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ringing noise that women like to make during weddings or naming ceremonies. The neighbours, unless they see me coming, won’t know I am around from any noise in the house because her happiness will be in her face: I will see it in the wrinkles around her dark eyes, in the dimples in her cheeks. I don’t know if she will hug me like she did before I left. I am much bigger now. Women only hug boys who are little.
    Sheikh Jamal is standing at the motor park gate as we drive out.
    â€˜May Allah forgive Malam,’ the driver greets him, slowing down.
    â€˜Salamu alaikum,’ Sheikh Jamal replies stretching his hand to shake the driver’s.
    The driver receives the handshake with two hands, bowing slightly. Sheikh Jamal extends his hand to shake mine too and says, ‘May Allah forbid a mishap on the road.’
    â€˜Amen,’ I say and hear many people in the bus also whisper amen. Every prayer is important, especially that of an Imam. The road to Dogon Icce is horrible in several places and it is not strange to hear that there has been an accident.
    On the way an old man starts talking about how his farm was destroyed by the rains and flooding. He has lost all his millet and maize, he says.
    â€˜You should be grateful to Allah you still have a roof over your head,’ a younger man says. His house crumbled under the water and his entire family is without a home. One of the women at the back starts to cry as she tries to relate that her little son drowned when the waters came. Two other women console her.
    I have no stories to share. I want to ask if anyone knows my mother, Umma, the fair Shua woman from Maiduguri who used to sell millet gruel by the market. If I had a picture of her, perhaps I would show them. The driver is silent. I ask him when the floods happened, and he says more than a month ago, surprised that I hadn’t heard.
    â€˜Where have you been?’ he asks.
    â€˜Bayan Layi,’ I reply. Perhaps I should stop telling everyone where I am coming from.
    â€˜No wonder. The floods lasted many days: in fact we couldn’t drive into Dogon Icce and all the surrounding villages until last week. Just two rains and the whole place is destroyed.’
    People are dying of sickness, he complains. There is no water or hospital in Dogon Icce and many people, especially children, purge until they die. The water got contaminated after the flood and although the local government chairman promised to bring water tankers, they have not seen any yet.
    Everyone is now talking at the same time and I can’t follow anything. I think of Umma and her mud house and hope, insha Allah, that the house my father built when the millet farms gave many bags is still standing. I don’t understand this flood business. The last I knew when I was in Dogon Icce was that there were no rains and millet was drying up in the farms except for the large farms owned by the brothers of one big man who had machines that pumped water from the rivers. Too little rain then, too much rain now.
    There is a little old booklet on the dashboard. I ask the driver if I can have a look. He asks if I can read it, says it is a book in Hausa and Arabic. I smile. I want to tell him that when I was in Malam Junaidu’s school, there were only three who knew how to read both Hausa and Arabic—I and two of Malam Junaidu’s brothers, who sometimes taught us when he was away, that my mother speaks fluent Arabic though she cannot read, that I probably know it better than he does. I nod and pick up the book. The title is in Hausa: 100 Authentic Hadiths on How Muslims Should Conduct Themselves . It is compiled by Mahmud Yunus. The pages on the left have the hadiths in Arabic while the pages on the right are in Hausa. I could memorise this book in an hour if I set my mind to it. It’s been a long time since I did that; I have never memorised anything without a whip in front of me. As I start reading, it feels different. I