Rahmani's daughter Adama

I walked to Israel Saturday night. I was late getting back from Garoua because of rain and walking (practically running) against the approaching dusk. I knew I couldn't make it all the way to Israel before dark (two hours walking) but I knew I could make it to the first Foulbe Ladde village, and there either ask to spend the night at the chief Bouba Rarou's house, hang out with his wife (who he told me speaks knows french!) and talk about trees, or else ask one of them to accompany me the rest of the way. When I got there I stumbled upon his fathers compound, and he told me Bouba had gone to Garoua with his wife who was sick. I talked to his father a while instead and he was very very nice, very sweet, sitting in a field by a fire, cooking something to drink. It is hard to find one's way around the villages now with the corn way over head high. He sent me on my way with one of the boys in his family and we arrived at Israel around twilight. A guy on the path told us Rahmani (one of my friends from that village, the most hospitable, outgoing and talkative Foulbe Ladde I've ever met, where I would be spending the night) had gone to the hospital because his daughter was sick but he would be back. By the time I got there and left my guide praying at the mosque, they were all back. I walked into the compound and Rahmani's wife was holding Adama their baby, two years old, who was crying loudly. They had taken her to the health center in Karewa where the doctors said it was malaria, as they do routinely, and had given her a shot. They came home. I thought perhaps the intense crying was because of the shot. There were quite a few people at the house and they had resorted to traditional remedies of I don't know what, but something cooked over fire, something from Nigeria. She had fallen sick abruptly around 4 pm. And wasn't getting better. After a while she stopped the crying and they laid her on the bed in their bedroom. Whereas the end of crying should have been a relief, in this case I think it was a turn for the worse. Throughout the night people came, mostly women, sitting with the mother. Young boys in groups also came around. Rahmani stayed outside mostly and maybe men came and stayed with him. Finally, after a while, I went to bed. The morning I came out, got up around 6:30 and the baby was still in bed. Her eyes were open, but were tracking back and forth, and she wasn't seeing or responding to people. There was always at least one older woman there, with the mother. I sat with them a bit longer and had nothing to say when they asked "What should we do, what sickness is it, does it happen like this in your country, what should we give her?" More people came by visiting and leaving. I went back to the "guest hut". One of the grandmothers was holding the baby, mother was getting water. And then I heard her start crying and came out of my hut and Adama had died. Just like that. It was over. So fast a life departs. It was about 8:30 am. The mother started keening and immediately women started coming. As soon as the women came within three feet of the room they started crying as well, and sometimes you could hear them coming through the village, approaching, crying. And so everyone hears the crying and comes and the news spreads through the village. And it was awful. Yet the solidarity. The fact that while she was sick, everyone came by, the whole village is there with you. And when she died the whole village was there--all the women sitting outside (and inside too) the hut for hours. The old women took her and bathed her behind the room. They undid her braids. They cut up a white sheet and had perfume too and they wrapped her in it. Finally after hours they took her to bury her, the mother and other women still in the hut. By the time I was leaving, around noon, the word was spreading and Mborroros from surrounding villages-Karewa, Lainde, Djeffatou, Ngong even, were arriving, meeting at the mosque to support the family. The morning would last a few days.
It was awful. And so many questions. What was the sickness? What do you do? So much feeling of powerlessness. They took her to the health center and still she died. What do you do? Dabare walla. Dabare walla.