May 12, 2008 stephen davies
A cautionary tale for African fathers
The librarian in Djibo is called Tamboura Mamadou. He has formed a theatre group to travel around local villages and perform entertaining dramas with a social message. Today I accompanied Mamadou and his troupe to the village of Bani, 5 kilometres west of Djibo.
The sketch they performed was about fathers who take their daughters out of school at an early age to marry them off. The message of the piece was 'Let your girls finish their education before marriage, and don't force them to marry someone they don't want to.'
The picture below shows Seydou and Asseta, who played the father and the mother in the sketch. The chap between them was Seydou's sidekick, complete with comedy shaving-cream beard.
Here is Seydou promising his young daughter in marriage to an old friend. Old in both senses of the word. The old friend gives Seydou 100,000 CFA in brideprice. 'Go and buy yourself some cola nuts,' he says. (That's an awful lot of cola nuts.)
Here is Seydou bursting into the classroom to take his daughter out of school.
The daughter refuses to marry the old man. She flees the village with her mother and continues her education elsewhere . This leaves Seydou with a problem. He has already eaten the brideprice and is unable to pay it back. Time passes and the debt is still unpaid. The cops are summoned.
Sedyou is arrested and is dragged in front of the police commandant...
...who turns out to be his own daughter. In an improbably short time she has finished her education and risen through the ranks of the gendarmerie to become a Big Cheese. Which just goes to show that if you leave your daughter in school rather than marrying her off early, she can go on to do rather well for herself.
Seydou's daughter (La Commandante) pardons him in a forgiveness scene reminiscent of Joseph forgiving his brothers. 'You meant me harm but God has turned it all to good.' She gives him cash to pay off his debt and everyone lives happily ever after.
Fathers, be warned.