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The doum tree of Wad Hamid
I laugh because I know what's going on in your head. You
townsfolk hurry to the hospital on the slightest pretext. If one
of you hurts his finger you dash off to the doctor who puts a
bandage on and you carry it in a sling for days; and even then
it doesn't get better. Once I was working in the fields and
something hit my fi ngcr—this little finger of mine. I jumped to
my feet and looked around in the grass where I found a snake
lurking. I swear to you it was longer than my arm. I took hold
of it by the bead and crushed it between two fingers, then bit
into my finger, sucked out the blood, and took up a handful of
dust and rubbed it on the bite.
But that was only a little thing. What do we do when faced
with real illness?
This neighbour of ours, now. One day her neck swelled up
and she was confined to bed for two months. One night she
had a heavy fever, so at first dawn she rose from her bed and
dragged herself along till she came—yes, my son, till she came
to the down tree of Wad ['amid. The woman told us what
happened.
'I was under the down tree,' she said, 'with hardly sufficient
strength to stand up, and called out at the top of my voice:
"0 Wad I !amid, I have conic to you to seek refuge and protec-
tion—I shall sleep here at your tomb and under your doum tree.
Either you let me die or you restore me to life; I shall not
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leave here until one of these two things happens.
And so I curled myself up in fear, the woman continued
with her story, 'and was soon overcome by sleep. While
midway between wakefulness and sleep I suddenly heard
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