Bundu Trap - Windward Community College

mother bought them and in the necklaces
of cloves and spices they’ll be wearing as
jewelry. But I still remember the stories
Fanta’s been telling me about girls
whose parents fool them to get them into
the hands of Mami Sowe. Like the one
about one girl who was asked to deliver
some expensive gold jewelry into her
auntie’s hands. The girl waited at the appointed
place for about thirty minutes
before her auntie appeared with two
other women. Fanta said that had this girl
frequented Bundu bushes before, she
would have recognized the women as
Mami Sowe’s assistants. Minutes later
one of the women forced a large piece of
cloth into the girl’s mouth. By the time
the girl was able to breathe through her
mouth again, she was bleeding profusely.
Fanta never told me where the
bleeding came from, although my
brother Amadu said they broke the girl’s
teeth when they forced the cloth into her
mouth.
My mother returns to the kitchen,
holding a tray and kitchen towel. She
busies herself packing two large bowls
into the tray. I help her wipe excess oil
off the covers and try some last-ditch delaying
tactics.
“I don’t know where the bush is or
how to get there,” I say.
My mother smiles softly. “They’re
expecting you. Now, change your
clothes before the food gets cold.”
“Why shouldn’t Amadu take the
food? He’s the older one.”
“Go get dressed before I get angry.”
She is shouting now as she goes down
the kitchen steps. I follow her into the
house. She pushes me into her bedroom
and points to a dress lying on the bed.
“Put that on before you come out.” She
gives the orders as she pulls a red-andwhite
checkered towel from the basket
on the floor. I am getting nervous, but I
don’t want her to notice. I figure if it is
decided I should be circumcised this
summer, Mother will figure out a way to
get me out of the house, will or woe. But
I am not going to make it easy for her.
I feign a struggle, pulling the dress
down over my face. She ignores me. I try
conversation.
“How have they been, Fanta and
Mbalia and Yanati and Seray? How have
they been since they’ve been at the
bush?”
“They look very nice in the cotton
material I bought them, and they’ve all
put on weight.”
“What do they eat there?” I ask with
great interest.
“Every kind of food you can think of.
Last Friday, Mbalia asked for sattie, 2
and Auntie Mbalia prepared it for them
in the morning. Then Auntie Seray prepared
couscous and salads for Yanati in
the afternoon, and Auntie Fanta roasted a
whole duck for dinner. It’s been like that
every day.”
This is my favorite part of the entire
Bundu process—the eating and drinking
to the heart’s content. The thought actually
calms me down a little as I begin to
imagine cassava leaves, potato leaves,
obiata, 3 jollof rice, 4 plantains, okra, and
foofo, 5 all lined up in front of my dietconscious
sister and cousins.
“What did you cook?” I ask, following
my mother back to the kitchen.
She replies, “Yanati said she wanted
to eat some fried fish with plantains before
the ceremony tonight. So that’s…”
“What ceremony?” I ask jumpily, wondering
if it has anything to do with me.
“We’re going to do a small ceremony
tonight, so the girls will be able to come
outside and walk around the yard. Maybe
in a few weeks they can go out into the
streets.”
“I’ll just leave the tray at Granny’s
house, and somebody else will take it to
the bush.”
As the women work, they
sing, moving their heads
or waving the knives in
their hands to the rhythm
of the song.
“You have nothing to worry about.
Granny is there. She won’t let them
touch you,” Mother says as she spreads
the towel over the food and places the
tray on my head.
I grab the sides of the heavy tray with
both hands and bite my lower lip as I
make my way out toward the gate.
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Article 27. Bundu Trap
“Keep both hands on the tray,”
Mother shouts as I leave the confines of
her gate.
Before I reach the empty lot next to
Granny’s house, I hear the sound of
women singing and clapping. The
women sit in clusters of five to seven—
one group is peeling onions, another is
skinning fowls, another pounding flour
in large mortars, another cutting meat.
As the women work, they sing, moving
their heads or waving the knives in their
hands to the rhythm of the song. I try to
weave my way through the enormous
pots and bowls, the white powder from
the mortars, the obese legs sprawled between
one bowl and another. Auntie Ole,
Haja 6 Khadi, Auntie Memuna, Haja Fatmata,
Miss Conteh, Haja Alari. I call out
those names I remember and smile
broadly to the others.
It doesn’t seem as bad as I had imagined.
I feel as though I could leave the
food with one of these aunties or hajas
and return home safely, but I move on,
even quickening my now light steps until
suddenly I see it. Spiked stalks of dried
bamboo leaves protrude from the roof of
a dark hut standing ahead of me on the
farthest end of the yard. Its fragile walls
of straw mats are square in shape, and
from where I am standing, I can see no
doors. Just as I begin to imagine being
locked up inside with Mami Sowe, with
no way of escape, I see a woman sitting
by what finally is beginning to look like
a doorway to the bush. She is cutting
cloth—the same cloth my mother said
she bought for Fanta and the others. I remember
mother saying they looked good
in it, so why is it only being cut now? I
don’t have time to answer my own question.
The woman’s voice cuts its way
through my thoughts like a butcher’s
knife on brisket.
“Send her over here.”
My blood stops cold, my legs weaken
under me, and my head begins to spin.
Voices murmur around me. Ear-piercing
clanks cause my head to feel as though
every piece of flesh is suddenly scalpeled
from the inside. A wet piece of
cloth passes through my mouth. I feel the
soaked sponge of red fluid on my face
and neck—and then a soft voice.
“Your mother is not going to be
pleased.”