July 20, 2023 – Pikin Slee, Suriname
Fosu ganiakanda
At 4:45 this morning I was woken by Edje and Wilgo—just before my alarm was set to ring at five, a precaution I hadn’t needed. It felt as though I had been torn away from a conversation I longed to finish. I can’t recall exactly with whom, only that it was a small circle of people with whom I felt deeply at ease.
Late last night, around midnight, Edje had gathered the Malombe lombe leaves. They stood ready, a doo buka. It was pitch-dark, new moon, stars. Toya appeared too. He had forgotten his koosu—“ooohhh, Wilgo as well,” he laughed. I still saw the two cloths hanging yesterday afternoon in the gangasa, baka museum.
Ko boo go
Edje walked ahead, his headlamp cutting a circle of light into the darkness—the center sharp, the outer edge fading. Wilgo followed, but even before we passed his house he let me go first. I was still sleepy, caught in that gentle in-between of sleep and waking. My body knew the paths: every unevenness in the trail, every turn. Yet I also trusted blindly, the path Edje marked out walking in front of me. How many nights had we walked like this through the village? Guided by flashlight. Always safe. Always sheltered. Both protective and thrilling.
We passed the crèche, where the rain-swollen path had nearly freed the electricity pole from the ground beside it. Silent now, just beyond basia Indo and Christina—always present, always ready for a chat. Quiet too was the yard where older women usually sit to greet passersby; in their hammocks now. “So quiet, isn’t it?” Edje whispered.
Past the head captain’s house, then behind Aluma’s. Past the house of that gowtuman from the yai visit, who still asks when we’ll come again. Down toward the river, across the wooden plank bridge, past Tooto, up left—there the way is less familiar to me, so I wake more fully. Past the French-speaking basia’s house—have they poured cement in front? Further uphill, under the first azanpau. Edje continues straight, veering right. I know I must turn left: Muyee pasi, the women’s path. A subtle hesitation in Edje’s step is my cue to slip out of our line formation.
Under the great kankantree, climbing over her dry roots, past the gaan sitonu with their lichens. I shine my borrowed flashlight on the stone where, four years ago, I photographed those same lichens. Oh! Changed, grown—though only millimeters each year.
Beneath the last, the main azanpau, we descend the great stone steps. The river is already low. Almost dee wee, the dry season.
Woo wasi
Edje begins to knead the leaves in a bucket, Toya naturally at his side. Or had this already started back at Edje’s house, on the balcony? Then into the river. Edje leads the way. My feet search the shape of the slippery rock stones. Step by step. Sand. I go first. Just like yesterday. Wilgo rubs his arms with his hands as a sign: remember to wash. Oh true!… I almost forgot and rub myself clean. Smells good that malombe lombe. And then I continue… not too deep. Doki. Head under water. The current runs along my whole body. My koosu almost slips free. Then Wilgo—or is it Toya—beside me. I follow, scooping river water into the bucket. My turn again. Taanpu. Bent forward, taller than Edje, this gadyamai leans into the current and then I stretch out in the river. Mavungu above us? Or the spirit of the kankantree? I mustn’t forget to speak our wishes and intentions aloud: Tide di waka mus go bunu, tee mi toona ko aki. Fu di libi makandi u ta du aki, ku di tembe, di wooko makandi.
“That was two, right?” Edje asks. His turn now, before our final immersion. We scoop water with cupped hands, letting it pour forward. Voices overlap, variations of the same prayers—one current, building energy, strengthening. With splashes and cascades, this would have been the perfect audio recording for our work: voices entwined with water. But perhaps recording would have changed it. Turned it into performance. And now it was simply this. Now. Intense, present. Intentions spoken. Together. Building… until it was complete.
Climbing up, I found my slippers on the lowest step. A dry cloth too—the yellow one with red stripes and that perfect little frill. Bought from a lady last January in Langu. Up the stairs, I veer right, they go left. Is the sky already lightening? No—it’s my flashlight again. The stone on muyee pasi, the one with lichens, is broken in two. I call to Edje. No answer. When? What does it mean? Or am I clinging too tightly to signs? And yet—what does it mean?
This was my first wan-daka-obia-wasi. A powerful one, if I may believe Abete, and Edje’s face—so intent, so serious when his brother suggested it. I want to hold this image forever: the river, Wilgo and Toya stripped bare, their long dreadlocks loose. Water splashing around us in the near-pitch dark. And the sound. That sound, stored somewhere deep inside.