It is dark and the compound is empty and quiet. I am sitting on the main bantaba, Jainabou is sitting on a nearby bench and Neene is lying farther away on the second bantaba. I try to think of something to talk to Jainabou about, but all I come up with is lightening. It is a short-lived conversation.
Me: I forget what this is called in Pulaar.
Jainabou: Mmmm hmmm.
Me: What is it?
Jainabou: What?
Me: In the sky, what does ch-ch-ch…there! (I point to the lightening in the sky)
Jainabou: Lightening?
Me: Yes. In America
Jainabou: Water?
Me: Uh-uh. That. I forget… there!
Jainabou: Lightening.
Me: Yes.
My second attempt at conversation, after a long and awkward pause, began after a dog barked.
Me: Today I sat there, my husband’s compound, and a white dog came and it, Kuri and the white dog, they fought and I did this—huhh!—and I ran because I was not brave, and my husband ran, but Cherno, he just laughed.
Jainabout: Mmm…
My third attempt at conversation, after an equally long and awkward pause, took place after Jainabou finished shining the flashlight on her toes and was instead aiming it at random places on the ground.
Me: You don’t see a frog?
Jainabou: Where?!
Jainabou frantically scrambles to bring her feet up onto the bench and rapidly shines the light to and fro.
Me: I’m just asking, I’m just asking. I do not see a frog, I did not know if you saw a frog.
Neene explains, “She was just asking if there was a frog. Binta is not afraid of frogs.”
I add, “But if it enters my house…”
And then Neene and I, but mostly Neene, tell the story of the mouse and the frog. Jainabou doesn’t laugh. Maybe you had to have been there. Or maybe she was still recovering from her fright.
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