car.
My heart started to sink as they packed away the food. I had nursed the secret wish that they would leave the buffet for us. I had thought about pouring out the
ogbono
soup that filled our biggest pot, to accommodate the food. I had also thought about converting our aluminum bathing bucket into a temporary pot. Instead of letting anything go to waste, we could have poured everything into these two containers and stirred. As Fofo used to say whenever anyone was eating too many things at the same time, “Dem all
dey
enter de same stomach.” I could warm the food two or three times a day.
Yet I calmed myself down when Mama hugged me and said she would miss us, and Papa advised us to be studious and said that this evening was the beginning of good things to come. As Big Guy drove them away, I thought about the good work our parents were doing all over Africa.
I began to feel guilty for being greedy and wanting to keep all the food, when they needed to feed other children. I was ready to cooperate with Papa and Mama, to be as cheerful about our prospects as Antoinette was. I didn’t like the trouble Paul was giving our benefactors and hoped that he wouldn’t vomit at their next stop. I didn’t understand that it was natural for someone from the desert to react that way to the sea, and I was upset that he had embarrassed our parents. I thought even Yewa, the youngest of us children, comported herself better than he did.
That night, it wasn’t too strange when Fofo Kpee started calling us Pascal and Mary. The next day, he came to our school and changed our names in the school register to Pascal and Mary Ahouagnivo. And, remembering how much Mama loved the names, we became impatient with our schoolmates who kept using our old ones. Yewa bit the ear of one girl who taunted her with her old name, and, though the teacher thrashed my sister with
koboko,
the point had been made.
THE NEXT DAY , AFTER Big Guy came with a photographer to take our pictures for our passports, Fofo brought in people to change our wooden doors and windows to metal. He said because of our changing lifestyle and his Nanfang, it was important that our home be as secure as possible.
The workers painted the metal doors and windows tar black, and they stood out in our gray cement-plastered walls like the eyes of black pea beans. He bought huge padlocks and dog chains and added the padlock keys to his Nanfang key bunch. But the new keys were too long and threatened to tear holes in his trouser pockets, so he threaded them on a chain that he wore around his neck like a metallic talisman.
One Saturday, he stayed home instead of carrying people across the border, and dug a pit behind our house and extracted clayey sand. With water and a bit of cement, he and I mixed it, put it on a tray, then began to seal the space between our roof and the walls of the parlor. He stood on a chair inside, and I passed up the tray of the mix to him again and again while Yewa played outside, molding mini clay people. Our activity startled the lizards, geckos, and rats, and they kept scrambling out of their resting places and fleeing outside until I was no longer surprised. Fofo whistled and hummed songs most of the time. After each round of filling, we went outside, and Fofo got on a chair and worked on the outer wall, kneading the mud with his knuckles and smoothing it with wet palms.
“Fofo, why are you leaving those openings?” I asked when I saw that he had left an opening on each wall.
“Because I no want kill anybody wid heat,” he said. “
E hun miawo hugan
.”
“Heat? What about the windows?”
“No need to open window wid de holes. You
dey
ask
beaucoup de questions,
son . . . even de holes too big.
Abeg,
give me mix.”
I passed him the mix, and he reduced each opening to the size of a man’s foot. Standing on the floor inside, we couldn’t see the outside through the holes, not just because they were too high but because they were close to the
My heart started to sink as they packed away the food. I had nursed the secret wish that they would leave the buffet for us. I had thought about pouring out the
ogbono
soup that filled our biggest pot, to accommodate the food. I had also thought about converting our aluminum bathing bucket into a temporary pot. Instead of letting anything go to waste, we could have poured everything into these two containers and stirred. As Fofo used to say whenever anyone was eating too many things at the same time, “Dem all
dey
enter de same stomach.” I could warm the food two or three times a day.
Yet I calmed myself down when Mama hugged me and said she would miss us, and Papa advised us to be studious and said that this evening was the beginning of good things to come. As Big Guy drove them away, I thought about the good work our parents were doing all over Africa.
I began to feel guilty for being greedy and wanting to keep all the food, when they needed to feed other children. I was ready to cooperate with Papa and Mama, to be as cheerful about our prospects as Antoinette was. I didn’t like the trouble Paul was giving our benefactors and hoped that he wouldn’t vomit at their next stop. I didn’t understand that it was natural for someone from the desert to react that way to the sea, and I was upset that he had embarrassed our parents. I thought even Yewa, the youngest of us children, comported herself better than he did.
That night, it wasn’t too strange when Fofo Kpee started calling us Pascal and Mary. The next day, he came to our school and changed our names in the school register to Pascal and Mary Ahouagnivo. And, remembering how much Mama loved the names, we became impatient with our schoolmates who kept using our old ones. Yewa bit the ear of one girl who taunted her with her old name, and, though the teacher thrashed my sister with
koboko,
the point had been made.
THE NEXT DAY , AFTER Big Guy came with a photographer to take our pictures for our passports, Fofo brought in people to change our wooden doors and windows to metal. He said because of our changing lifestyle and his Nanfang, it was important that our home be as secure as possible.
The workers painted the metal doors and windows tar black, and they stood out in our gray cement-plastered walls like the eyes of black pea beans. He bought huge padlocks and dog chains and added the padlock keys to his Nanfang key bunch. But the new keys were too long and threatened to tear holes in his trouser pockets, so he threaded them on a chain that he wore around his neck like a metallic talisman.
One Saturday, he stayed home instead of carrying people across the border, and dug a pit behind our house and extracted clayey sand. With water and a bit of cement, he and I mixed it, put it on a tray, then began to seal the space between our roof and the walls of the parlor. He stood on a chair inside, and I passed up the tray of the mix to him again and again while Yewa played outside, molding mini clay people. Our activity startled the lizards, geckos, and rats, and they kept scrambling out of their resting places and fleeing outside until I was no longer surprised. Fofo whistled and hummed songs most of the time. After each round of filling, we went outside, and Fofo got on a chair and worked on the outer wall, kneading the mud with his knuckles and smoothing it with wet palms.
“Fofo, why are you leaving those openings?” I asked when I saw that he had left an opening on each wall.
“Because I no want kill anybody wid heat,” he said. “
E hun miawo hugan
.”
“Heat? What about the windows?”
“No need to open window wid de holes. You
dey
ask
beaucoup de questions,
son . . . even de holes too big.
Abeg,
give me mix.”
I passed him the mix, and he reduced each opening to the size of a man’s foot. Standing on the floor inside, we couldn’t see the outside through the holes, not just because they were too high but because they were close to the
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