The sun burned hot in the late afternoon, the sky slowly starting to turn red with the sunset as the people of Nkaleë gathered inside the village hall for their monthly community meeting. The space was cramped and the heat would have been bearable if the only river in the village wasn't drying up.
Their oba had invited a foreign company from Brazil to fix the problem. They came up with a proposal that involved expensive machines that the village treasury could not afford unless they took a loan.
But Zaynab Alkali knew the answer. She had walked the riverbanks since childhood with her grandmama. The problem was simply a blockage and not whatever the foreign experts claimed. It lay upstream where illegal excavation had redirected the water little by little until it started to dry up.
When one of the council stood to explain the company's proposal, Zaynab raised her hand. At first, no one noticed until the chatter quieted a bit but she spoke anyway. A few men nodded politely while talking as though her voice had been merely a passing breeze in the hall.
Then her grandmama rose, a little unsteadily and bent around the shoulders, stomping her cane on the floorboards. The room quieted from the surprise as she pointed at Zaynab. “Listen to her.”
The oba and his council were stupefied as well as the men seated near the front while the women watched in their quiet corners, balancing babies in their arms.
For the first time ever, Zaynab was not interrupted. Her grandmama urged her to speak louder and she nodded, cleared her throat and respectfully explained the things she found near the excavation site and how restoring the original channel would cost less than paying the foreign company.
When she finished no one clapped while the oba nodded with a frown on his face.
A week later, the committee set up to look into Zaynab's ideas confirmed them and the blockage was cleared. Water began flowing from the river. The people of Nkaleë were happy and relieved, praising the committee for a well-done job.
No one remembered that the idea had been Zaynab's. Her grandmama patted her cheeks softly. “Finally, they listened.”
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "listen to her".
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