By Thomas Gilchrist
If the Senegalese had invaded the French, and they had torn down their cafés and schools, and turned all their roads to dirt and made everybody into farmers and Qu’ranic scholars and drummers and Mbalax singers and Sabaar dancers, and they had torn down their homes of stone and brick and replaced them with huts made out of mud and sticks and bricks made by the sun, good materials Mother Nature gave to all people but only some of which were smart enough to use.
And the Senegalese, they taught the French how to make huts out of straw and mud, and slowly all the French homes made out of stone and wood, homes that had been standing for hundreds of years because that’s how people lived–those homes slowly but surely moved to the outskirts of town to form their own little villages of French-Styled homes way out in the countryside.
What began as one little straw mud hut in the middle of Paris soon (and by soon I mean like a lightning bolt in the eye of Time) became an entire metropolis of straw huts and all the buildings were gone and the Eiffel Tower was dismantled and used to make cooking pots.
This went on for a couple hundred years or so, and then one day the French pressured the Senegalese enough so the Senegalese packed up and went back to Senegal–though they left what they left–and the French were left with Paris being a giant spread of straw huts and everyone rode around on donkeys.
Things were fine for 10 years or so, but eventually those huts began to need repairs because the straw was getting moldy, and the bricks were cracking and falling apart because of seasonal changes from winter to spring and Summer to Fall. So the French set about fixing their dilapidated huts (which now looked nothing like the pristine huts of African savannas they saw in the posters) and curing their sick donkeys because the breed of donkey the Senegalese had introduced to France were used to more arid climates, and they often became sick in the wet, cold climate of France.
Only the French weren’t experts at building straw and mud huts (though their cathedrals were magnificent), in fact all that straw was expensive because that much straw is hard to find in France–and they were always running out of mud too, regardless of how ridiculous that sounds, because there simply wasn’t enough mud to go around for everybody to keep fixing their huts.
And all the donkeys were dying from basic maladies like the common Donkey Cold because everyone would take their donkeys to the veterinarian, but the veterinarian, Pierre Diop, would look at them matter of factly and say “Well I don’t know… I’ve never treated a donkey before.” And then no one had anyway to get around town because all the donkeys were dead.
Well, without any donkeys to get around, Paris really couldn’t grow like it once had because nobody wanted to walk all the way outside of town just to build their hut or their business there because it was simply too far to walk. The French realized that they needed more donkeys if they were going to get back to the way life had been with the Senegalese, and so the French Chief sent a messenger to the Chief of Senegal requesting 10,000 donkeys to share amongst his people. The Chief of Senegal said, “Sure, I’ll give you 10,000 donkeys, and in return, you’ll let some of my people return, and continue to farm your French land, only the farmers will be Senegalese, who will not pay for the land, and the fruits of this land will return by ship to Senegal.” Seeing as he needed the donkeys, and he had plenty of land to spare, the Chief of France agreed, although he wished the Chief of Senegal had let them keep some of the crops, though there wasn’t anything he could do now.
So the 10,000 donkeys started to arrive on giant ships made of wood l
ashed together with vines along with the Senegalese farmers who would continue to farm the land, though their crops would return to Senegal.
But the same thing happened to these donkeys despite the fact that the veterinarians were getting a little bit better at treating them: when the sky turned bleak and winter came, the donkeys began to die from colds and the flu.
But after a while, the French got better at living like the Senegalese. They learned how to better build their houses out of not just mud and sticks, but the weeds that grew aplenty near the many ponds and streams of France. They got better at taking care of their donkeys, and began raising their own cross-breed, better suited for the cold, drizzly winters, and in turn created the need for people to breed donkeys. They got better at farming the kinds of crops they could sell outside of France, and soon the Senegalese farmers living in France began to return to Senegal, because the French were working them out of jobs. Instead, the Chief of France and the Chief of Senegal intermarried their daughters so France would send Senegal rice and in return, Senegal would give the French fabric out of which one can make clothes.
France was doing just fine. Most of its people now had jobs breeding Donkeys, some of which lived to be fifty years old or more, strong as an ox till the end of their days, making fabric that was good for the cold and the rain and mud bricks able to withstand the seasonal changes without cracking (they key was mixing in a little cement with the mud), and French rice became known as the finest in the world, and commanded a high price in India and Egypt.
Some people even went back to living like their Great-Great-Great Grandmothers and Grandfathers had generations ago, building their homes out of lumber and stone, and producing excellent wine unmatched in all African West Europe, an art lost but not forgotten during the Colonial Period, for most Senegalese did not drink.
image courtesy of flickr.com user Stig Nygaard
By Thomas Gilchrist
insert a second incision traversing the length of the body. This time you are cutting not the hide but the flesh
“The Mosquitoes are my friends,” he said.
