Sarah Rutherford-Bundy has translated a piece of prose which can be seen below. Please direct any correspondence to her at srutherford@macalester.edu

There was a brief rumble, then a long rumble. The tone changed, the pitch rose, there was a brief rumble, then a long rumble. The two tones joined, there were two simultaneous voices, one long, the other short.

The swell became familiar with the valley, filling it. Something unknown sailed atop of the rumble. The swell grew and became more complex as tendrils of noise splintered finishing in a paroxysm: Samba Diallo was awoken. The beat of the drum shook the ground.

Samba Diallo remembered, " Today", he said to himself, "is the day of the meeting which Most Royal Lady has called to gather the people of the Diallobe together. The drums are calling us."

He rose from the floor of beaten earth where he slept, quickly washed up, prayed, and left the master's house quickly for the village meeting place. The place was already full of people. When Samba Diallo arrived he was surprised to see that there were as many women as men at the meeting place. He had never seen such a thing. The Diallobe people formed a large square several rows deep, the women occupying two of the sides and the men occupying the other two. The people whispered quietly among themselves making a loud murmur resembling the sound of the wind. Suddenly, the murmur ceased. One side of the square opened and Most Royal Lady entered the arena.

"People of the Diallobe" she began in the silence, "I greet you."

A long and powerful hum greeted her in return. She continued.

"I have done something which we disdain, something that conflicts with our culture. I have asked the women to also come to this meeting. Us Diallobe, we detest this, and with good reason, as we believe that a woman should stay at the hearth. But more and more, we will have to do things that we detest, things that go against our customs. Today I have gathered you here to exhort you to do one such thing.

" I have come to tell you something: I, Most Royal Lady, do not like the foreign school. I hate it. But, it is my opinion that we must send our children there nevertheless.

There was a low murmur. Most Royal Lady waited until it had quieted and calmly proceeded.

"I must tell you this: neither my brother, your chief, nor the Diallobe master have taken a stand in this matter. They are still searching for the truth. They are right. As for me, I am like your baby Coumba (she pointed to the child). Look at him. He is learning to walk. He doesn't know where he is going. He only knows that he must lift one foot, put it ahead of the other, then lift the other foot and put in front of the first.

The Most Royal Lady turned towards another section of the audience.

"Ardo Diallobe, yesterday you told me, 'words can be delayed, but life cannot.' That is true, just look at Coumba's baby.

The audience remained immobile, as if frozen. The Most Royal Lady was the only one moving. In the center of the audience, she was like a seed in its pod.

"The school where I want our children to go will kill in them that which today we love and cherish with good reason. Perhaps our very memory will die within them. When they come back some will not recognize us. What I am proposing is that we accept to die in our children so that the foreigners who have conquered us can also take the place in our children which we would have vacated.

She became silent but this time not because of a reaction from the audience. Sambo Diallo heard someone sniffling near him. He lifted his head and saw two large tears roll down the weathered face of the master of the blacksmiths.

"But, people of the Diallobe , think of our fields as we approach the rainy season. We love our fields and what do we do? We dig them up and we burn them. Also, remember, what do we do with our grain when it has rained? We would like to eat it but instead we plant it in the soil.

"The people of the Diallobe, the tornado announcing the hibernation of our people has arrived with the foreigners. My opinion is that our best grains and our most productive fields are our children. Does anyone wish to say anything?

No one responded.

The Diallobe was not the only land that was awoken by a loud clamor one morning. All of the black continent has had its morning of uproar.

Strange dawn! The morning of the Occident in black Africa was a constellation of smiles, of the shots of the canon, and of brilliantly colored glass. Those without history met those who carried the world on their shoulders. It was a morning of birth. The known world was enriched by a birth taken place in mire and blood.

Out of shock, one side made no resistance. They were history-less, without memory. Those that had arrived were white and frenzied. The people had never seen anything comparable. And the events unfolded even before the people had realized what was happening.

Certain groups, like the Diallobe, took to arms, brandishing their shields, pointing their spears, and adjusting their guns. They let them get close before firing the canon. The vanquished didn't understand.

Other groups wanted to discuss. They were offered two choices, friendship or war. Sensibly, they chose friendship: they didn't have any experience.

The results would be the same in any case, all over.

Those that had struggled, those that submitted, and those that were unremitting all found themselves quickly inventoried, redistributed, classified, labeled, conscripted and administered.

For, those that had come knew not merely how to battle. They were strange. If they knew how to kill with efficiency, they knew how to heal with the same art. Where they had created disorder, they would sustain a new order. They destroyed and constructed. The people, of the black continent, began to understand that their power lay not only in the canons of that first morning but in that which followed the canons. It was there, behind the canons, that the sharp gaze of the Royal Highness had discerned the new school.

The new school is part of the nature of the canon as well as the magnet. The canon is an example of school’s effectiveness as a tool of combat. But more effective than the canon, school makes conquest possible. Canons can control human bodies while school engages the human soul. When the canon has made a pit of ashes and death, and where the tenacious rottenness would normally prevent the rejuvenation of men, the new school has already instilled its own peace. The morning of resurrection will be a blessing through the appeasing virtue of school.

From the magnet, school has obtained its radiation. It is dependent on a new order just as a magnet is dependent on its magnetic field. Within this new order, the upheaval of a man’s life is similar to the upsets sustained by certain laws of physics within a magnetic field. Conquered men compose themselves along the lines of invisible and domineering forces. Disorder becomes organized, the rebellion is appeased, the mornings of resentment resonate with chants of universal thanksgiving.

Only such an upset of natural order could explain how without either wanting it, the emerging man and the new school come together. They don’t want one another. The man doesn’t want school precisely because his life is dependent on it, that is, in order to be free, in order to feed himself, clothe himself, the man will have to spend time it its classrooms; no more does school want anything from the man because it is dependent on him for its survival, that is, in order to take root and function where it has been deemed necessary, it must take him into account.

When the Lacroix family arrived in the small black town of L., they found a school for their children. It was on the bench in a classroom of this school filled with black children that Jean Lacroix met Samba Diallo.

On the morning of their third week in L, M. Lacroix brought his children Jean and Georgette to the village school. In Pau, the children were in primary school and M. N’Diaye’s class was appropriate for their level.

Samba Diallo’s life history is a serious history. If it were a happy history, this would be an account of the bewilderment felt by the two children on their first morning among the black children, amidst a sea of black faces as they steadily were pulled into their surroundings , captured as if by a fantastic and patient ballet. This account would describe how, after a time, the children would be naively surprised to note that under their woolly hair and dark faces, their new classmates were very similar to the ones they left in Pau.