Magically Delicious

Part I

This story actually consists of two stories in one. First, Mamadou and I went out in the bush at sunset one day to find some mysterious magical tree. Before we left for our adventure we stopped to talk to a few friends and their horse. The horse refused to talk. We were deep into conversation about how freakin’ hot it reached that day, when suddenly something jumped out at us----It was "Crazy Omar". Crazy Omar is my villages’ local celebrity. They call him Omar dof, which literally means ‘crazy Omar’. Omar is a little slower than the rest of the kids in class, other than of course Crazy Ousman and Crazy-kid-with-no-name. They’re all about the same, but Crazy Omar is a bit feistier. Well, (Politically Correct) Omar jumped out at us---with a large, sharp log. It was too big to be considered a stick. He ran straight at us swinging the club back and forth trying to smash whatever he could make contact with in that moments notice. Luckily we were fast enough to get away. My sympathies go out to the horse though. (PC) Omar beat the animal without mercy. Im sure it felt like total shit the next day. Id put my money on it. They got Omar to stop petting the horse, and somehow managed to take away the skull crusher. We then laughed it off and went on with our conversation about how freakin’ hot Africa is these days.

Part II

We parted from our friends and continued our journey to find the mysterious tree. We only walked 10 steps when something else jumped out at us---nope, its just "Crazy Omar" again with a not-as-big-of-stick-than-the-last. He apparently has extremely poor aim if he was coming for us. Instead he started whacking AT the cow. The big cow. The big cow with big steers and even bigger balls cow. Once again we got Omar away from the now pissed off future T-bone. After saving the poor kids much deserved life, Mamadou and I went searching for out mystery tree. We walked and talked; more walking than talking since I was a little anxious to figure what in the hell was going on. We walked through the dried fields of sand where crops had just been recently planted along the rows. We passed a small grove of mango and cashew trees. We walked along a few hundred feet of deserted salt flats until BAMM!!! There is was- "The Tree". We finally made it to a tree; just an ordinary tree I thought. It didn’t look so special. It didn’t make me feel different, happy, sad or magically delicious. I expected a magical tree to be much more….magical, or at least big. But Mamadou felt a strange attachment so I went a long for the ride. He dug. I sat. After a while he made it to a root of the magic tree. Not exactly what I expected. He used one of his many African handheld chaotic things he calls a tool and chopped off a foot long piece of root. Not much of a magical tree now that it can’t grow, or maybe that’s all part of the magic. Hmmm? On the way home he finally explained to me why we went on such an Easter egg hunt. Evidently in Sereer folklore, you give the root of this tree to your eldest son or daughter. If (s)he loses such root, then neither you nor your wife will be able to have anymore children. If they keep a hold of it, than baby making machines they shall be. Take a guess at which outcome he’s hoping for? He hates that fucking root!