Chapter Fourteen: Sharo

It was the day of the Sharo, a day anticipated by both boys and girls in the Bororo community all year round. It was the day when boys became men, and maidens sought husbands. The Sharo involved a very painful ritual of coming of age. Once a year, the Bororo extended clans gathered in a predetermined village square where young boys hit each other on their bare backs with sticks in a show of strength, all the while laughing hysterically to hide any signs of pain.

The girls prepared for the Sharo with equal zeal. They woke up early to cook. Afterwards, they applied fresh lalle on their hands and feet, washed and braided their hair, and applied generous amounts of Man Shanoo to it. Later, they were expected to sweep and decorate the whole village before proceeding to the stream to wash their bodies.

Beads

Hayah arrived in the village around noon and decided to go and check on Fantah in the fields where she was supposed to be tending to the cows. But she wasn't there. He noticed the decorations in the village and the air of festivity.

There were girls of different sizes and shapes taking their bath in the stream. He had never seen anything like that. They were so beautiful. He noticed Fantah by the side, exfoliating her feet with a stone. She was naked except for a piece of wet cloth wrapped around her waist. He had never seen her like that before.

Just at that moment, one of the girls looked up and saw his face in the tree. She screamed loudly and pointed. The other girls looked up and saw him too. They also started screaming and then grabbed their cloths and scattered in every direction.

Later that day, the whole village gathered at the square for the event. The girls were all looking very beautiful and adorned, evidence of their intense preparedness. Some wore tiny, belly-baring tops with wrappers decorated with beads. Their hands, feet, and even hair were all decorated with beads of different colors and sizes.

The men were in the middle of the square and were equally, if not more, flamboyantly dressed. They wore large trousers and sandals with no shirts on, only beads crisscrossed their chests. The girls loved men with flat tummies, as it was a sign that they were physically fit.

The eligible bachelors all lined up in the middle while the maidens took their time to inspect them before selecting their potential husbands. The young men would stretch their hands forward, open their eyes wide, and display their teeth as much as possible.

Fantah looked around the square but did not see Hayah among the boys. As she scanned the line-up of brave boys, her heart sank when she spotted Sa'adu among them. She knew why he was there, and she knew he would be expecting her to pick him, even though she was engaged to someone else.

Before the second and most important round, the whipping, the boys would rub all kinds of concoctions on their backs and drink all kinds of liquids prescribed to them by their own personal native doctors.

Then, to everybody's surprise, Hayah also came out. Fantah was worried.

"Baba, what is he doing here?" A worried Fantah asked her father, who was standing next to her.

"I guess he is about to get whipped," her father answered, sarcastically.

"But Baba, he is not from here."

"Well, if he wants to marry my daughter, he has to go through Sharo like everybody else."

Hayah began to receive his beating. The first whip came down hard, feeling like he was being branded with a hot iron. He tried to pretend not to feel it by smiling. The second one came down, and he felt the world around him beginning to spin. By the time the fifth stroke came down, the world was already spinning like a hurricane, and Hayah felt the earth give way under his feet, and then everything went black.

When he woke up, he found himself on a bed in a familiar room with a sweet-smelling ointment smeared across his back. It was Fantah's father's hut. Just then, Fantah walked in holding a bowl of hot water and a piece of cloth.

"Sannu," he said.

"Sannu 'Stranger', you are awake."

"Is this heaven?" He asked.

"That was so stupid," she said. "Why would you risk your life like that for nothing?"

"I did it for you, my love."

During the next few days, the Buba family took good care of him. They gave him some concoctions to drink and rubbed ointments on his back. It worked wonders. Not only was he completely healed in a matter of days, but his scars were beginning to become less noticeable.

While he was recuperating, he and Malam Buba got to talk a lot. They discussed his intentions concerning the marriage and what would become of Fantah. He gave Malam Buba his word that he had nothing to worry about. He loved Fantah with his life, and he hoped she would become his queen one day.

After spending a total of twelve days in Ndokula, he was fully recovered and prepared to go home to get on with the preparations. He would come back in exactly one week with his people, to take his beautiful bride back to Balda. He couldn't wait.

[End of Chapter Fourteen]