Beneath the Tamarind Tree

by Isha Sesay

  As the panic subsided, the sound of weeping echoed throughout the forest. News spread to those hiding of three girls being injured by shrapnel during the bombing. Grief and concern for the wounded drew those in hiding back to the camp. Priscilla walked out of the bushes alongside dozens of girls because of the bonds of sisterhood. The trio who’d been seriously hurt required stitches, but in time they recovered. The bombing had severely traumatized the girls. Even though there was one shelter still standing, most of the girls now refused to sleep inside. Sleeping outdoors gave them a better chance of surviving the next bombing. They all knew it was only a matter of time before terror fell from the skies again.

  One September morning, a month after the aerial attack, Priscilla listened openmouthed to yet another announcement from their captors.

  “We plan to take you home. But first we are going to take you somewhere to relax.”

  Priscilla and Bernice were thinking the same thing. More lies. We can’t believe them now.

  “Hurry up and pack your things!”

  At this point they’d been held for five months, the last two months in this second location. Throughout, they had struggled to find enough to eat or drink. And then the bombing had occurred. The group was eager to move on from this place, though few trusted Boko Haram’s promise. Priscilla wanted to believe they would soon be reunited with their loved ones, but she’d been disappointed by these men too many times. So the anxious girl said a little prayer before they set off. “Lord, we do not know where we are going. God, if these men are telling the truth, then show us. If it is a lie, God, show us.”

  It was midmorning when Priscilla and the others were ushered into the fleet of waiting vehicles. The girls were in a state of turmoil but offered no resistance. Over the course of the many hours they traveled, the militants shared no more information about where they were going or when they would be reunited with their loved ones. Yet most of the girls in Priscilla’s truck couldn’t stop feelings of excitement from taking over. The mood in the vehicle was light, with a great deal of chatter and laughter.

  Priscilla sat quietly throughout, preparing herself for whatever happened next. She watched as the landscape around them changed. The claustrophobia of Sambisa slowly fell away, and the dirt track eventually came to resemble a road. When the Boko Haram convoy pulled into the town of Gwoza, it was past eleven at night. Most people were already asleep, and even those who were awake had no idea Boko Haram had brought the world’s most famous hostages to this militant enclave in Borno State, south of its capital, Maiduguri. The girls themselves had no idea they were now closer than they had ever been to their homes in Chibok. After the militants had captured Gwoza in August 2014, they’d slaughtered or driven out most of the civilians from this town in Nigeria’s northeast. By the time the men turned up there with the girls, it was mostly empty. Those who remained were loyalists or militants themselves.

  The convoy stopped outside a large compound surrounded by high walls. The gate barring entry was painted black.

  The men yelled, “Come down!”

  The girls did as they were told. As they stood outside, Priscilla looked around the place, and the first alarm bells went off in her head. Why are we to get out of the vehicles here?

  The whole place was eerily silent.

  “You must now enter this house,” the men said.

  “To do what?” challenged the girls.

  “Enter!”

  The gate was suddenly open. Panic immediately surged throughout Priscilla’s body. The men were herding the girls through, and momentum made it difficult for Priscilla or any other girl to refuse to cross the threshold.

  Now the captives found themselves standing in a large compound occupied by a massive eight-bedroom house.

  “Go inside the house.”

  “No.”

  “Why are you just standing here in the compound?”

  “We won’t enter the house of someone we don’t know!”

  “Stop playing games. Enter right now!”

  “No!”

  The girls would not be moved. Even though the men screamed and shouted, Priscilla and the others eventually dropped to the ground and remained there for the rest of the night. Their captors eyed them in silence.

  When rain blanketed Gwoza the next day, the girls decided to take shelter on the veranda, and there they remained for their second night in the town. On the third evening, the men came with angry faces and demanded the group enter the house.

  “You will not sleep here! You must enter immediately!”

  The response was the same. “No, we will not.”

  At this stage, only a fraction of the Chibok girls were in Gwoza. For reasons never explained, the men had divided the hostages into three batches for the journey. Priscilla had arrived with the first batch, who refused to go past the veranda. More girls arrived on the fourth night, and this marked the end of their captors’ patience. On that night the men appeared on the veranda with long, slender canes in their hands. Having decided the time for coaxing and cajoling was over, the men decided to beat the girls mercilessly until the holdouts gave in. They moved among the group with arms flailing as they loudly and sternly ordered everyone into the house. Priscilla wept uncontrollably, not just from the searing pain bolting through her body, but also from knowing they had lost. They had no choice. Priscilla ran indoors surrounded by other weeping girls.

  As distressed as the girls were, they couldn’t help but notice how different this place was from their previous shelter. The house was illuminated by electricity, allowing Priscilla to take in the sofas, tables, and chairs. In the kitchen, a toaster, kettle, stove, and fridge stood ready to be used, and when the taps were turned on, water came rushing out. In the bathrooms, there were showers, working toilets, and more water than the girls knew what to do with. When Priscilla and Bernice caught sight of a woman’s bra and panties hanging in one of the bathrooms, they gave each other puzzled looks. They did the same thing when they spotted a meal half-eaten and clearly abandoned in a hurry. But with her legs and back still smarting from the beating, Priscilla asked no questions.

  The house itself seemed like it was world away from the cramped conditions Priscilla had endured in the forest. The men left it to the girls to decide in which one of the eight bedrooms they wanted to lay their heads at the end of each day. The one room with a bed was automatically handed over to Deborah, who was expecting a baby. She’d been married just a few weeks when Boko Haram had attacked the school, and when they carried her off that night she already knew she was pregnant. Meanwhile, the various cliques moved into the other seven empty bedrooms. A bare floor without blankets or pillows was once again their resting place. But for the first time in five months they would not fall asleep exposed to the elements, and the sun going down would no longer trigger fears of what would emerge from the bushes once the day’s light was gone.

  Life in a comfortable house in town had its own surreal quality. Now Priscilla could bathe whenever she wanted to, an action all the girls finally embraced after months of personal objections. She chose to ignore the gleaming showerhead, and for the first time in months Priscilla was able to fill a bucket with water, enjoy working up a lather with her small bar of soap, and slowly wash herself clean in the privacy of a bathroom. After being grimy for so long, the relief she felt made the nightmare of her captivity a little more bearable on that particular day. The girls could also speak freely among themselves because no male stepped foot in the house while they were there—the farthest they got was the outdoor veranda, where you’d find the imam each day teaching Qur’anic studies.

  The girls could cook food whenever they wanted, and rest or sleep without anyone’s permission. But for all these acts that underscored autonomy and personal choice, the one thing the girls did not have was freedom. From the moment they moved into the large home, they were fully trapped. Now in town, there was no need to go in search of water or firewood, chores the girls loathed. But the unintended c
onsequence was that the girls never moved beyond the front gate. The fact that Gwoza was close to large urban centers like Bama and Maiduguri seemed to have made the men more fearful of an attack or a rescue attempt for the girls. They positioned fighters to stand guard at every window, every door, and around the entire wall surrounding the house.

  Unexpectedly, the imam gave each one of them a journal to aid with their Qur’anic studies. But Priscilla and dozens of others found a different use for the tattered books. She now transferred the writings she’d amassed on those scraps of paper collected in the forest to her treasured notebook. Once the transfer was complete, Priscilla filled a bowl with water and the paper and watched her captured feelings disappear before her eyes. She wrote whenever possible and found comfort in pouring her pain onto the flimsy pages. Like all the other secret scribes, Priscilla stashed her book in various hiding places throughout the bedroom they shared. She knew if the secret writings were ever discovered she’d be in serious trouble, but Priscilla kept writing, convinced this was a risk worth taking.

  Life in town lacked almost all the physical hardships that had shaped and tormented the girls’ existence beneath the gargantuan tree and sleeping near the two-room shelters out in the open. But nothing about their existence was normal. The girls had been in captivity for eight and a half months by the time Christmas came around. Though they’d largely stopped caring about the days of the week, or even the time of day, the high points in the Christian calendar still meant a great deal. So much so, the group tried to keep track of those dates and where they fell. Christmas was the most special of all, a time when bonds between family, friends, and neighbors were strengthened through shared meals and exuberant celebrations. All over Chibok, people got together and split the cost of buying a cow to slaughter for the occasion. The sharing of the uncooked beef among houses is only part of the tradition, perhaps the least important part—the essence of this communion lies in the sharing of the cooked meat among all those who paid for the cow and even those who didn’t. Muslims in the community are also given plates of food and invited to share in the town-wide celebration. Those Christmas memories of past festivities flooded Priscilla’s mind—she pictured the new dresses every child always excitedly received, the elaborate braids the girls wore in their hair, and the sound of vibrant singing that rose to the roof of every Chibok church that special day.

  But now that she found herself in the hands of a bunch of Islamic fanatics, determined to destroy her faith, Priscilla mourned the fact that there could be no public acknowledgment of Christmas and wept bitterly. She longed for the sound of hymns and joyful activity. And her heart grew heavier still as the girls whispered Christmas greetings to each other before retreating to pray individually in secret. All her life, Christmas had been a collective experience, a holiday that more than any other captured the communal spirit of life in Chibok—a place where faith, joy, and loss are equally shared.

  In Gwoza, the girls experienced emotional upset on an unparalleled level. The reason? This is where the talk of marriage really began.

  For the entire time the girls were held in the forest, the men stayed away from the subject, most likely because the few times they’d dared broach it, a couple of the girls had run off in floods of tears. But now their captors felt differently.

  The sight of a large group of militants waiting for the girls on the veranda didn’t set off any alarm bells. As far as Priscilla was concerned, they’d been called outside to hear an announcement. Nothing prepared her for the subject matter.

  “We have come here because we just want to announce to you, for those of you who will agree. You have been with us for a long time and haven’t made it home. So now there is no way for you to go back. So it is a better option for you to think about it and then get married. If you go through with it, then your husband can take you home to your people.”

  The shock among the girls triggered crying and loud shouting: “No, No, No!”

  Shocked by the strength of their refusal, the men quickly left without saying anything more.

  But they returned the next day. This time their statement was brief. “If you agree to marriage, then come and stand to the side.” Much to Priscilla’s surprise, twelve of the original twenty Muslim girls from Chibok decided to make marriage their next life chapter.

  Now that their feelings were known, they were whisked out of the house and placed into a smaller unit just next door. For the men seeking to recruit wives, their actions followed a formula. Every couple of days the men reappeared and made the same pitch to the girls. And with each visit they netted more. Soon there were at least fifty of them living next door, waiting for their suitors to appear, all the while nursing the belief that married life would be better and eventually set them on a path back to their families. Priscilla could hear their laughter through the brittle walls, and whenever the wives-to-be found themselves at the windows, they waved merrily.

  For Priscilla, who’d never even had a boyfriend, because her father hadn’t allowed it, marrying one of these insurgents was out of the question. But to dozens of girls who’d converted to Islam during their first year in captivity, the thought of being wed to one of their captors wasn’t abhorrent. In the days that followed, these girls put their names down for a spouse. For as long as they remained willing but unmarried, the militants kept the girls apart, fearful that holdouts like Priscilla would manage to change their minds. But in time, all of them were married off and promptly disappeared without saying goodbye or leaving any clues to where they’d gone.

  As for the remaining unwed Chibok girls, Boko Haram’s strategy for marriage was quite simple. First, cajole. If that didn’t produce results, then beat the girls or put them to work. The pressure was constant. But when it came to those like Priscilla, the men eventually changed their tactics and began to peel the girls away from the wider group in the belief they’d have a better chance of selling the idea if the conversation didn’t take place in front of an audience. Jida was the one who approached Priscilla.

  “You should marry. . . .”

  “It is better to get married because it will make life more comfortable for you.”

  “When you have your own house nobody will rule over you. . . .”

  “You will have your own authority to do what you want—it will be better than this.”

  It didn’t matter to Priscilla whether she was alone or in a group. Her answer was always the same, a short, sharp no.

  There were painful consequences for refusing. Boko Haram began to dole out beatings to the defiant, which eventually became regular occurrences. Priscilla took the cane lashes without complaining, praying the whole time, “Lord, protect me. I don’t want to get married!”

  The beatings were just one new twist. The other involved using the recalcitrant ones to serve the new Chibok wives. Every day the men turned up at the girls’ house to assign chores to the unmarried “slaves,” who busied themselves doing their mistresses’ laundry or delivering messages on their behalf. All the while, the newlyweds were supposedly busy with their Islamic studies. Priscilla refused to be drawn into this new state of affairs, and each time they chose her for work duty, she quietly but firmly refused, muttering something about having a headache and feeling too weak to work. In time it was clear she was faking, but there were plenty of other girls to choose from, so ultimately the men left her alone.

  The birth of baby Amos brought some measure of relief to the strained relations between the two groups of girls. After briefly complaining of stomach pains, Deborah had retreated to her room and within a short time had given birth, with the help of a handful of girls who’d never delivered a baby before. Nervousness kept Priscilla away from what was happening, but she rejoiced with all the others when she learned Amos had been born without any complications. The chubby little one soon became everyone’s baby and they all took turns caring for him. He survived on Deborah’s breast milk, was never ill, and received all the clothing he needed from their capt
ors, as well as gifts from the girls who had moved next door.

  Still, the fact that some of the girls had married their abductors and were now treating their former classmates as slaves sorely tested the bonds of kinship. Priscilla viewed the situation with sadness rather than rage. When she looked at the choices her classmates had made, she didn’t see acts of free will. In her mind, the decision to marry hadn’t been made easily by any of her friends. These were girls who simply couldn’t bear the pressure. So whenever Chibok wives turned up at the girls’ house to hang out and have their hair braided, they received a warm welcome and the conversation between the girls remained friendly.

  The only time tensions mounted was when talk turned to marriage.

  “You should agree to marriage. Your life will become easier,” the wives coaxed gently.

  “Stop talking!” yelled the holdouts. “Stop talking about this one. We don’t want this kind of talking.”

  “Okay, okay, it is not by force, it is by choice,” the brides responded, hoping to ease the tension in the room before quickly changing the subject.

  While Priscilla believed the girls had married due to pressure and torment, she searched their faces for the telltale signs of regret and misery. At first she couldn’t find any. But as the days went by, their once bright smiles dimmed and their eyes grew cloudy whenever the subject of marriage came up. The wives never explained what had stolen the light from their eyes. But they did say this: “If I had known the truth, I never would have agreed to marriage.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  TWO YEARS AFTER THE ABDUCTION OF THE CHIBOK GIRLS, AISHA Yesufu never thought she’d still be wearing her red hijab or taking part in marches and sit-ins. In fact, when the girls were first taken, she’d confidently told people they’d all be home within two weeks. Back then, a friend had given her a red wristband inscribed with CHIBOK GIRLS APRIL 14 2014, to commemorate the tragedy, and as she slipped on the band, she pledged, “I will never remove it until all the girls have been found.” Then she waited and the months went by, but no girls came back. One day toward the end of 2014, as Aisha sat at home in Abuja bitterly contemplating the growing pile of days and the lack of information from the government, her then twelve-year-old daughter, Aliyyah, delivered a devastating blow. “Mummy, you know if any of the Chibok girls was an American, she would have been brought back by now.” Barely a teenager, the young girl spoke calmly, without any emotion. On hearing those words, Aisha was wracked with torment. My twelve-year-old daughter has come to the conclusion her life is worth less than an American . . . That is the reality. When 2016 came around, Aisha’s plastic bracelet was still in place, by now a mocking reminder of the faith she’d once held in her government’s claims it would do everything possible to reunite the girls with their families.