After Our River VanishedBy Banchiwosen Woldeyesus
That year, our river was gone, vanished into where, we didn’t know, and things started happening in our town.
First, the life that came out of our trees followed our river as if our river had called its name. It happened in April. That month, six ferenjoch came to town to visit our Tikil Dingayoch. We walked beside Dahu as he talked to them. In our town, he was the only one who spoke that weird language he called English. When we approached our bridge, we heard our river’s quietness like a thunder. There was no dripping. No splashing down rocks. No roaring. No soil-like smell. No nothing. One ferenje looked around and said something. Dahu told us he’d said something felt different. We’d seen this ferenje last year and the year before that. Dahu seemed to wait for the ferenje to say what felt different but the ferenje shook his head, said nothing, until we reached our bridge and then he shouted. We didn’t know what he was shouting about but we could guess. We stared under our bridge. “Our river will return.” We said. Dahu’s face darkened like a shadow was passing over him, even though there was no cloud in our sky. “Our river will return.” We believed what we said. Our river was endless. Endless things could not be just gone, could not just vanish. When we approached Tikil Dingayoch, the five ferenjoch who didn’t say anything until now talked to Dahu. Between Eucalyptus trees and false banana trees, in our cold road, the ferenjoch stopped walking, stood still. They seemed to be waiting. But why were they waiting for—? We ran. When we stood on the middle of our cold road, our teeth not chattering, our bodies not shivering, we knew what blew on this road, the life that came out of our trees that made us run like small children, was gone, vanished into where, we didn’t know. Then.
Something was wrong with our green healer. We found out in May. That month, we went to the big farm with Dahu for the first time. The first thing we noticed was the noises these big things were making which hurt our ears. The second thing was the bigness of the farm. Teff stretched out in front of us. Dahu told us what the big things with loud noises were called. We wanted to ask how those things worked but we couldn’t say the big words back to him. Then he said something we didn’t understand, the big farm produces more teff in one year than we produce in ten years. We’d never heard such a thing. We wanted to laugh but Dahu had gone to the big city and learned big things from the big school. “This farm stole our river.” Dahu said. We shook our heads. We didn’t understand how a farm could steal our river. A day later, one of us clutched our stomach. We ran to our backyard, cut a leaf from our green healer, grinded it with a pestle and mortar. Hours later, one of us still clutched our stomach. Maybe we didn’t chew enough. We cut another leaf from our green healer and noticed something. Our green healer used to fill our backyard but now it was half-empty. How did we not see what was in front of us? A day later, one of us still clutched our stomach. That day, on the way to our clinic, we knelt in front of one of our shrubs, our hands reaching, and hovering over the leaves, then we looked at the top of our mountain and whispered. Let our green healer heal as it used to heal before. Then.
The smell of our green healer followed our river. It happened in June. That month, every day of the first week, we looked up at our sky, clear blue, not a cloud. There wasn’t going to be a single drop. Not for quite some time. The second Saturday of June, when we went to our river, we meant the place where our river used to be, for a town gathering, holding our green healer, we found the old man who sold mats in our town, standing on the middle of our bridge. “Let me carry you.” We didn’t think we heard him right. “Why?” “So you can cross.” We stared at him. “Don’t you see it?” He pointed at our bridge. We looked at our bridge. Then under our bridge, there was only land, dry land. We looked at the old man. He was staring at the same dry land but he was smiling, the same smile we’d seen when he used to stand on our bridge, for hours, his eyes on our river soaking his legs. We had heard he only remembered things from the past. Now, standing next to the old man, we wished we were the old man. We wished we saw only what he saw. At our river, we meant the place where our river used to be, our town elders sat on three-legged wooden chairs, facing our church, at the top of our mountain. In front of them, charcoal burned. “Return our river to us,” the elders said, their hands on their laps, palms upwards, “return our river to us.” “Amen! Amen! Amen!” We dropped our green healer on the charcoal. Something was wrong. It took us a while to know what it was. After our green healer smoked our air, no one had sneezed. Then.
Buying water cost us everything. This happened in July. That month, one early morning, our children asked us. “Are you leaving us?” Before that year, we never went to the next town. Before that year, it rained in July but that year, not a drop from our sky. When we walked out of our hut, holding the reins of our horses, our children followed us. At the edge of our town, we turned to our children, return home, we said. They shook their heads. When we hopped on our horses, they stared at us, their eyes never leaving us. Late afternoon, we returned with wagons pulled by donkeys, carrying buckets of water. Our children were where we left them, staring at the land in front of them. When they saw us they shouted, scrambling from the grass. On the way home, we reached for our reins, to tug them, but our hands clutched an empty air. In the next town, we hadn’t found a place where they sold water as easily as we thought we could. We sold the water we had, people had said. Go to the next next town, they said. Just when we had almost given up, dragging our feet, our horses trotting beside us, someone had whistled. In front of a shop with leaves of false banana trees spread out on wooden counters, a man had stood. He said something but, staring at the false banana trees next to the shop, we didn’t hear him. Something about them felt different, at first we didn’t know what it was, then we ran to the trees, tracing the wide leaves with our fingers. Later, we’d wonder why we didn’t immediately recognize what was different about them. Could it be that we’d forgotten what they looked like? The man from the shop had approached us. “I have water,” he’d said, his eyes on our horses. We’d wanted to walk away, but we’d heard we are thirsty!, the cries from our children, we’d seen our teff which had turned darkish yellow, our false banana trees which had turned grayish. Then.
We woke up to burning smokes in our sky. It happened one morning in August. That day, when we ran, we didn’t look at each other. At the big farm, we found Dahu at the place where the big things with loud noises used to be. “Look,” he said, kneeling on the ground, clutching the ashes, “what our hands have done to our land.” We wondered why he said our hands. Dahu stared at us for a long time like he knew. Ever since the big farm came to our town, Dahu had been telling us, again, and again, that the farm stole our river. When he explained, something about taking too much from our river, we’d wanted to understand but we didn’t, until last month, when we’d dreamt of sinking our fingers into our horses’ manes, and woken up with no smell of our horses. Then we’d wanted to destroy the big things with loud noises, not because we understood what Dahu talked about, but because we would never have lost our four-legged families if the farm had not come to our town. A few days later, after the burning smokes cleared, we’d return to the big farm, to dig the burnt land with a pickaxe, hoping the land would return to what it used to be, a land where teff could grow, but the land stayed blackish. We’d stare at our hands for hours. Then we’d avoid looking at them. If we suddenly looked at them we’d stagger backward as if the life that used to come out of our trees blew through us. Then.
Came what we’d been waiting for. Rain. But with the rain came things we’d never seen before. First, we woke up to rain falling on our land on Pagume 1. That day, we carried our buckets and ran outside our hut. While rain filled our buckets, we went inside and brought more buckets. That day, we put our tongues in our air, lapping up rainwater like dogs. And we stayed outside. We didn’t care our rain soaked us. In the afternoon, in the evening, it continued raining, even late at night when our sky boomed lightning. We stared at each other, scared to say what we thought. We didn’t want to say our rain was wrong. How could rain be wrong? But… when our rain went on and on and on, it felt wrong. Our rain, before our river vanished, rained for hours, sometimes the whole morning, or afternoon, but our sun pushed through our clouds, right after it rained, always, as if our sun wanted to warm us. Our rain, after our river vanished, sounded… we didn’t want to believe it… like it wanted to destroy us. Then, in Pagume 2, in the morning, we looked at our sky and quickly looked down. Our sun, a deep, deep red like a light flashing on. It felt like we’d imagined our rain. In the afternoon, we walked, carrying our filled buckets. Our town people also walked, carrying buckets. A small boy sat on the branches of an acacia tree. The branches shook, as if they couldn’t carry the boy’s weight. The same tree had carried the small boy, who loved climbing the tree, for hours, so many times last year and the year before that. When the boy raised his hand to wave at us, the branches bent, dropping the boy, almost hitting his mother who’d been watching him from under the tree. When we reached the hole, Dahu was pouring water from a bucket into the hole, then he picked another bucket. Later, we were leaving the hole, we called our small lake, when Dahu cut the leaves of our false banana trees, arranged them side by side on the grass, tying them with a rope. What are you doing, we asked? Instead of answering, he picked the tied leaves and dropped them on top of the hole. He was covering the water? Standing in the shadow of our tall false banana trees, we wondered why. A day later, we’d wonder how Dahu knew what was coming. Then, in Pagume 3, we couldn’t walk to our next-door hut. For the first time in our lives, breathing became difficult. Even when we’d run from our hut to our farm, we’d never breathed like that, our mouths open, our tongues hanging in our air, our hearts screaming boom boom boom. That day, we heard sounds, some sort of moaning, from our cows we’d never heard before, as if something was breaking their insides apart. That day, in late afternoon, someone’s scream brought our town to the hole. “Our water! Where’s our water?!” Our small lake was gone, vanished into where, we didn’t know. Our false banana trees, which formed a circle around our small lake, had bent like old men. Then, in Pagume 4, our cows did not return to our barn. This never happened before. For months now, we could tell they knew our river was gone. Later, we found them at our river, we meant the place where our river used to be, sitting, their tongues hanging in our air. When we sat next to them, they stared at us. That day, they refused to leave the place where our river used to be, until we did something we’d never done before, hit their backs lightly with our alengas. A day later, on the last day of the year, lying on our grass, we’d find our cows outside our barn, their eyes open and still, their tongues hanging in our air, their heads facing our river, we meant the place where our river used to be. And we’d wish we’d looked at their eyes yesterday, instead of looking away, when their big eyes asked us, what did you do to our river? Before our river vanished, on the way to our farm, Dahu always said, our river was shrinking, and we’d shrugged our shoulders. Our river had always flown, it would always flow, we’d thought, as if our river made a promise to us, to flow over our town forever. And then, things are changing, Dahu would say, don’t you see it? Don’t you feel it? Some days, when we saw things changing in our town, like the time we saw our September blooming Adey Abebas in April, we were honest. Our river was drying up, squeezed out like a sponge. On those days, we stood facing our river, raised our hands, promised to stop taking, promised to stand beside Dahu to talk to the people in the big farm, stop taking from our river with those big things. But, the next day, we’d sat on our four-legged families, soaring to our river, and said, just for today. Banchiwosen Woldeyesus (she/her) is a black woman, a teacher, short fiction, and nonfiction writer. She was born in 1980 and raised in Addis Ababa. She has published 400+ posts and essays on her blog, Banchi Inspirations, since mid-2018. She publishes essays, flash stories, and curated reads on This Precious Dark Skin, her newsletter on Substack. She’s a Submissions Reader for Narratively.
|