Forgive me the length of this letter. What I most want you to know right now is that I’m open to listening to your ideas about making it clear to Pexton that it’s not over.
I’ll always be one of us,
Thula
—
In our response, we reminded her of the story about the ants that killed the growling dog, bite by bite. We could do such a thing too. There was no better time to start biting Pexton than now. Kosawa was in danger of becoming uninhabitable. We were about to start getting married, after which children would follow—how could we allow our children to suffer like we once did? If we tried something and failed, wouldn’t it be better to one day tell the children that we’d done everything within our capacity? Thula agreed, writing:
Yes, if we are to be conquered, let it not be because we never fought. Our fathers, brothers, uncles, friends—what did they die for? They died so that we could live peacefully in Kosawa, and if not us, then at least the next generation. No one has the right to make us prisoners on our land. No one has the right to take from us that which the Spirit gave our ancestors. Across America today are pockets of people who were made prisoners on their land. The land of their ancestors was taken from them, and now they live at the edge of society, a plight worse than ours. At least we still walk the paths our ancestors walked, but who’s to say that one day all of our land won’t be taken from us like it happened here? The ancestors of these trampled people in America fought hard and they lost, but what’s most important is that they fought. Much as the story of their defeat saddens me, it heartens me also, because I realize that, like them, we’re not weak, a ferocious creature gave us its blood. The government and Pexton have left us with no choice but to do what we must in order to be heard. They speak to us in the language of destruction—let’s speak it to them too, since it’s what they understand.
Do it, knowing you have my blessings. I only ask that you harm no humans; we’ll never become killers like them, because the blood of noble men flows in our veins. I’ll send you what money I can to help, and I’ll pray the Spirit to watch over you.
I’ll always be one of us,
Thula
Yaya
If there is one regret I have about my marriage, it’s how little I laughed. So much to laugh about in life, and yet I deprived myself. Why? Because my love for my husband demanded that I not bask in bliss while he tottered in sorrow? Because, what really is there to laugh about in this world? But there’s so much to laugh about. Only now, as I lie on this dying-bed, do I realize it: life is funny. People fighting over a piece of land that none of them can take along when death comes—how is that not funny? Everyone wanting something to make them happy, only to realize once they get it that they want something else to make them happy—how is that not funny? Life is a chase after the wind, meaningless, ridiculous. How could that have eluded me? Why did this world become amusing only when I realized I was about to leave it? Perhaps it’s because I now have nothing but time to spend thinking about how sad it is that I didn’t long ago realize it and laugh more. Alas, it’s too late for me to start doing so—the closer death gets, the less I care about the present. My thoughts are mostly of the past, the things I’ve seen. On sleepless nights, as I await a new day exactly like the old one, I think of the events that laid the setting for what would happen to my family, to my village. I think of stories my husband used to tell me on his better days, like how he once spent two weeks on a beach.
—
He was young back then, several years before we met. Three men from Europe were passing through Lokunja, on their way from Bézam, heading to the coast, where they would get on their boat to sail back home. They had lost one of their guides and were looking for a hard worker to serve as replacement; my husband heard about the opportunity from someone who knew about his discipline and thought he’d be good at it. This was long before he moved to Kosawa to work for Woja Bewa, taking care of his farm. He knew a guide job had its benefits but, like the rest of us, he was wary of men from Europe, these men who had come to make themselves masters over us. Soon, though, he found out that the men were going to pay him well and that his duties would take him to the ocean. He’d never been near the ocean; no one from our area had ever seen it. We knew it existed a great distance away, but not many of us wondered about it—we had streams and rivers, they were sufficient. But my husband wanted to experience more than was sufficient. So, fearful though he was of what unstated dangers might be involved in the guide job, he agreed to do it for a chance to see the ocean.
The day he set out with the men was the first time he’d ever been in a car.
He and the other guide traveled in the open space in the back of the car. In those days our country was mostly a landscape of densely packed trees, an odd village here and there, not much to see. My husband made a fire and cooked for the European men whenever their group
