1

The first thing I remember is laying on that bed with my arms flat against my sides and how difficult it felt trying to open my eyes. I felt as if I needed help opening my eyes. And when I did open them, it required energy to open them up again after each blink.

What I saw was blur. Silhouettes of people gathered around me. I didn't see their faces clearly but I could sense that they were agitated, turning to their sides and looking at one another from time to time.

Someone bent towards me and put something cold on my forehead. After blinking this time when I opened my eyes, I could see clearly. I saw the face of the person that put that cold thing on my forehead. It was a woman. A grown woman. She was very dark in color. She had black long hair that fell over me. I noticed that she had two bands around her upper arm. The material looked like cheater skin.

The woman was looking down at me. She smiled warmly for a few seconds and then her face crumbled into tears. She wiped them quickly and then she touched my cheek. With her palm still resting on my cheek, she looked back at the other people. I lifted my head slightly to look at them too. They stared back curiously.

I heard her say something to them but I didn't understand her words. They all rejoiced and began dancing around. I frowned at their sudden excitement. What were they so happy about?

At that moment a man from the group stepped closer. He had his hands crossed over his chest and didn't seem to be as happy as the rest of the group. He looked superior, compared to the others. He wore a thin band around his forehead with feathers poking out from it, almost looking like a crown. The band was cheater skin too. He looked at me for a while and then turned to address the mob in a very deep and firm voice. They all nodded and I followed them with my eyes as they disappeared behind a curtain one after another. A strong light glared at me behind that curtain each time the people drew away the curtain to leave.

The woman who had been smiling at me didn't leave. She stayed by my side still smiling down at me. She directed her words at me but was not looking at me. I heard footsteps recede. I hadn't even noticed that there was still someone else here. The person had been standing by my bedside all along and I hadn't even noticed. I tried to see who it was but I only caught a glimpse of the person walking away and disappearing behind the curtain too. The person also had long black bushy hair falling down her back.

The man looked at the woman and said something that the woman didn't reply to.

The person whom the woman had sent away returned and I finally saw her face. It was a young lady. She looked very focus and walked upright as she came toward us with a molded bowl in her hands. She held it towards the woman and the woman put her hand in it and drew out a smaller bowl with a handle from it. She lifted my head up and put the bowl to my mouth. It was water. It felt good. I wished for some more but she returned it to the young lady.

I wanted to sit up but the woman refused, she held me back down. I wanted to speak but I couldn't, I didn't have the strength. My tongue felt heavy. She noticed that I was trying to speak and she put her fingers on my lips and shook her head. Her warm smile didn't leave her face. I noticed wrinkles at the edges of her eyes as she smiled.

She started speaking to me: words I heard but didn't understand. She spoke for long and then turned to the lady and started speaking to her. The lady nodded. The woman then got up from the bed and finally left the chamber with the man following behind her.

As soon as they left the lady came to sit next to me on the bed and began staring at me, she didn't take her eyes off me. She wore a frown and looked confused. She drew out her hand and touched my hair for a while and then she pinched the skin on my face lightly. She leaned towards me and smelled my skin. She took my hand and played with the skin on my palm. She pushed back my nails. I couldn't do anything, I just felt weak. She said something to me. I opened my mouth to speak again but I couldn't. My throat still felt dry.

As if she could read my mind, she gave me some more water and splashed some on my face. It felt so refreshing.

She then continued to talk. I didn't understand anything.

"Uh..." I attempted to speak again. She jerked her attention at me suddenly.

"Wh... Where... my?"

She frowned and said something which I didn't understand. She looked even more puzzled now.

"Where... mmy?"

She suddenly ran out and came back with the woman behind her. The woman seemed excited and said something to me.

"Whh... Wh... What's... go... going o... on?"

The woman and the lady looked at each other and then back at me.

The woman told the lady... and the lady ran out.

She came back later with the man with the cheater skin band. The man started complaining. I couldn't understand what he was going on about but I could see he was upset by the rough gestures he was making.

When the woman spoke the man exhaled heavily, thought for a while, then replied.

The woman sent the lady out again. This time she took a very long time to return.

I was still trying to say things but the woman didn't stop me. She looked rather worried now.

After a while the lady returned with another person. A young man. He came in with a frown. He was topless. Only then I noticed that the forehead band man was also topless. But this young man did not have a band around his head or arm. He had a lot of hair on his head but it wasn't falling to his shoulders, it was standing straight up. He had eyebrows that touched.

He approached the bed I was laying on and the woman spoke to him. He nodded. Still with his frown, he asked for permission and the woman allowed him to sit on the side of the bed. He looked at me with concern. He said something to me that sounded way different from what I've been hearing from these people. I looked at him blankly. I didn't understand what was going on. None of them were answering my questions and none of them made any sense.

"Wh... What?" I asked him.

He closed his eyes and smiled. And then he grinned and looked up at the woman. He said... and looked back at me. He no longer wore the frown.

"What is your name?" He asked me. He had a funny accent.

I looked at him for a while. I finally understood what he was trying to say but I was more confused.

"What?" I asked him.

"What is your name?" He repeated.

"My name?"

He turned back to the woman who looked eager now.

"My name is Yoké." Yoké said turning back to me, he spoke with gestures. "What is your name?"

"I... I don't un.. understand."

He urged them to give me water.

"Where are you from?" He asked me after the young lady made me drink water from the bowl.

"From?"

"Yes, which country?"

"Uh... I don't know." I replied feeling so hopeless.

"Tell me something about you. Where is your family?"

I didn't know the answers to the questions he was asking me.

"Family?"

"Yes, mother, father, brother?" He told me pinching the space between his eyes. "Can you stop repeating everything I'm saying?"

"Where am I?" I asked him and tried to sit up. He helped me sit up on the bed with my back against the wall. The bed made creaking sounds as I sat up.

"You are in Toko village. This is our village. These..." Yoké pointed to the man and woman who were standing behind him watching. "These are my people. You see, look at our skin. Do you see the colour of my skin? Now, do you see the colour of yours?"

He placed the back of his hand before me and took my hand and placed it next to his. We were not the same colour. His hand was very dark in complexion and mine very light in complexion.

"Where is your people?" He continued to ask me.

"I... I don't know..."

"So you are here alone?" He looked surprised. "Why did you come here?"

"I really don't know..." I told him shaking my head slowly.

He turned to the man and women and started speaking to them what I couldn't understand. Only the woman was replying. After some time he turned back to me again.

"Standing behind me is the chief and chieftess of our village. They are very good people. They will take care of you. They won't be able to understand you because they don't speak English. They only speak Loke and Kwali, our languages. Only I speak English in this whole village. That is why they came to look for me."

I looked at the chief and chieftess. Now it was clear to me why they had on these cheater skin bands.

"By the way, I am a teacher here. The only teacher in this village. I am very popular. The chieftess' name is Furah. She just told me that I should come here again tomorrow too before the sun sets to help the healer understand you."

"Why am I here?" I asked him.

"That's what the chief wants to know. But the people of Toko village found you near the river. You were left to die. We don't know how you got there but you were very hurt. They carried you and brought you to the chief's hut and since then you've been taken care of."

"Really?" I asked him.

"A lot of the villagers claim that they saw you being thrown out of the water by your God, some say that you fell from the sky from one of those big birds that fly by and others say that you just appeared there suddenly."

"Where do you think I came from?"

"I believe that you fell from, what my people call the big bird, or from what me and you both know as an aeroplane."

"Aeroplane?"

"Your skin is very pale, I think you might be sick."

"Yours is very dark..." I told him.

He looked at me for a while and then spoke. "I'm sure that you won't be able to recall anything right now, your falling was really bad. You need some time. At the montant, don't worry you are safe here. I must go now. My time is up."

Yoké stood up and began talking to the man and woman. My stomach suddenly growled with hunger. He then turned back to me.

"Furah said that I should tell you that she is very happy that you have regained consciousness."

"I feel very hungry." I told him placing my hands over my stomach.

"Of cause you should be hungry. Furah told me that you had been unconscious for about 6 nights now. You usually just open your eyes and sleep again. If you had not woken up on the 10th day, they were going to ease your pain and kill you."

I gasped. "Oh my God!"

He laughed. "You should see your face, that reaction is just..."

I didn't find it funny.

"Anyway, I hope you will heal fast. Your wounds look very deep. I should go now, Furah is only paying me 80 corns." He said getting up from the bed. I realized that whenever he was not smiling he looked so serious.

"Where are you going?"

"Where else? To my hut." He responded.

"Where is that?" I asked him.

"I don't stay in this area. My hut is far, by the mountains."

"I don't understand these people, please take me with you to your hut."

He frowned at me. He looked at me as if I had just said something that he did not like.

"What you are saying is very wrong. That is not permitted here. Until I do not marry you, we cannot even be under the same roof alone."

"Then marry me."

He laughed for a long time and then shook his head. Furah urged him to interpret what I had said that was so funny but he just shook his head at her.

"If they heard you say that, they would kill you." He told me, his smile fading away.

"What is it with you people and killing?" I asked him rolling my eyes and crossing my hands over my chest.

"In our village a woman does not pursue a man. If she does she is considered shameless and her head is cut off. But I understand that since you don't even remember your own name, you obviously do not remember what it means to marry someone either. I'm going now."

He spoke to Furah and she went away and disappeared behind a curtain which was in the hut.

"So you are coming again tomorrow?" I asked him.

"Yes." He replied standing with his hands behind his back.

"What is the time now?" I asked him.

"A little before sunset."

I looked at him blankly.

"What?" He asked frowning at me.

Furah came back with a handful of corn. She gestured to him to take the corn. He had a tiny sack hanging from the waist line of his skirt. He removed the sack and opened it up to Furah. She then put the corn into his little sack.

They exchanged short phrases and he left.

The woman Furah came to touch my face and smiled warmly. She sent the lady away and the lady came back with a flat plate with different types of coloured things on it. Along with the things on the plate, there was also boiled corn. They put it on my lap and urged me on but I didn't know what I was supposed to do with those funny looking things. Furah took some water from the bowl and washed her hands and then took some of the stuff on my lap and put it in her mouth and began to chew. I then understand that I had to eat them, they were all food.

I followed the same pattern, took some water and washed my hands and started to eat. The food tasted blunt and a bit sour. I went from one food to the other but they all tasted horrible. I ate for a while and then I just felt everything that I had just consumed come right back up. I suddenly threw up all over the sheets.