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Stories

Jatta

Sent in by John Bardsley

Hi, my name's Jatta, and I'm a Jola from Senegal As soon as I was born, my mother tied a string of small cowrie shells around my middle, and put a special necklace over my head with lucky charms on it, and a charm bracelet on my wrist, all to protect me from any bad spirits who might be hanging round. For the first year, I was very close to my mummy all the time. When I was hungry, she fed me; when I was tired, I slept in a cloth tied on her back. I was her first child. When I was two, my baby brother was born. Mum put me on the ground, and forgot I existed! She fed him and cuddled him and he slept on her back. Every couple of years Mum had another baby until there were about eleven of us, though some died. Mum always has a baby on her back, all the time. So what could I do? I ran around with my older cousins and the other kids in my street. When I was too tired to keep up with the big children, one of my teenage cousins might pick me up and carry me on her hip. At the end of the day a teenage cousin would round up all us tiny kids, take our clothes off, and give us a lovely bath by pouring water over our heads. But there were some things she never took off for our bath. She never took off the charms round our necks or wrists, and specially she never took off the string of cowrie shells. Everybody would be very scared if anyone's shells came off. The spirits might be angry, and that poor little kid might have no protection. And we all knew we wanted protection. All of us at some time or other had dreamed of huge ugly scary monsters in the night. For our evening meal we all sit round a big pot of rice, and fish, and vegetables, with spicy peanut sauce. Yum. We all eat with our fingers, each one dipping in his own segment of the bowl. Then we sit round the fire listening to people telling stories, until we are tired. At night we children all sleep together on a straw mat on the floor. If it is a cold night, we keep each other warm; if it's hot, we like being together anyway. We all would like a goodnight cuddle from our mother, but she is always too busy with the new baby. We would like a cuddle from our father, but he is always too busy talking important stuff with the other village elders. He's an important man, my father. When I was six I was allowed to go to school. That was great, I was so glad. Lots of the other kids could not go. Some had to work in the vegetable garden with their mothers, or in the rice fields with their fathers. But my father was rich enough to send us to school. We all sit on the floor on grass mats, and learn lots of facts off by heart, singing them over and over. Would you like to learn how to say hello in my language? There are three parts to it. GREETING REPLY Saafi (Surname) Saafi (Surname) (This is what we say to strangers. If we know their family name, we say their family name. That's more friendly and personal.) Kasumay (Peace) Kasumay Kep (Peace returned) Katisinde? (How's your family?) Kokobo (They're there). One day I got sick. My mother took a chicken for a sacrifice, and went to the holy man to ask him to make up a poem prayer to the spirits for us. If the spirits are in a good mood, they are supposed to pass the prayer up to more powerful spirits above them. And if those spirits are feeling generous, they might pass it higher still, till at last it might even reach Ateemit, the great Creator God who made heaven and earth and everything. And Ateemit might make me better. But Ateemit was usually too important and busy to take any notice of us ordinary people. Anyhow I got better, so it must have worked. Only after that I had to wear another charm. And I had even more bad scary dreams. Some of those spirits are nasty! Then when I was ten another special thing happened. A foreigner and his wife moved in to our village and built a house just opposite the school. You should have seen all the things they had! Lots of clothes - at night when they went to bed, they even wore different clothes from the ones they wore in the day-time! And the next day in the morning they put on more different clothes! We wore the same ones all the time. And they had different sized cooking pots for every different kind of food they cooked! There were all sorts of tools to do things, and even a machine for writing on paper. Wow. Amazing. Crowds of us used to hang round peering in the doors and windows of their house for ages, just to see how they live. Often they would invite us in. They always had time for us. They had books with pictures in, even coloured pictures. Sometimes they would stop what they were doing and tell us a story about Ateemit, the great Creator God who made everything. They said Ateemit was not too busy for us at all. They said Ateemit loves all the people he made. That makes sense to me. I made a toy car out of a tin can, and I love my little car. I play with it all the time. When you make something, you care about it, don't you! They said Ateemit had a son called Jesus. One day this Jesus turned into a baby and was born into a family in a village just like ours. I thought 'I wonder where he lives? I bet he goes to school too, if he is the son of Ateemit. I would like to be his friend. Imagine if you were friends with the very son of Ateemit himself! You would never have to be afraid of all the bad spirits ever again! You would never have to pay a chicken to the holy man to make up a poem prayer for you. You would never have to wonder if your prayer got through - you could just ask! Wow! I wonder where he lives! Then they told us Jesus grew up to be a man. I was so disappointed. If he was a man he would be too busy for us kids. But then they told us that the mothers and children came to see Jesus one day. The big men told the kids to go away. But Jesus told off all the big men for stopping the kids coming to play with him! He let the kids climb on his knee and cuddled them! Wow! And he told them a story! I always used to climb on the white peoples' knees and cuddle them while they were telling us stories. They didn't have a new baby, so they had time. And then I saw that the lady was pregnant, and after a while she did have a new baby of her own, a pink one. But she still used to give me cuddles as well, whenever I wanted! I LIKE those foreigners. And they said Jesus always has time too. I wish I knew where he lives. Have you ever stolen anything? Sometimes when we were hungry after school, or if we had to look after the animals on Saturday, we would get hungry. If it was cashew apple season, I could climb the tree and get a cashew apple. You can eat the apple, then crack open the nut and eat the nut as well. Or if we found a coconut that fell off, we would make a little hole and drink the milk inside the coconut. Sometimes I would throw stones at a bunch of bananas, and try to knock a banana down. Trouble is, it used to spoil the other bananas a bit, so if we got caught it was pretty bad. I had a few knocks from the people who owned the fruit trees. The foreigners said Jesus never did anything wrong. Well, the son of Ateemit would be perfect, I guess, so that makes sense. Maybe it would not be so much fun being his friend after all. They said all the wrong things we do have to be punished, because Ateemit is good, but he is very fair, and nobody can get away with anything wrong. They reminded me that Ateemit knows all about us, but I knew that. Everybody knows that. Ateemit knows everything. It's a bit scary thinking about that. If I'm throwing stones at a bunch of bananas to knock one off and eat it, I'd kind of feel happier if Ateemit was not watching. Then the foreigners told us Jesus died. Well, I wish they had told me before! I wasted all that time hoping he could be my friend, and now they tell me he's dead! They said it was my fault he died! They said he took the punishment for all that fruit I stole, and every time I was cruel to my little brothers and sisters and wouldn't give them a cuddle when they cried. They said I should say sorry to Ateemit for everything I ever did wrong, and Ateemit would forgive me because Jesus died and took the blame. Suddenly right then and there I was sorry! I remembered all those guilty moments, and I said sorry to Ateemit right there, and asked him to forgive me. The foreigners did a little dance around the kitchen, and I did too, because I was so happy when I knew I was forgiven. It feels so good! You don't have to be always wondering if someone is going to find out! We don't have forgiveness in Jola country. My parents don't ever talk about forgiveness. They never heard of it. You don't forgive people where I come from. You pay them back, or you pay a chicken to the holy man to curse them. Then the white people said Jesus came alive again! I couldn't believe that at first. I mean, nobody ever comes alive after they're dead. Once you're dead, you've gone somewhere else, and there's no way back. When my baby sister died, we buried her body, and now she isn't around any more. But they said Ateemit can do it, he can do anything. And they said dying is punishment for doing wrong, so if Jesus never did anything wrong, he could not stay dead, could he. Of course! Why didn't I think of that? And then it hit me. He's alive! Now! 'Wow!' I said 'Where does he live? I want to be his friend!' They said he is Spirit, and he can live everywhere. So he can live with me! 'Yes!' I said 'Jesus, be my friend, and live with me!' That means I don't have to be afraid of the bad spirits any more, because I've got a direct line to Ateemit. Everyone knows Ateemit is way stronger than all those other spirits. And I don't have to pay a chicken to get the holy man to sing a poem to the spirits to pass a message up to Ateemit. I can talk to Jesus, and Jesus can talk to Ateemit! Or I can talk to Ateemit myself! I don't even need my string of cowrie shells or this dumb charm necklace, because I am friends with Ateemit himself and his own son Jesus! Wow! Amazing! I ran home to tell Mum and Dad. That's when the trouble started. They said I do need my charms and shells, or the bad spirits will be furious. They said those foreigners were teaching me wrong stuff and I am not allowed to go there any more ever. They said that's just the white man's religion, and we have our own religion. Well, I love my Mum and Dad, and I have to do what I'm told, but I know they're wrong this time. It's just that they don't understand yet. But as soon as I'm old enough I'm going to cut off these strings, and I can still talk to Ateemit and Jesus anyway! (PS Jatta took off his charms as soon as he was old enough to make his own decisions. He refused to have anything to do with rebuilding the fetish in his house, and as a result it was never rebuilt. He married a lovely educated girl who has also burned all her charms, and their children are growing up without any charms or curses.

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