The thick and golden late-afternoon sunlight spilt over the horizon like a pool of honey; Its suffocating copper rays illuminated every speck of dust that hung in the air. Tufts of browned grass shot out of the ground and their shadows broke the plain of gold like black shards of glass scattered over the dirt road. The chilling breeze danced through the dried-up riverbed and caressed the heads of the curled reeds that stood beside it.
They too cast shadowy black streaks over the umber land, mimicking the stretched out strips of grass in a woven basket. Beyond the scattered shards of glass and the curled river reeds, however, an inky figure gyrated joyously and trilled pleasing notes of ululation, rolling consonants and resonance. Peering through a gap in the sandy brown reeds, the inky figure morphed into the shadow of a Traditional African Male, exuberantly gambolling in the sorrel sun-rays.
With wrinkled ebony skin and greying curls of hair that were sprinkled with the sepia dust of the land, The Man cavorted and sang with a joy I had never before experienced. His eyes were sparkling pools of caramel and the shadows of the reeds reflected in them. Silvery eyelashes sheltered his eyes, reaching up toward the remnants of overgrown eyebrows that had thinned with age.
The Man smiled so radiantly that a tendon was raised in each of his temples and his aged skin stretched toward his ears. He had thin, smooth lips that revealed a set of teeth that was missing its top right front incisor, but none the less, he grinned gleefully. His nose wrinkled as he did so, and light twinkled off the silver ring that pierced his left nostril. His forehead was creased with a pattern like the markings in wood, and subtle crinkles gathered around the outward corners of his eyes. The single white feather of an earring swayed as he danced, and cast a gentle shadow onto his cheek, which had a stroke of red mud painted across it.
The Man’s arms were stretched out above him, and his hands twisted methodically in the cool air. Veins sat evidently on the ebony surface of his hands, leading toward his long and bony fingers that were capped with trimmed but grubby fingernails. Cracks ran vertically down them and caught the amber light as his fingers fluttered in their dance.
White bangles hung on his thin and sun-tanned arms, complemented by white seeds that lay in the long beaded necklace which was strung around his neck. Deep zig-zagging scars were embedded in the thin skin on either side of his chest, through
which his ribs protruded slightly. The Man’s abdominal muscles danced as well as his fingers and arms, as he gyrated so cheerfully I’m the amber light.
He spoke with an accent of rolling r’s and elongated vowels. His deep voice travelled through the valley as he proclaimed his joy to the world. His silky brown lips curled backward against his smile and his tongue clicked as they moved to form the sharp pronunciations of his words.
The Man sang with an admiration for all that the earth and heavens were. He sang to his God, to his ancestors, to his children and grandchildren who would one day dance with him in the golden evening sunlight. He sang to the dragonfly that hovered on the curled-up reed near the river, and to the birds that flocked above him. Through his smiling teeth, he told me his name: “Abayomi,” he said, “meaning ‘born to bring joy.’”