By Amie Sillah
Nene Wurrie Jallow is a widow who was married to Cow Korka Jallow of blessed 
memory at an early age of 12 years and the marriage was blessed with three girls, Adamatou, Oulaimatou and Tenneng Satang; she was shunned by the clan for bearing only girls; Cow Korka was forced to marry another girl of the same age 12 years. Nene Lamarana who gave birth to three boys and became the favourite wife, Queen of the family.
Cow Korka died of stroke and Nene Wurrie was disinherited and forced out of her husband’s house.
She relocated to the city and managed to rent a hovel with her three daughters; she engaged in petty trading selling fruits and pancakes at her front gate; Adamatou completed Grade 12, Oulaimatou dropped out at Grade 6 and Tenneng halted her education due to school fees problem.
How did the three sisters fared in later life? Who was the heartless trouble shooter? An interesting revelation!
Nene Wurrie
She lives in the hovel with her three daughters after being disinherited with them from Cow Korka’s house in the village; he has some cattle and family land but she was given nothing and has to start from scratch with her children in town.
Adamatou
She is the eldest daughter, very close to her mom and empathized with her pain; she has completed Grade 12 with no job insight she refused to wait for government job instead she sells ‘ebeh’ (cassava porridge) beside her mom’s street stall and it becomes a delicacy for youth and people far and wide in the neighbourhood. She joined ‘osusu’ which fetches D10 000 when her turns comes. Through this her mom guaranteed her to get a soft loan with small interest from Alhajj Kawsu, a transporteur who loaned her a keke three legged transport to be paid at a monthly rate of D500 and principal loan of D20,000. 00.
After taking out her D500 very little is left to help in the fish money; she hardly buys things for herself and depends on use clothes ‘fuga jaaye’ to cloth herself and her sister as well as buys from ‘wanterr’ auction, jumble sale to buy clothes for her mom.
Nene Wurrie prayed for her daughter;
“Allah will bless you my daughter for your care of the family and your golden, clean heart. I am sickly and most of the time cannot continue my petty trade.”
“You are our noble mom, you’ve sacrificed everything for us to survive after facing gender based violence from our father’s relatives, I’ll spend my last blood to let you survive to reap the good work you’ve sown.” Adamatou is single yet to be married.
“How can I marry when my mom is still living in poverty?” She argued.
Oulaimatou
She is the middle daughter, trouble shooter, sly, rascal and mischievous, she goes with bad company of boys and became a school dropout at Grade 6; she steals, lies, smokes dope, drinks alcohol and is also a flirt at an early age. She cares less about her family and very insensitive to their needs, she is self centred and lives in her own world.
Nene cursed her and sees her as ‘domm juu bonn’ whose end cannot but be disastrous. She disrespects her family and looks down on them. She blames them for their poverty as she calls it bad luck.
Tenneng Satang
She is the ‘chaat’ of the family very studious but the family cannot shoulder her tuition fees and she has to halt her education at Grade 9 and cannot even sit to the exams; she now helps her mom in her petty trading. She has no respect for Oulaye and sees her as mean and stingy.
Adamatou
Traffic is dull today and she came with little returns after depositing D500 towards the loan. Nene also has little money and has to borrow few cups of rice from Amadou, the shop keeper. Oulaye arrived and she confronted her.
“There is no food, no money in the house, I’ve brought home little returns, Nene has poor sales, and can you give us or lend us some money to buy food for the house?”
Oulaimatou
She yelled at her.
“I have no money what I have is only enough for me, I’ve bought some spaghetti and chicken legs to cook with it only enough for me, I cannot feed a family, are you not the favoured and eldest daughter?”
She went lit her gas stove and cooked her food and ate it alone while her mom and siblings go hungry.
Nene
“What sort of daughter are you? How can you eat your delicious food while we go hungry? I cursed the day I gave birth to you; you are just like your father’s people, you take after them.”
Tenneng Satang
She went close to her and took some spaghetti from the bowl and she hit her very hard.
Nene
She yelled at her;
“Do you want to kill my ‘chaat’ because of spaghetti? “ She asked Tenneng to come to her side.
She took out D25 and asked her to go to the small market and buy things to prepare ‘nyangcatang’
“Some rice is left from the ‘mooramcorr’ Let us cook ‘nyangcatang’, the stomach does not lie.”
Oulaye ate her food singing naughty innuendo songs then left for the ghetto.
Nene
She fell ill due to poverty and stress. Adamatou wanted to take her to hospital and decided to ask for some favour from Oulaye.
Adamatou
She approached Oulaye when she came home and found Nene very sick.
“Oulaye, Nene is very sick and my Keke is at the mechanics can you help me with your car to take her to clinic?’
Oulaimatou
“Do you have petrol? I am left with only a small bit; it is available only if you can refill it, I can drive her if you can give me little money to buy pack lunch.”
Adamatou
Adamatou is seething with anger at Oulaye’s insensitivity.
“Insensitive brat! There is no money, Doc Richards is treating mom on trust until I have money to pay him; here is your mom who carry you for 9 months, suckled you and took good care of you up to this age, what service have you done to receive her blessing? Why can’t you refill your car and take her to hospital or carry me to take care of her until she gets well?”
Oulaimatou
She remained adamant until Adamatou emptied her purse to enable Oulaye to refill her car then she decided to carry them to the hospital for Nene’s treatment.
To be Cont.
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