Chapter 9: Old and New
"T'Challa will speak with you, but not until after the holiday," the General said to Bella as she escorted her to her next assignment.
"Holiday?" Bella asked.
"Yes. We must bury the year that has passed and celebrate the birth of the Mwaka Mdogo, the New Year," the General said. "You are to assist Mama W'Kabi with preparations for the celebration."
"Who?"
"The mother of W'Kabi," the General said, as if that would clear everything up to Bella. Bella, having no idea the identity of W'Kabi, decided not to ask any more questions. They walked slowly on the rutted dirt road, overgrown with palm leaves and papaya trees. Soon, they neared signs of life-a teenage girl wearing a flowered dress with a yellow jerrycan of water on her head, a small boy trying to ride a bike too big for his short legs, an old woman with white hair rubbing sweat from her forehead as she leaned on her hoe.
Chickens and goats foraged in the undergrowth as the forest gave way to man-made clearings. Square grass-thatched huts ruled each clearing, surrounded by gardens bursting with red and green cassava plants, tall rows of maize, weaving vines of beans and purple-flowered passion-fruit, and banana trees bursting with green and yellow bunches of fruit.
"You are to pretend you are human," Okoye whispered to Bella. "You must pretend to eat, sleep, grow weary, and struggle. Practice our language and our ways, and learn all you can."
Bella nodded.
"You are to ask all your questions. This is the best place to ask them. Mama W'Kabi is Wakanda's deepest wellspring of the stories of our people. All of our warriors are trained by her. It is your turn to be trained."
"Yes, General," she said, crossing her arms across her chest in salute.
"Eeeeee, Okoye, sasa!" shouted a large, powerfully built woman with gray twinkles and wrinkled edges as they neared a hut. The woman left her basket, walked towards them, and buried them both in her embrace.
"Poa, Mama," Okoye said, lowering her head and eyes in deference.
"Habari ya bwana yako? How is that husband of yours?"
"Mzuri sana. Habari ya jamaa? How is your family?"
"Fine! Fine! All are well. Umekuja? Unataka nini hapa? Why are you here?" Mama W'Kabi boomed, turning her golden eyes onto Bella. She stared for a moment as if looking through her instead of at her and then turned back to Okoye.
"You have a new charge, Mama W'Kabi. You have heard of the King's mgeni, sikweli?"
"Ndiyo," Mama W'Kabi responded, turning her massive frame once again towards Bella. Her gum boots dug into the dust at her feet as she kicked at the dry soil. She rubbed her weathered hand across her brown headwrap, pulling out a few more strands of grey-black curls.
"Mwalimu, kumfundisha," Okoye said, meeting her eyes. They both stared at each other in silence until Mama W'Kabi began to shake her head.
"Aye, aye, aye, aye? She is to work? Mzungu hawezi. She will not be able."
"Anaweza. She is stronger than she looks. Teach her as you have all your pupils. She will remain until after the celebrations for Mwaka Mdogo."
Mama W'Kabi nodded and looked at Bella again. "Mzungu, unaitwa nani? What is your name?"
"Bella."
"Mmmmm," Mama W'Kabi said, raising both eyebrows. "You are too thin. Tell me, are you a woman or are you still a girl?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you a mother or are you still a child?"
"I don't understand."
Mama W'Kabi rolled her eyes and muttered something in Kiswahili under her breath.
"Come, we will prepare food for our guests," she said and took Bella's hand to pull her into a nearby hut. "Okoye, you tell my son that it has been too long since he came to visit me."
Oooooooooooooooooooooo
Bella sat on a woven banana-fiber mat surrounded by a mountain of cassava, plantains, beans and rice. Village women came by each hour with large baskets on their heads to deposit another batch for her to peel and sort. A little herd of children shadowed her as she worked. They stifled giggles as she struggled to manage the knife on the fibrous peels of the green bananas. Wary at first, they crept ever closer until the braver ones reached out to feel her hair and her cold skin. Before the sun reached directly overhead, she found her entire head plaited into fine braids and twists. Five children sat happily helping her peel and sort, trying to correct her clumsy attempts and showing her the "correct" way to peel.
When the sun sank into the bananas leaves, her new friends had taught her four songs, dozens of new Kiswahili phrases, and how to pound sun-dried cassava into flour in preparation for kalo. As instructed, Bella struggled to maintain the human façade, even when faced with steaming bowls of stew and chapati.
When the moon exchanged places with the sun, Mama W'Kabi set her in front of the large bonfire where a dozen or so other family members and neighbors sat eating stew and sharing stories. Quiet whispers, raucous laughter, and children's games intermingled with the wild songs of crickets, frogs, and birds.
"Nyanya, tell us a story!" one of the children said after the night's meal had been cleared away.
"What story?" she asked as she pulled the little boy into her lap.
"The story of Bashenga and how Wakanda was born," said a girl nearby.
"No! Tell us about the Lizard and the Chameleon," said another.
"No! I want to hear about the Baobab!" another chimed in.
"Let me tell you the story of Opondo's children and the kenge…" Mama W'Kabi said as another log was added to the fire. All voices hushed as Mama W'Kabi's voice poured into the fire and all eyes turned to watch the sparks and the night sky swirl around them.
ooooooooooooooooooooooo
The bonfire set in the wide open field crackled and spit out sparks as tall as a jackfruit tree. It took the majority of the day for the men of the village to find the largest, driest tree trunk possible. It took the remainder of the day to light it on fire. It began to smolder and spark just as the sun sank behind the rolling, green hills, engulfing them on every side.
The women of the village had worked for three days to prepare-sorting the beans, rolling chapati, killing chickens, and chopping vegetables from their gardens. Rice, cassava, steamed plantains, and kalo buried communal platters while steaming sufirias of fragrant stews begged to be dished onto shared plates. The men grilled meat from sunup till sundown, sharing communal jars of fermented millet porridge as they laughed, sang, and told stories. The children painted all the huts (and themselves) with intricate patterns of white and red clay.
"This is both a funeral and a celebration of birth," Mama W'Kabi told Bella as she helped with the preparations. "The old year has died but it will live on through our memories. The young year is greeted and welcomed by the village. The rainy season has been replaced by the dry and the harvest will be plentiful again. We have gained another year of life as a village and a kingdom and we must stop to remember and give thanks."
As dusk neared, the men, women, and children of the village poured into the open field like an avalanche of white flowers. The women came wearing gauzy white cotton dresses, hair braided with flowers, and the hands and feet of all painted in intricate patterns of orange and black henna. The men wore soft, white robes, embroidered with black and blue patterns down the fronts and tied together with golden sashes.
They gave thanks together, pouring the first serving of each dish onto the soft earth in the middle of the field while they remembered the names of each soul who was now buried with their ancestors along with the soul of the old year. Then they gave thanks again, eating a serving of each dish with their hands as they remembered the name of each new soul to join their village.
Then the feasting really began.
When they could no longer eat, then they surrounded the bonfire housed in the trunk of the tree and the dancing began. Musical instruments appeared-the adungu, djembe, engoma, ensaasi, mbira, enkanzi and amalinda sang in celebration. The shroud of night clothed the company as they filled the darkness with song and dance. The tendrils of the firelight cast silhouettes of the dancers into momentary spotlights as they stomped, sang, shouted, ululated, clapped, and leapt.
"Now, you will learn to dance," a voice said to Bella as she watched from the shadows. She was pulled into the circle of dancers. Women and men with rattles tied around their ankles and skirts of feathers and grass tied around their waists surrounded her, a flowing river of bodies, and carried her into their songs, casting rhythmic spells of boiling life through the community. Songs and dances never ended, only morphed into the next as the village celebrated as one body made up of many souls.
When the sun grew tired of sleeping, the dancers still pounded the ground and circled the glowing orange coals of their bonfire.
So, she learned.
oooooooooooooo
A/N
This New Year holiday inspired by the Ethiopian holiday of "Enkutatash" in Amharic (the official language of Ethiopia) or "Ri'se Awde Amet" in Ge'ez.
Translations:
Mwaka Mdogo: little year or young year.
Sasa: literally means "now" but in context is more of a "what's up?"
Habari ya bwana yako?: How is your husband?
Mzuri sana. Habari ya jamaa?: Very good. How is your family?
Umekuja? Unataka nini hapa?": You have come? You want what here?
mgeni, sikweli?: visitor, isn't it
Ndiyo: yes
Mwalimu, kumfundisha: teacher, teach her.
Mzungu hawezi: this foreigner isn't able.
Anaweza: she is able.
Mzungu, unaitwa nani?: Foreigner, what's your name?
Nyanya: grandmother (or tomato…but in this context, grandmother)
Kenge: monitor lizard
Sufirias: saucepan
the adungu, djembe, engoma, ensaasi, mbira, enkanzi and amalinda: Ok, so we have Alur, Luganda, and Kiswahili here. Oh well. Google them if you are curious. You can Google traditional dances of the Alur, Baganda, Ankole, or the Intore of Rwanda for some great examples of diversity of music/dance styles from a couple of different regions.