently, then violently.

"Alice, Pierre, are you there? It's me, Anita. Open the door for me!"

After some commotion, three people came out of the house: a woman wearing a red scarf over a long shapeless yellow dress and a loincloth covering her shoulders, followed by a little girl dressed in an old dress with frayed hems and a man dressed in a jacket and torn trousers down to mid-calf length. It was my Uncle Pierre, his daughter Christine and his wife Alice. The two sisters fell into each other's arms, hugged each other for a long time, talking and crying at the same time. Aunt Alice lifted me up into the air, shouting her joy to see us alive.

Suddenly, the courtyard was invaded by dozens of people out of nowhere. All of them, men and women, rushed to greet my mother. The women were ecstatic about her beautiful, soft, shiny skin. I doubted it because we were covered with red dust from head to toe, unrecognizable except for the dashing... My cousin Christine stretched out the mats to welcome all these people. The men sat on one side and the women on the other.

Uncle Pierre brought a large jug of banana wine and distributed the wine in small cups. Everyone was happy. The men rubbed their hands together and the women chuckled discreetly, a loincloth covering their mouths. The arrival of the native child gave the opportunity to feast. A man in a brown jacket entered the courtyard. He seemed to be important because the other men stood up to greet him respectfully, putting their left hand under their right arm and lowering their head slightly. It was the Nyumbakumi, the village chief.

Uncle Peter brought him a chair and offered him a Primus, an industrial beer. The guests asked my mother about her prosperous life in the city. I took the opportunity to flee into the house because I couldn't stand being touched, touched, touched and pulled by women. I was tossed from one arm to the other like a common rag. It took me a while to get used to the darkness there.