“Fo dem?”, Mamy chimes, wondering where I am going at this hour of the night. I fill her in that I will be heading down the street to use the phone, calling my family back in the states. I head out into the night, Grace at my side. I barely notice the shouts floating up the staircase from the small, one room home below. I am more concerned about bats as we pass the tree they have been known to abide in. As we approach the bottom of the staircase and are shooing the goats out of our way, a slammed door reminds me of the argument that must be occurring below. As we round the corner, we see Mama, a wise-mouthed, funny, and beautiful 7 year old from our compound, sitting on a stone wall, sobbing. Grace and I pause for a moment, not knowing what to do. Crying like this is not common in the culture. Sure, a small child will cry and whine when they fall or don’t get their way, but usually the aim is to get attention. A child, already 7 years old, and a girl especially, is not commonly found sitting in the dark crying her eyes out by herself. Grace says the girl’s name in a sympathetic sounding voice, not knowing anything else in her language that would be appropriate. We walk over, and I sit next to her, Grace stands in front. I put my arm around her, and begin asking her, in French, why she is crying. After a few sentences, Grace sits down off to the side, not understanding French anyway, and not wanting to crowd the girl in what must be an already embarrassing situation for her.
Mama doesn’t reply. She sits, perfectly still except for the sharp rising of her chest as she gasps for breaths between the sobs, and the tears that stream down her beautiful, chocolate colored skin. We sit in silence for what seems like ages. After a few feeble attempts to ask her what happened, I realize that I should probably be thankful she does not answer. It would only make things worse for her to want to open up and talk to me, and have to deal with my lack of knowledge of the language, and ask her to repeat her sad story over and over again, and then, still, quite possibly, not understand. I finally just lean over and hug the child. Though we had become friends in the few weeks I had been there, I still had been debating in my mind what level our relationship was at, and how to appropriately comfort her in this unheard of situation. My fears were proved illogical as she desperately hugged back, as though it was the first she had ever received. I periodically loosened my grip slightly, inviting her to pull away if she so desired, but she only hugged tighter, her sobs now increasing and her tears flowing freely.
After the hug had lasted several minutes, I pulled her arms off of me, and pulled her up onto my lap. Not wanting to leave her yet, I started singing. Softly, and in a language she didn’t understand, but about my master who loved this little child, none the less. As we rocked gently to the music, her sobs subsided, and her tears slowed. I nodded at Grace’s questioning face, telling her it was okay for her to go, knowing that the time she has spent sitting humbly off to the side had been filled with speaking for this broken child. We sat for what seemed like hours, as I did my best to cover her arms from the mosquitoes that had begun to swarm us. She seemed to have no desire to go anywhere, and I took joy in just being with her. Speaking flowed from my songs and my heart for this girl, wise beyond her years, and hungry for love. A piece of my heart became hers as we sat there, covered in bites, tears, and sweat, as praises and cries to the King lifted from a little compound in West Africa, cries for a little girl who needed her daddy.
I could not tell you how much time had passed as we sat there, nor, did it matter. With a tight squeeze, I turned the child around on my lap to face me. I pulled her downcast chin up towards my face, and wiped her tears with my fingers. The mixture of French and Wolof flowed, flawlessly, from my lips as I spoke the words I had come to believe she had never heard before: “Mama, don’t cry. Listen to me, and don’t forget what I say.” A slight nod, showed she followed my mix of her two heart languages. “You are so pretty. You are very smart. You are special. Do you know that?” she looked down and didn’t reply. I gave her a tight hug. This time she didn’t hug back, just leaned her head on my shoulder. As I let go, I sat her up straight and leaned my head down to her level, not wanting her to miss what I wanted so much to tell this child. As I looked into her big, brown eyes, my heart poured out to her; “Mama, do you know that I love you?” A slight smile and a confident nod melted my heart, but this was not what I really wanted her to know. “Mama, do you know that HE loves you?” Slightly puzzled, yet intrigued, her face turned up, and with a questioning look, asked “who?”. “HIM”, I replied, and she nodded. I knew that this was odd to her. I knew she had never been told this before. But her nod encouraged me; gave me a confidence in the remainder of our time in her compound. I left her that evening, sending her back into her house with her mother and 5 siblings, knowing that nothing in the world could now stop me from spending the rest of my time there pouring out HIS love on this beautiful little girl.
