Sekinat: Muted Voices

Chapter 7:Going to School

They passed in front of Hajia Ayana's stand where the old woman was frying massa and sinasir at her accustomed spot near the communal pump, the space was already sporting a gaggle of her customers being attended to while others stood nearby trying to fetch water at the communal pump near her stand. The unmistakeable aroma of Hajia Ayana's rice cakes simmering in hot oil as it roiled and bubbled fitfully, assailed everyone's nostrils as the line grew longer with frequent jostles and arguments.

The visual image of another massive bowl of boiling groundnut oil frying a batch of Hajia's carefully massaged and seasoned senasir thinly rolled dough twisting and turning is better seen than imagined, its unmistakeable tell tale aroma wafted over invading Halima's senses, teasing and confronting her taste buds. She looked onwards determined not to succumb or falter, her younger sister made of weaker constitution looked sideways wistfully at the rows of crisp massa and sinasir pastry carefully stacked and displayed on a wide metal tray beckoned to her. As it glistened and sweated droplets of oil almost breathing and oozing its promised sweetness. Drawing upon her last will Halima swallowed the spittle that had converged on the surface of her tongue as she tugged on her sister's hand quickly walking away, thus invariably breaking free of the draw threatening to hold her captive in its decadent lair. Her younger sister clearly enthralled by the brief event didn't say a word but the crumpled visage of her face highlighted a pictorial testament of her palpable disappointment.

Both sisters looked resplendent in their distinctive white and green coloured uniforms, threadbare but clean topped off by identical matching green hijabs shielding both their skin and features from the worst of the weather. In a few hours the harsh Northern sun will begin its daily assault as it swiftly surges into double digits, searing and damaging unprotected skin but for now the harmattan still harboured a tepid chill in the morning air hence their matching hijabs served as veritable protection from the elements. They both possessed one set of uniform each just like their sandals, money was in short supply for their mother hence the carefully mended and hidden patches yet still prominent and obvious to cursory visual inspection.

They made their way past the front of the public mosque situated by the crossroads, bordered on the right by few concrete tenement bungalows followed by a small hotel. The den of iniquity resolutely turned its frontage away from the mosque standing few houses away as though both buildings were invested in some sort of contentious moral conflict. And really inhabitants of both buildings inevitably clashed on occasions but often somehow settled their differences and came to a common understanding of live and let live.

The school borne sisters witnessed some of the ladies in the hotel shouting and creating

a scene outside, where a small crowd had gathered jeering and laughing at their bizarre antics. It was a frequent occurrence especially after most weekends so only a handful of young men who looked like loafers paid any attention to their drama.

Halima still holding Saratu's hands deftly weaved and meandered in between the small crowd gathered watching the spectacle, determined not to be late for school. In a few minutes they had left the crowd behind and finally approached the school entrance set about 200 yards down a sharp incline away from their immediate neighbourhood.

They began to accost and merge with intermittent gaggle of students in similar uniforms and the same matching hijab straggling towards the school gate nattering away excitedly amongst each other.