LIFE STORY

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                   Rose Skelton                             I looked around my little house

When I came to say my goodbyes, I looked around my little house and thought, I will be really pleased not to sleep here again. I will be happy not to wake up caked in dust, happy not to have to search high and low for a pot to boil water in that does not have a hole in its bottom.
But when Papa called me into his room to say goodbye, it was very different. He clasped my left hand, the hand that Mandinkas say goodbye with because it's the hand of the heart, and said,

"Please tell your father that my health is fine, that we are all fine, and that I hope his health is fine. Please tell him that you have been a good daughter to us, and that you are a part of us, that we will miss you. Please tell him that."

I turned away and sobbed.  

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Rose Skelton west africa Notes              Did you hear that Moustapha took a second wife?

Monday, May 05, 2008
The fat man at the post office, the one who makes me cry, was animated this morning as he took a '75% tax payment' for my birthday present. He was nattering away to a young pretty woman standing behind him at Counter No. 8.

"Did you hear that Moustapha took a second wife?" he said in Wolof, eyes popping out of his fat head.

"Ah bon?" proclaimed the woman. She looked at me and laughed when she realised I understood what they were talking about.

"Yesterday they got married," he said. "Oh yes. That's what I want now, a second wife."

The woman looked once more at me and laughed. We both were thinking the same thing. You'll never find a woman stupid enough to be your second wife. But then, with so many tax payments in his desk drawer, it's quite possible he will.