The Queen of Fouta
Queen [kween]: (noun) a woman, or something personified as a woman, that is foremost or preeminent in any respect
She walks ahead, singing a song to herself in Pular Her thin figure glides through the rocky terrain as if it were mango puree She stops to look out at the landscape, taking in her reign Her entire realm, from a village on top of the mountain Eyes full of kindness and wisdom, she turns to me “C’est jolie, no?” Mamadou Nassirivu Bah, Queen of Donghol-Touma.
When I first met Nassirivu on the day of our counterpart workshop back in January, I didn’t know what to think. She stands at almost six feet tall and towered over many of the other Guinean men in the room, with a majestic air to her.
I was intimidated.
She was quiet at first and, between my horrible French and Pular and her few words in English, we had nothing to talk about. She seemed bored with me. I remember looking around and silently and anxiously wondering what I was going to do if this woman was just brings me to the community, dropping me off and I never see her again.
Well, it’s five months later, and I’ve realized that I’ve never met anyone like her.
Nassirivu is in her fifties and had her first child at twenty, a rare case in a country when the rate of marriage and pregnancy trends towards girls under the age of sixteen. She said it was because she wanted to wait. She laughs when she tells me the story, her eyes glittering: her husband, who she hasn’t seen in almost two years because he works in Senegal, had no choice but to agree because she was stubborn.
Her presence alone demands respect, and she receives it, no questions asked. I’ve watched her yell at someone in front of a crowd on market day because he said something disrespectful to me in local language.
She is fiercely proud of her community, but she’s just as fiercely adamant about taking on the health challenges that the people face here. I’ve gone on multiple sensibilisations with her, acting only as her assistant, while she explains to children, women, and men everything ranging from the importance of early breastfeeding to the cause of shingles.
And most importantly, she is believes in me and what I’m doing here. She wants to learn from me just as much as she wants to teach me about this place. Weekly, we sit down and she teaches me Pular phrases and I teach her English words. I watch as her finger touches each and every letter of the words, sounding them out until she gets them right.
It’s Wednesday. As I take a deep breath and walk out the door to face the circus that is market day, I walk towards Nassirivu’s market staff, as I do every Wednesday. Getting closer, I squint in the sun and what I see makes me want to smile and cry out of happiness. There she is, sitting in her stall, giving a sensibilisation on the importance of hygiene in preventing parasites. About ten vendors and friends are gathered around, watching her and more continue to stop by to see what all the fuss and clucking is about. I stand, watching in awe before making my way over to take a seat on an adjacent bench. She says a quick hello to me, squeezes my arm, and gets back to business explaining the photos in the flipbook to wide eyes and silent mouths. I sit too, and watch her highness do what she does best.
The market ladies return to their stalls, chattering on about the information they just acquired. She carefully and quietly writes down the numbers of people she has just sensitized onto an information sheet giving to her by the Health Center. Finally, she turns to me.
“Aicha, ça va?”
I smile and behold the fascinating and powerful Guinean woman in front of me that I have the privilege of working with for the next two years.
“Ça va bien Nassirivu.”