The men of Baraboulé were working in the fields when the man from Maroc arrived. I was in my family's field with Diallo, weeding around the millet with a short-handled hoe. The ground was so dry I thought my hoe would break.

Diallo is my cousin brother and he is very strong. Once he pulled a donkey cart all the way from our field to the marketplace, just for laughs. There were seven of us sitting atop the cart at the time, including the donkey. Never before or since have I laughed so much.
I heard the aeroplane when it was still far away. There are many planes down in Ouagadougou so I knew at once what it was. It flew out of the clouds in the south and right over our heads.
'Is that one of the skyboats you have talked of?' said Diallo.
'Yes. Wallaahi, it looks like it is going to land.'

We carried on weeding. I knew my father would be angry if we returned simply out of curiosity. But before very long, little Hamidou came crashing through the millet shouting to me that I was to come home at once.

Approaching the village, I saw the aeroplane on the ground. Standing next to it were four men: Moodibbo Siise Ibrahiim, Maabo Tamboura Haroun, my father and a stranger. The stranger was a light-skinned man in a fine sand-coloured suit. Except for his clothes, he looked like the Larabus who come to Baraboulé on market days and sell dates. The Larabus do not speak any Fulfulde except the numbers, but they are very good at saying those.

'This is Alu, my son,' said my father to the light-skinned man. 'Alu is a student at the university in Ouagadougou. He studies science and he speaks French like a white man. He will interpret for us.'
I interpreted my father's words and the stranger clicked his appreciation. 'Salaam alaykum,' he said, 'est-ce que tu as entendu parler d'Operation Saga?'
'What does he say?' asked my father.
'He asks if we have heard of Operation Saga.'
'Well, have you?'
'Yes. They make rain.'
My father turned to the stranger. 'We have heard of it, Monsieur. You make rain, and I praise you for it. We need rain.'

Moodibbo Ibrahiim's eyes flashed and he pulled away the fold of the turban covering his mouth. 'God makes rain, man does not. Is it not enough for this Larabu to fly above the clouds in a boat? Must he also compare himself to God?'
'Do not interpret that, Alu,' said my father.
'On m'a dit que je puisse trouver gasoline ici,' said the stranger.
'What does he say?'
'He wants to refuel here.'
'What does his skyboat drink?'
'Qu'est ce qu'il faut?'
'Gasoline simple, ça peut aller.'
'He says simple gasoline.'
My father nodded slowly. 'We are simple people, Monsieur, 'and simple gasoline is in abundance. You are making rain so that our crops can drink. Therefore we will allow your skyboat to drink. We will also allow you to drink.'

My father told little Hamidou to go back to the field and fetch Diallo. Then we walked over to the shade shelter. My father and the stranger walked in front, with me between them. Behind us came Haroun and the moodibbo.
Haroun was chuckling. 'The Larabu will drink tea, the skyboat will drink gasoline and finally the millet will drink water. And all of us will still be alive tomorrow, if God allows it.'

The stranger sat in the Chair and we sat on the mat in front of him. Haroun puts tea leaves in the pot and settled it on the charcoal stove in front of him. He filled it with water but did not add any sugar.
'Where do you come from?' said my father and I interpreted.
'Je suis de Maroc,' said the stranger.
'Monsieur is from Maroc,' I said. 'To the north, beyond the great desert,' I added.
'The frogs will love you, Monsieur,' said Haroun. 'They stopped singing last month. You will give them their rain and they will sing for you. And if I am still alive, I too will sing for you, Friend of Frogs.'
The moodibbo bristled. 'Maabo Tamboura's words are like millet husks in the wind,' he said. 'It is not within the power of man to bring rain or to withhold it. Would you assign equals with God?'
'Ibrahiim,' said my father, 'Could it not be that this man has been sent to us by God?'
'Indeed it could not. Is God weak that he should send this Larabu to do his work? Is it not written? "God is he Who sends forth the winds so they raise a cloud, then He spreads it forth in the sky as He pleases, and He breaks it up so that you see the rain coming forth from inside it; He causes it to fall upon whom He pleases of His servants, and lo! they are joyful."
The moodibbo then began to recite in Arabic without drawing breath, and the beauty of the strange, holy words made me feel dizzy. When he stopped, all eyes were on him.

'God is not weak,' repeated the moodibbo. He stood up and held out his arms so that his wide sleeves hung like wings. 'Remember the prophet Nuuhu, son of Lamik. Nuuhu was a righteous man but he lived in an idolatrous generation. He said to the people, "I have come to you as a plain Warner that you worship none but God; surely, I fear for you the torment of a painful Day." But the people did not listen to Nuuhu, they mocked him and they continued to worship their idols.
'Nuuhu chose a place outside the city, far from the sea. He collected wood and tools and began to build an ark. The people's mockery continued: "O Nuuhu! Does carpentry appeal to you more than prophethood? Why are you building an ark so far from the sea? Are you going to drag it to the water or is the wind going to carry it for you?" Nuuhu replied: "You will come to know who will be put to shame and suffer."
'God brought a great flood on the earth but Nuuhu and the believers entered the ark and were saved. Some say there were 80 believers inside the ark. Some say there were 72. Some say there were eight. The rest of mankind was drowned.' The moodibbo folded his wings and clicked his tongue to signal the end of the story.

'Except Uwaji the giant,' said Haroun. 'Uwaji was taller than Mount Ararat and the flood only came up to his shoulders. He did not drown but he was in great pain on account of the fish nibbling his - '
'Stop this blasphemy,' said the moodibbo. 'All of the idolaters drowned, short and tall alike.'
'I only tell what I have heard,' said Haroun.
I interpreted the moodibbo's words for the Moroccan, who nodded.
The moodibbo sat down on the corner of the mat and held up a long thin index finger. 'Heed these words, all of you. God is not mocked. God alone brings the rain. God alone is to be worshipped.'

Haroun poured the tea into a glass and passed it to my father.
'Bismillahi,' he said. 'The first glass.'
'The first glass,' said my father, passing it to the Moroccan. 'Bitter, like death.'
The Moroccan took the glass and drank. He did not even wince.

Diallo Moussa arrived from the field, shoulder muscles rippling. My father told him to fetch four canisters of gasoline and off he went.
'Nuuhu's flood came out of a goatskin bag,' said Haroun.
The moodibbo opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again. He was intrigued in spite of himself.
'Tell,' said my father.
Haroun refilled the teapot with water, set it down on the charcoal stove, opened a 25 franc bag of sugar and poured half the sugar into the pot. Then he stood up, took a three-string hoddu from the roof of the shade shelter and sat down cross-legged. He began to pluck the strings and sang in his high-pitched but resonant voice:

'Friend of Frogs from beyond the desert, draw near,
Tidjani Chief of Baraboulé, draw near,
Moodibbo Siise Ibrahiim, draw near,
Alu son of Tidjani, open up your ears.
This is a story of the prophet Nuuhu
son of Lamik
son of Matusala
son of Anuuhu
son of Maleliyel
son of Kayinu
son of Enos
son of Yarat
son of Siita
son of Adama the Father of mankind.'

The genealogy entered my ears and fluttered in my stomach. The music came quicker and Haroun was speaking over it, loud and clear.

'Nuuhu cried aloud his warnings but men mocked him. In secret the mockers filled a goatskin with water to the brim. They inserted the stalk of a water lily and put it in the ground so that the lily bloomed, and they cried, "Nuuhu, Nuuhu, here is a water lily blooming in the desert. Tell us the truth, Nuuhu, is this the water that will destroy us all?" And Nuuhu came and looked and said, "It is." The mockers plucked the lily out of the ground and water bubbled up and they laughed and ran about and cried "Save us, save us". And they said, "Nuuhu, we see you are but a man, like us. For this is the water we ourselves put in the ground." But behold, the water continued to flow and continued to flow and the laughter of the mockers turned to wails of terror and they cried "Save us!" But Nuuhu and the believers were in the ark and the door was closed.'

I interpreted Haroun's words for the Moroccan and he smiled.
The moodibbo shook his head. 'Maabo Tamboura, it is better for you to remain silent than to tell your lies. It is written that the flood burst forth from the oven in Nuuhu's house.'
'I only tell what I have heard,' said Haroun. 'God alone knows whether the flood began in Nuuhu's oven or in a goatskin bag. And God alone knows whether our friend here can make rain. I will watch and wait. If he makes rain, I will sing a praise song for him. If he does not, I will sing a comic song about him. Either way, I will sing.'

With these words, Haroun poured the tea and passed it to my father.
'Bismillahi,' he said. 'The second glass.'
'The second glass,' said my father, passing it to the Moroccan. 'Sweet like laughter.'
The Moroccan took the glass and drank.
Diallo Moussa turned up with the canisters, his shoulders rippling. He put them down and sat with us on the mat. Haroun refilled the teapot with water and added more tea leaves and the rest of the sugar.

'Monsieur,' my father said, 'How exactly do you make the rain?'
I interpreted my father's question and everyone turned to look at the Moroccan. The Moroccan cleared his throat and began to speak, and as he spoke I interpreted into Fulfulde:
'Monsieur says that rain never falls from a clear sky. It gathers in the clouds and then it falls. But sometimes it does not fall. Sometimes the clouds pile up above and withhold their rain. The millet is dry and the frogs are silent.
'Monsieur says that he goes up in his skyboat and persuades the clouds to give up their water. He flies above them and drops salt on them - not the blocks of salt we give our cattle to lick, nor even the grains of salt we put in baobab leaf sauce. The salt he drops on the clouds is finer than dust.
'When the clouds taste the salt they begin to salivate. They produce tiny droplets of water, which meet with other droplets and form bigger and bigger droplets and in this way the clouds become fat with water.'
The Moroccan sat forward in the Chair and began to move his hands in violent and unpredictable ways.
'Then he attacks the clouds,' I said. 'He flies into them again and again. He makes the clouds tremble and their water starts to fall. Harder and faster he hits the clouds, harder and faster the rain falls. Millet drinks. Frogs sing. Children dance. And that is how Monsieur makes the rain.'
The Moroccan sat back in the Chair and looked around at the men of Baraboulé. There was a long, difficult silence.

It was the moodibbo who spoke first. 'This Larabu does not fear God,' he said. ’Tell him to go back to Maroc. Tell him to sell his boat and buy a camel. Tell him never to come here again unless he comes to sell us dates.'
‘Alu, do not say any of that,' said my father sharply. 'Ibrahiim, you do not know this man. How can you say that he does not fear God?'

'I will give you three reasons, Tidjani, that you might know I speak the truth. First, he wears his boubou tucked into his trousers. Is that a sign of good character? Do we not warn our young people against wearing clothes in this sensual fashion? Last year you yourself put three boys in the lock-up overnight for wearing their boubous inside their trousers. A man who wears his boubou tucked into in his trousers is not a God-fearer.
'Second, he does not pray. You all saw with your own eyes the chair at the front of his boat. When the sun reaches laasara, how can he stand up in that tiny space? And how can he prostrate himself? How can he touch his forehead to the ground when he is more than a day's walk away from the ground? I have never seen a man pray in a skyboat.'
'You have never seen a skyboat,' said Haroun. 'What is your third reason?'
'Third, he says he makes rain. God alone makes - '
My father held up a hand. I was shocked to see that there were tears in his eyes.
'Ibrahiim, how many times have we lowered our heads to the ground and begged the Lord for rain? How many times this very day? Do we not have the dust on our foreheads to show for it? How many clouds have passed over us this month of Shaban and not yielded their rain?'
'Yes, we have dust on our foreheads,' said the moodibbo. 'Do we pride ourselves on that? Let us have dust on our faces also and on our chests and on the palms of our hands. Let us give ourselves wholly to God and he will send us rain.'

Haroun poured the tea and passed it to my father.
'Bismillahi,' he said. 'The third glass.'
'The third glass,' said my father, passing it to the Moroccan with a trembling hand. 'Bitter and sweet, like hope.'
The Moroccan took the glass and drank. Then he got slowly to his feet. 'Salaam Alaykum,' he said and he pressed his palms together in gratitude.
'Alaykum asalaam,' we said, and we all got up and followed him to his plane. Diallo brought the canisters and the Moroccan showed him how to pump gasoline into the fuel tank.

When the Moroccan was ready to go, we each shook his hand in turn, even the moodibbo, and we pronounced blessings on his family and on his aeroplane. He climbed into his chair, closed the door and started the engine. We watched him take off and we watched him as he flew up into the clouds and we watched him hitting them again and again. And finally we watched him fly away towards the north.

As the sun went down, my father was sitting in the Chair, still looking up into the sky. Cicadas whirred and clicked in the long grass, but the frogs were silent.

I will not go back to university. The failure of the harvest means that my father can no longer afford the fees. Besides, I have lost my appetite for science.

When I asked Haroun if I could become his apprentice, he agreed straight away. If he was surprised that the son of a chief should want to pick up a hoddu, he did not show it. My training with Haroun will take seven years, and after that I must travel to Mali and learn from the maabos there.

I still attend the mosque most days. Moodibbo Ibrahiim says that the bitterness of this world is the sweetness of the next. He says that a man must have faith, because without faith there is nothing. And Haroun says that it is good for a maabo to attend the mosque.

I will devote myself now to storytelling and song. I will not concern myself with things too wonderful for me. I will only tell what I have heard.

THE END