(no subject)

The women wailed at the wedding, their feet stamping against the hard-packed ground. They wore their festive best and ululated;the bride wept, pulling the roots of her hair to make her eyes water. She was so happy, but she must not show it. Her husband-to-be was a man of dignity and strength, he was handsome to look at, and he had a field with two goats and a dozen chickens and a television that showed videos he brought from the capital. She wept and wailed and pulled on her hair so that nobody would think she did not love her family, but her heart was singing.

Later that night she wept in earnest as he showed her the videos he had brought from the capital and the things he wished her to do to him. She caught up the heavy millet-pounding stick and struck him over the head with it. Then she sat and waited, but she did not wail.