My Portion

In Fulfulde, there is a word I have come to love …. and a word which has humbled me recently: “bakka” … portion.  This word is used in reference to eating – each person eats their “portion” of a meal or a portion can be given to someone.

Quite often, as we go to visit her family, my friend Aissa will have me stop at a village on the road to buy street meat for us to eat.  Though I have usually recently eaten, she insists that she needs to buy food – ever conscious of what she considers the necessity of white people to eat by the clock.  (Despite my explaining to her that I eat noon meal whenever I am home and it varies from 12-3pm.)  It is her duty and honour to feed me.

It humbles me.

My friend does not have much to live on.  She lives in a straw hut, squatting on land on the outskirts of Niamey.  A few years ago, when her husband divorced her, she moved back to the village with her family.  She has two girls that live with her – a younger sister and maybe a cousin. 

This year, she moved back into Niamey so that the older girl had the opportunity to attend school – she is at a higher level of education now which is not available in the village.  Aissa makes money each day by selling street food – it is not a large income, likely enough only for her to buy food each day and a small portion left-over for other needs.

Yet, she insists to spend 500 francs on meat to feed me.  It seems like not much, approximately $1.25 – yet that could buy a multitude of things for her … some onions, tomato paste, and oil for her sauce for the supper meal; five bars of soap; 1/5 the cost to have an outfit made; one kilo of rice and change. 

But for the need to show hospitality – meat for me on the trip. 

Humbling.

A few weeks ago – the story slightly changed.  This time, I drove my friend out to the village so she could buy rice.  Her family owns rice fields and my friend Aissa headed out to buy some sacks of rice at a reduced price, so she had food to eat in the city.

When we arrived back to her hut in the city … Aissa packed up three sacks of rice to give to me – declaring this “bakka ma” : “Your portion”.

My portion??!? 

Out of food that my friend needs to feed her small family – I have a portion.  It humbles me and reminds me of how my friend has accepted me into her family.  I am not the white lady interloper, but a part of her.  I am beyond “friend”, for I deserve a portion of the family food.

It would be so easy to insist that she keep the food for her family … I can certainly afford to buy my own rice.  But my only choice is to humbly accept her gift with great gratitude.  To turn it down would insult her and bring her shame.

“Bakka” – what a beautiful word and sentiment!