Maryse Condé

None of the villagers are particularly surprised when Francis Sancher, a secretive amd melancholy man who predicted an unnatural death for himself, is found dead, face down in the mud. But, as the villagers pay their respects, each of them reveals another piece of the mystery behind Sancher's life and death.

Crossing the Mangrove

Aisha Mugo

How true! Life’s problems are like trees. We see the trunk, we see the branches and the leaves. But we can’t see the roots, hidden deep down under the ground. And yet it’s their shape and nature and how far they dig into the slimy humus to search for water that we need to know. Then perhaps we would understand. 

“I gave birth to you, but I misloved you. I neglected to help you flower and you grew stunted. It’s not too late for our eyes to meet and our hands to touch. Give me your forgiveness.” 

I wish I could re-read this for the first time! 

…one who was already shooting up fatherless under the sun, the other who was getting ready to enter this world as an orphan with nothing but two eyes to cry with.

Leave. Breathe a less rarefied air. He suddenly seemed to be suffocating under the tall trees, and he dreamed of a land where the eye would not be blackened by the hills but could follow the unlimited curve of the horizon. A land where, despite what they say here, the color of one’s skin doesn’t matter. 

A homeland where the soil would be rich for plowing. 

But happiness is never but a lull in the infinite ocean of unhappiness. 

Crossing the Mangrove quotes

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