July 2010
My eyes are blurred by something white. Small sponge like particles. I don’t have the strength to take them off. And every time I blink, these white particles move to the corners of my eyes. Light shines through my blurred vision as I see a lady open the curtains of a small window. She picks me up from a soft sheet crib and takes me in her arms. She wipes my face with wet warm cloth and starts singing as she places me in a bucket of warm water. With her soft hands she runs water through my face, my baby hands and feet. I smile as her hands tickle my belly and her beautiful singing voice soothes me. She is singing in a language I do not recognize, but it’s as southing as if each word was in my native tongue.
She smiles at me, tickles my nose and softly runs her hand through my small curled baby hair.
She takes me into her arms again, wraps me with her clothes, a long colorful wrapping. “I love you” she says kissing my forehead.
I hear her say it in another language, but for some reason I understand, in English. Everything she says is directly translated in my head. Like when watching a documentary from a foreign country. The actual interviewee speaks the foreign language in the background while the translator speaks English over the interviewee’s voice. But even better, I don’t hear a voice translating in English. I just hear the other language and completely understand it in English.
I would love to make more sense of the language situation but this language is the least of my worries. My main concern is how I got here, in a baby’s body, in some unknown place, in the arms of a stranger.
The woman dresses me up in a brand new colorful outfit that she unwrapped from a golden package. When I’m dressed and ready, she passes me into the arms of a man. A tall and strong man who takes me outside where the sun is brightly shining and the air is a little misty.
Our presence ignites a celebration. There are about a hundred people outside. Some start playing drums and others start dancing in a circle. The man places me in the arms of another woman. A lot older than the first woman I saw. She has a crown on her head as well. But her crown is bigger than the one of the man. Beautiful colorful ornaments flow from the top of her head down to her forehead. Her ornaments have different triangular and circular shapes. She looks very beautiful in her natural black afro hair and her dark brown silky skin. Her brown eyes glow in the sun and her smile makes her whole face radiate with beauty. I look at her eyes in hopes of understanding where I am and why I am where I am, but all her eyes tell me is that it is a happy day and she is happy.
Turning my head to face the crowd dancing for joy confirms that she is not the only happy person. Colorful clothes are wrapped around the heads of the women and girls and they have on dresses with red and black colors. Men and boys are in red and black pants with colorfully patterned shirts and on their heads are colorful small crowns.
They are all dancing and radiating huge smiles from their faces. Uniform in their dancing, they make amazing footwork, they use their hands to make loud claps, and they also use their mouths to sing songs in harmonious tunes. The singing is loud and the sounds seems to carry far away. They raise their voices to sing louder to the beat of the distinct sounds made by the drums and the many instruments of different shapes. I don’t understand what they’re saying or why they’re doing what they’re doing but it is quite enjoyable.
All of a sudden, they all make two rows. The woman holding me stands and starts walking and dancing simultaneously. On each side, she is escorted by a row of men and women.
She heads to a big open tent where more people, wearing the same ornaments as her, seat, clapping and singing along with the rest of the crowd. There are about thirty or more people sitting under the tent. One of them, an old man wearing the biggest crown, is sitting on a decorated wooden chair at the center of the crowd. There are bigger circular and triangular ornaments falling from his crown to his forehead. He is dressed like all the other men but the crown makes him stand out as the leader.
Surrounding him are men and women who have smaller crowns and different shaped ornaments dangling over their foreheads. There are also children in the group, girls dressed like the women in the group and boys wearing the same pattern clothes as the older men. The children are also wearing small crowns with triangular and circular ornaments flowing down their foreheads. On the right of the leader is another decorated wooden chair. But it is empty. On his left, sits the man who took me outside. On the right of the empty chair is sitting the woman who bathed and dressed me. She’s now all dressed up with the crown on her head.
The older woman, holding me, positions herself in front of the old man; she bows and holds me out to him. Music and dancing cease as the old man stands and takes a few steps toward us. Everything becomes silent, not even a bird is chirping. A man in the tent walks to the old man’s side, holding a golden cloth. He opens it to let show a brand new small crown with circular and triangular ornaments.
“Let us all celebrate, my people let us celebrate,” the old man shouts.
“Let us celebrate the coming of a new member of our community. A new member in my son and daughter’s family. A new royal blood.” He picks up the small crown from the cloth and lifts it for all to see.
“We bless you daughter. And welcome you as a gift of life from God to our community. May you grow in strength, intelligence, determination and love!” he adds before he takes me in his arms and places the crown on my head. As soon as he is done placing the crown on my head, a loud noise, of what seems to be a scream, comes from a woman in the crowd. Following her long scream, all the other women join her in doing the same thing. Drums pick up in rhythmic bam-bam and music starts again and dancing follows. The king walks to the woman who bathed me about two hours ago.
“Your daughter, Maisha.” he tells her as she takes me into her arms and kisses my head.
The party goes on all day long. Food is served in abundance. An immense variety of meat, vegetables, fruits and dishes I have never seen, eaten or heard of before.
Drama and storytelling follow the eating. Ancestral stories of great conquests and years of prosperity and the great people that made everything happen. As I watch the audience, some know the stories word from word. Others can’t wait for the next word to reveal another great mystery. Children find the closest seating space at the front for a better view of the actors, the teller and the different props used to enhance the beauty of each story.
After five stories, music and dancing bring everyone back to their feet, singing more celebration tunes. At that point I am too stuffed and tired to continue to watch the dancing and care for more singing. I zone out into my presumed mother’s arms, looking up at her smiling face and her gentle touch as she gently rocks me to sleep.
“I dreamed for the first time in a very long time and my mind couldn’t forget what I had seen in the dream,” I tell Dieudonné. “I couldn’t explain it. It was odd, surreal but a dream nonetheless.”
“Too bright” are the two words that come out of my mouth as I try to make sense of where I am this time. Bright white lights, not like the sun I previously saw. There wasn’t any light bulb where I was a moment ago. Only the sun, a few oil torches. And the sun to brighten the day and the moon the night. But these lights are very bright, from every corner of wherever I am.
I can’t be in heaven. What is happening?! I open my eyes a bit wider and all I can see is very bright light.
“Too bright” I say a little louder to get someone’s attention. Anyone who can help me understand what is going on.
“Lod” a voice calls out. Then I feel the tight grip on my left hand. I look to my left and despite the blinding light, I see someone place a kiss on my forehead. I recognize the gentle touch.
“Mom” I say as I smell the distinct perfume on her clothes and see her smiling face fixed on me.
“The lights are too bright, mom” I tell her. I close my eyes. As mom tries to walk away to fix the light, I tighten my grip to keep her from moving.
&nb
sp; “Don’t leave me” I say desperately.
“I’m right here, baby, I’m not going anywhere,” she says as I open my eyes again.
“Help, someone,” she shouts to the nurse in the hallway.
When the nurse lowers the brightness of the light, I see my crying mother still holding my left arm and kissing it. The nurse walks to the other side of the bed and checks my pulse and every other machine connected to my body.
“You were in a coma for the past week,” mom says. I can tell that she’s also listening to what the nurse is saying about how I’m doing. I rely on mom’s words to make sense of what has happened since I can’t hear the nurse standing on my right. Speaking in my right ear, my bad ear.
“The nurse is saying that you are doing much better. You’ll be fine, you need more rest.” mom says gently rubbing my forehead.
It is reassuring that I’ll be fine but I can’t seem to understand why my body contradicts what the nurse is saying. I feel completely fine, stronger than ever before. I feel like walking off this bed, running and playing soccer. Playing soccer; the thought invades my senses. Everything begins to make sense. Soccer. The World Cup. South Africa. Dad.
“Dad?” I ask out loud as my words solve the riddle jumbled in my head. Mom’s eyes start watering as soon as I mention dad.
“Your father….my husband” she says and breaks down, crying.
“What happened?” I ask confused.
“I’m sorry Lod,” Uncle Mike says. I turn to the door and see him next to his wife Defie. Aunty Defie starts crying. Mom walks to her and they hug each other. I sit up to make sense of everything. The nurse leaves the room.
It hits me, the memory of the bus. The burning bus. I survived, someone else survived, but it was not dad. My eyes get filled with tears. Uncle Mike sits on my bed and hugs me.
No, not my dad, I whisper to myself.
“No!” I scream as I hit Uncle Mike on the chest.
“Que ce que je donnerai pour avoir ma famille de nouveau,” Dieudonné says in a wishful tone. “Some months after losing them, I began to give God a few of my reasons why I should have my family back; reasons for God to change the past. I felt like Abraham bargaining with God over an unalterable past. I had reason why each member of my family should have survived.”
“Like what reasons?” I asked intrigued.
“I told God that my parents served him and that was enough to save them.” he explains.
“After the missionaries preached in your village, and won everyone to Christ; they chose your parents to lead the small church. One day your father came back from the city after becoming a Christian and led your whole family to Christ.”
“I told God that he should change the past and save my parents because they served him. After missionaries preached in our village and because my entire family lived right and loved people; we should have all survived so we could continue to do the same. Especially now that the moment desperately asked for loving and caring people like my family and I. My older brother Jeff,
I feel weak and extremely vulnerable as if my only strength, dad, drains out of me. Forever. It is such a bad feeling.
How am I supposed to live without him?!Losing him after such a memorable time is unfathomable.
“This first dream, as inexplicable as it might have been, was a sign of change. Adding to it, dad’s inexplicable death definitely showed that my life would never be the same.” I tell Dieudonné as I try not to cry.
“You know, I actually thought that my father would live forever. He had made that kind of impact on me,” I say. “I always looked forward to seeing him at my college and Barcelona games, cheering like the soccer fanatic he was. I always imagined him at my wedding with the biggest smile on his face and the coolest moves on the dance floor.”
Dieudonné smiles as I pass him another puzzle price that he places another puzzle piece at the right spot.
“He was a great dancer,” I joke. “And plus he was talented in changing diapers. I always hoped that he would be there to help me with that. He was really that kind of man. Strong, determined, loving, multitalented, overachieving and sometimes awkwardly funny”
“It must have been hard losing him.” Dieudonné expresses.
“It was hard to live knowing that my father wouldn’t be around to experience all those things with me. But for some reason I was doing fine with the changes that were taking place in my life.” I say.
“What happened next?” Dieudonné asks.