broadcast

sala and i, the pulaar women and their toddlers and infants lie around after the late afternoon lunch. full of rice, vegetables, fish, and sweet, minty tea we fan ourselves with our books, our hands. they bring out a radio, wire tied where the antenna used to be. tuning, the 20-something mother of two turns up the volume. a male voice come on speaking rapid pulaar.

i brush a fly from my arm.

left over pieces of rice scatter the plastic mat, sticking to the bottoms of our calloused feet.

the voice speaks louder, with purpose. just faster than i can catch. but we listen anyway. the women coo to their children, quieting the tiring kids. one stares at the speakers as if to push the words back inside. stop the flow of sentences and phrases. statements, proclamations.

sala scratches a scabbing mosquito bite on her ankle.

the breeze, cooler than before, but still carrying the dregs of humidity from the rainy season, blows through the branches over head. it wisps our bangs from our ponytails, evaporates the sweat from our forearms and shoulders. drying leaves, some of them yellowed, drop casually from lower branches.

the woman lies on her side, holding her child close to her breast. her head scarf, haphazardly tied just minutes before, falls onto her shoulders. the toddler toys with the edges of her boubou, twisting it genty around her fingers. she pats the little girl's back. separated, somewhere else. she looks at the radio.

everyone is silent. only the nearby mosque call and crowing of roosters disrupts the silence that sits among us.

she looks up, the yellow leaves sparsely dropping, and when she glances back at the origin of the man's voice there are tears running down her cheeks. as the little girl snuggles close to her chest she grabs the corner of the shiny fabric resting across the back of her neck with her worn, coarse fingers and wipes them away.

the sound of the voice curls sharply through the air, foreign smoke polluting the still humid breeze, burrowing in so that even when she covered her pierced, stretched out ears with her salty scarf, the words leaked in.

"he died," the 10 year-old boy said to me.
"when?"
"last night," he said.

i turn my gaze back to the woman. another twin pair of tears fall gracefully from her eyes, down, dripping onto the mat. again, deliberately, silently, she wipes them away.

the voice stops, music plays and she closes her eyes.