the day cadjitu's house burned down

I was sitting at the women's cooperative, needle in hand, hunched over a "Koka Kola" (Coca Cola in Pulaar) bed cover. I was wearing a freshly washed white shirt and feeling pretty clean and happy with myself. The cooperative was pretty new at this point and I was forming the words to an announcement I needed to make about our next meeting. I wanted to establish the exact date so I wouldn't have to go around the village later, informing all thirty members.

I was thinking this announcement ("Jango enen poti wadde battu goddo. On jabbii?") when a flurry of action swirled on either side of the house where the cooperative meets. These flurries of intense action (usually fights or arguments) happen in Garly quite often. They are immediate and quickly gain momentum, as all drama happens outdoors and everyone becomes involved.

A woman bounded into the compound, spoke rapidly and with wide eyes. Cadjitu's needle and fabric dropped to the plastic mat, her feet slipped into her flip flops and she was running out the door as my brain processed the Pulaar.

There's a fire and it's at Cadjitu's house- my thoughts caught up with the moment as everyone jumped to their feet and started heading toward Cadjitu's house. Everyone except me. Why would I go to a burning building without water? I dashed to the well (out of breath due to an embarrassing state of aerobic shape) and claimed a discarded 40 liter bucket in which I started dumping water that I hauled from the well.

I was thinking three things. 1, the well has no water! the well has no water! what do they do for fires when there is no water?! panic mode 2, I haven't been in an emergency situation in a really long time. Wow, I am so incredibly good in an emergency. 3, So much for this clean white shirt. In about two minutes it will be soaking with sweat and spilled water.

I swung the massive pan onto my head and it wobbled with unsteady weight. I had never carried such a large bucket on my head and my neck creaked with the strain. I walked behind another water-carrying girl to Cadjitu's part of the village, concentrating on not spilling (unsuccessfully) and slowing my heart and adrenaline down (a little more successfully.)

I trudged through the sand, one hand on the bucket, the other holding my skirt- wet and clingy- away from my legs. I turned a corner and smoke was everywhere. A huge plumb hovering above intense activity. About thirty men were shoveling sand onto the round, burning hut. Twenty women were walking toward the smoke with loads of water, and away with relieved heads and empty buckets.

My heart sank when I saw the damage that was already done. The rounded house with a straw roof was toasted. The roof had caught fire, fallen in and was scorching all of the family's belongings below. I recalled Cadjitu telling me her brother was a jeweler, and stored all of his materials in that hut. Materials that melt and merge, erasing all form and hard work.

I reached the site with eyes squinted against the sting of smoke, had a man dump the water for me, and returned to the well for another load. I noticed about fifty people just standing around. Staring at the men throwing sand, the women struggling with unsteady buckets. Treating Cadjitu's increasing tragedy as a spectacle.

Fast forward through another trip to the well, another ten minutes of neck soreness and smoke in the eyes. As predicted, I am ashy sweaty dirty and very tired. The well is worthless and I am sent home. I pass a house with a bunch of men sitting around and playing cards. I reach my house where my host family is acting as if everything is status quo.

Aissata, my host sister, says how nice I am for bringing water to Cadjitu's. I saw her there- she was one of the masses just staring. I say it has nothing to do with being nice. It is "alay sago" of course, that one would help out another in this situation. I ask her why she would go to a fire without any means to help and she shrugs, brushes it off, returns to the battery-powered TV.

I think about Cadjitu's jewelry materials, burnt and squished into the ground. The tons of sand being thrown, the men's hands getting blisters, the devastation occurring only a two minute walk away. Shouldn't everyone be helping at the fire? I ask out loud, to no one in particular. I simply question, in quiet disbelief, a deep disappointment in my quaint village settling in. Maybe my up on a hill village is not so generous and selfless. I can’t wipe the men playing cards out of my mind.

I can’t accept Cadjitu’s loss and other’s obvious apathy as part of the same picture- the same tiny moment in a miniscule town.