An Afternoon Walk

One afternoon in Marsassoum, after lunch and a nap, my hostess-teacher Sarta’s young nephew Alfo and his friend Bala walked with me to a neighboring village. We set out at about three o’clock. Once out of Marsassoum, the road was a shadeless dirt track through a landscape that seemed dry and uninhabited. But in fact there were human traces everywhere. About two miles out of the village, over to one side were some trees and patches of green, almost a violent color in the dry landscape. “That’s rice, a second crop growing near some natural springs, ” Alfo and Bala explained. “The people who cultivate these fields come from the next village. They’re Menjok [a small minority in the Casamance].” As we walked over to see, we passed some dry cultivated earth. “These are rice paddies too, but only in the rainy season. We make small earth walls to hold in the water.” There was a patchwork of small tilled areas, each bounded by a two- to three-inch-high earth wall, waiting for the autumn rains to make them fertile.