Adele, part two

The next day was normal. School was cancelled in continuation of the May Day celebrations. I don't remember anything that I did.

Towards evening, the sky clouded up. It had the texture of hand-whipped cream, and the color of a quiet pebble. Monsieur was standing outside the compound. He'd spent the day playing board games beneath the rafia tree. "Que pensez-vous?" I asked. "La pluie va tomber?" He was positive that it would not. I decided that I would not walk to the field to water the trees.

The night before I'd heard Monsieur chastising the boys. It was in Kabye, so I didn't understand it. There was no punishment doled out as far as I could see. Monsieur is a good man, but a product of his culture. Punishing the boys was not necessary. Warning them not to do it again would suffice.

What kills me about the whole thing is that those boys did something terrible to her. Adele is not a crier. I've never seen anybody weather the injustices doled out to her with such dignity or patience. To find her drenched in tears, shaking with sobs, barely able to breathe because of it, I knew whatever happened had been bad. I told this story to a volunteer friend, and she asked if I'm sure hitting her was as far as the boys had gone. I don't want to entertain the notion. Besides, I think those boys are homosexuals.

Back to Friday, the day after. After quizzing Monsieur on the weather I piddle around for a bit in the house. It's tchouk day chez moi, so several of the old men in the community have stopped by to drink. I tell them I'll join them as soon as I take a shower. As I shiver under the first callabash of cistern water, the rain begins to fall.

While I'm inside changing, the boys and Adele are running around the compound, putting buckets in strategic spots to catch the rain water. I close my windows against the wind and head under the paillote to wait out the downpour with the old men. Everybody is under some sort of roof.

Pretty soon the wife of the history professor is yelling across the compound. "Adele! Adele!" A bucket of insufficient size has been placed under the gutter runoff on the roof near their part of the compound. She wants Adele to empty the bucket into the cistern. Adele does not protest, but sprints across the compound and takes care of the job. When she puts the bucket back under the gutter, the wife tells Adele to wait for it to fill up again. She does not invite her inside.

I'm wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and my fleece jacket, a clothing combination unheard of in this climate, but I'm freezing. Adele is under the gutter; the wind is blowing the rain straight at her. She is dancing, hopping from foot to foot, her hands clasped together across her body, trying to keep warm. Her skirt and thin blouse are completely soaked.

She empties the bucket into the cistern again, places it under the gutter, and continues to wait. Nobody in the compound is paying attention to her but me. She's absolutely freezing. And I decide I hate this place. I hate that a day after what must have been a heartless beating, if not worse, Adele is called out in the rain, tiny and shivering, to empty water from a bucket she did not place into a cistern she will not use. I hate these people and their customs. I hate the mentality that says cultures aren't wrong, just different. I want to wake up Adele one night when she's fallen asleep on the concrete patio, wrap her in a blanket and take her home. I want to give her sisters, and friends, and coloring books, and a day with no chores. I want to save her, but I have no idea how.

As I'm watching her, as guilty as any of the indifferent men under the paillote, I wonder what she's thinking. What she must wish for in the face of a life like this. Then Adele takes a stutter-step running start, and dives on her belly across the smooth concrete porch. She must have slidden ten feet. I can't help but laugh out loud. She gets up, turns to me, and buries her hands in her face. All I hear is the sound of the rain, and her giggles. She smiles at me, checks the bucket. She dives again.