Gift that made me understand the suffering of women

“Wallow in bitterness, little by little, it takes over your whole being.” — Mariama Bä’s, So Long a Letter

The book is still firmly engraved in my mind, close to a decade after reading it. Vera, I should sincerely applaud you for this precious gemstone in my life. A letter, a diary, a novella. So Long a Letter was your heartfelt gift hamper to me. A special souvenir to reciprocate for our clandestine decade of ‘moonlight kisses’.

We were both young and naïve then, when we first met. I knew that I would one day take you down the proverbial aisle, but that was only wishful thinking. Mother Nature forced us to take on different pathways. Maybe you never wanted me to know your world. I now deeply understand the plight of women better.

Fate grasps whomever it wants, when it wants. When it moves in the direction of your desires, it brings you plentitudes.

But more often, it unsettles, crosses you. Then one has to endure. The female folk indeed you bear legion infinite woes.

Mariama Bä, a Senegalese novelist, effectively illustrates the challenges women face in our highly male dominated society.

In this Noma Award-winning bestseller, she painfully narrates the story of Ramatoulaye, who writes a letter to her friend, Aissatou.

The novella raises the curtains through a prelude from Ramatoulaye in response to her friend Aissatou’s letter. It reads in part: “Dear Aissatou, I have received your letter. By way of reply, I am beginning this diary, my prop in my distress. Our long association has taught me that confiding in others allays pain.” The stress of staying with her husband even after abandoning her due to her faith.

The constant worry of polygamy which indeed mirrors our current society (the President early last year signed the Marriage Bill into law).

Modou, Ramatoulaye’s husband is unfaithful to her. Both women firmly believe that polygamy fractures strong marital bonds.

I deeply share the ‘distress call’ on polygamy by these two Senegalese women, having been born and bred in a polygamous family myself. In my case, my mother almost breathed her last to solely fend for us.

Dad was always away in a foreign land with other women. A land that someday I must write home about.

“I was irritated,” narrates Ramatoulaye. “He was asking me to understand. But to understand what? The supremacy of instinct? The right to betrayal?” Most men want their women to understand.

We often blame our adrenalin for being fast with gorgeous women.

In a Muslim society where women were relegated to the periphery, Bä’s novella unearths one poignant thing; books can be a weapon.

Books knit generations together in the same continuing effort that leads to progress. They enable you to better yourself. What the society refused you, they granted.

Ramatoulaye, through her intimate letter to a long time friend, opens the flawless thoughts of her inner soul. Both face the same fate of polygamy, but inexorably decide to walk different footpaths.

Ramatoulaye stays put in an abusive marriage, she tearfully narrates through her epistle that she finds peace and warmth in religion, friends, books, writing and cinema.

Aissatou, on the other hand, walks out of her polygamous relationship. Ramatoulaye may have feared that wallowing in bitterness might take over her whole being.

Bä represents the lenses of the archetypal African woman faced with a dozen tribulations. In 1981, after a long battle with cancer, Bä bid us bye.

She had foretold your demise and never lived to see her other novella The Scarlet Song.

Her long letter, indeed, needs to be read again to this generation. The plight of the African woman still haunts us.

The writer teaches at Ng’iya Girls’ High School, Siaya County and he is an author of several secondary school revision books and a co-founder of the Eyeball Magazine

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