Death

Today the little girl who lives next door to me died. I would guess her age at about 3, no more. She was one of the petites who would faithfully scream out, “Fote, ca va???” every time I passed. With a genuine smile, excitement, waving hands…It never got old to her, even though I live next door.

All Yarie said was that she was “malade”. Caitlin’s family told her she had malaria, but here they call all sickness malaria because they don’t really have a way or the funds to truly diagnose or treat any maladies. I never knew her name, but today Yarie named her as “Bangoura”, so that’s what I’ll call her.

At night, I would see her praying with her grandfather, who also lives next door. He is the one who sings out the call to prayer in the morning, wandering around the neighborhood. He would let her pray next to him, which is actually against Islam, which dictates women can only pray behind men, not with them. But he would let her pray there next to him and she did all the steps, all the bowing, kneeing, hands to the head, everything, right in tune with her grandpa as though she really knew what she was doing.

That little kid loved me, to be honest. She was malnourished as hell. She had a huge distended belly. One day I even had Scott and Juliann (public health) weigh her to check her risk and told them to invite her mother to their nutrition sensibilisation, which they did and she attended only days before little Bangoura passed on.

When Yarie was telling me she had died, she dragged her finger across her throat and I wasn’t sure at first who she was talking about until she said the little girl that always played with Mohammed, whose grandpa I faithfully greet with “Salaam Aleikhum” every day, who I faithfully wave back to and reply “ca va bien” to every “fote, ca va!” she could throw out there. The little girl that I was so happy to see my family feed at times.

The little girl who got so excited when I blew bubbles. One day, I busted out this old blue plastic fish figurine thing that I had haphazardly thrown in my suitcase and started blowing bubbles for Mohammed. At first, he thought the bubbles were trying to attack him, then realized they were harmless and would laugh and cheer every time they came out of the wand. That little girl eventually found her way over to us and absolutely nearly had a heart attack every time a bubble started to come out of the wand. I will never forget how she would bounce up and down and press her hands together and scarcely breathe as the magic bubbles permeated the air in front of her. It could easily have been the highlight of her life. Her very, very short life.

After Yarie told me she had passed, she told me to put on my pagne and walk to the mother’s house, which is behind ours. As we were about to round the corner, she stopped and told me what to say, which I can’t even remember now and only feebly mumbled out to her mother after saluating “good evening and is all well” (which seemed ridiculous). She looked miserable. Yarie pointed to a spot in the yard and said the little girl was buried there, though Caitlin’s (who lives in the same neighborhood) family told her she had been buried at a cemetery.

Then I went to greet the grandpa and I know he could see the tears welling in my eyes and I don’t even know how I made it through both condolence calls without springing waterworks.

After giving him my condolences, I turned to walk back to the Bureau, where I knew I had a safe place to cry and people who would understand and Yarie said, “Out u va?” I told her I forgot something at the bureau and continued on my way. I made it about 5 steps past the compound gates before I made the cry face and stumbled towards Juliann and tried my best to tell her what happened without the ridiculous cry gasping, which wasn’t entirely possible.

Later, Caitlin came back with me to try and saluate the grandpa, who tonight did not pray, and as she waited outside my house for me to bring her some toilet paper, burst into tears as she watched Mohammed play on the patio. When I came out all she said was, “I can’t even look at your brother right now.”

And they don’t get it. Guineans don’t understand what affects us so much about things like this. This happens all the time here. They don’t cry in front of other people. They can’t understand why we would, which is why I made a fucking valiant effort to hold it together until I was inside the gates of my “little America” at the bureau.

Even as I write this in my bed, tears stream down my face in a manifestation of a very American sense of loss.

I am proud to be an American.

And at the same time, it’s depressing as hell.