[piosenniel]

The family sat contentedly around the small cooking fire. Breakfast was over, the bowls of thick porridge sprinkled with groundnuts were wiped clean with fingers, then scoured thoroughly with sand. A few drops of precious water were spent sluicing the sand away, and collected in a separate bowl.

Jamílah and her daughters took the precious liquid to where the great, old baobab tree grew at the edge of their encampment. Qamar whispered a few words over the bowl, dropping in a pinch of the grains they had eaten that morning. Qirfah did the same, handing the bowl at last to Jamílah. She dipped the fingers of her right hand into the water, and giving thanks for food that day, poured the water and the grains of food and sand it carried into the spreading roots of the great tree.

The baobab was the symbol for their tribe. A mighty tree that served all who asked of it. From its bark, rope was woven, strings for fishing nets and snares made, baskets woven, and even the rugs used for sitting on came from it. Cooking oil was pressed from the seeds of its fruits, and medicines and food got from its leaves and seeds. Graced with pendulous, scented white flowers it was a mother to all who sought shelter beneath its wild crown, birds, beast, and humans alike.

Layla, Qirfah’s daughter, came skipping up to where the older women had gathered, the other children following in her wake. ‘Mama!’ she cried, pointing excitedly to the great oblong fruit that hung down from the branches. She hopped from foot to foot as Qirfah pulled out her small knife and cut one down for them to share. The fruit was sweet and moist, and the children’s eyes glowed with delight as the pieces were handed round.

Beneath the happy sounds of children eating and the sounds of birds calling to one another in the upper branches of the tree, Jamílah heard a discordant sound, a darker, derisive laughter hidden in the tall grasses near the edges of the tree. She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the direction from where the snickering came.

There, crouched down in the shadows of the grass, were two or three of the older youth, their faces caught in a sneer at the scene before them. One of them, seeing she had spied them out, spit on the ground beside him, his eyes rising afterward to challenge hers.

She raised her chin to him, her face a mask of casual indifference, and mouthed a new day’s blessing at him. He raised his hand as if to ward it off, as he and his two companions slunk off, the sounds of their leaving whispering after them like the quick feet of small scorpions skittering over the sand.