33
With the initiation complete, Oumar, Akuchi, and I talk about the future. A caravan soon arrives, our village a stop on the journey to Timbuktu.
“My brother, I am ready to return home,” Oumar tells me as the travelers make camp.
“But this is your home,” I say, wanting him to stay. “Our father is here and there is work to be done now that we are men.”
“Our father? Your father. I am grateful to now know the story of my making, but my life is with Mansa Qu who found me in the desert and saved me.”
This I knew to be true. Oumar and our father’s relationship is strained. Perhaps, it is because he sees Oumar’s struggle with the daily activities of dressing and eating. Or perhaps it is my father’s guilt that he abandoned the twisted infant to the desert animals. I suspect it is the latter
