Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree

In the novel, baobab trees represent strength, resilience, and hope. Baobab trees are an important symbol for the Hausa people. They exist across the northeastern Nigeria, contrasting with the otherwise flat savanna. Ya Ta often talks about “the baobab trees with bulbous trunks and buttress roots that make them stand out like aliens in the sprawling savanna landscape” (3). They are a prized food and medicine source, as well as a gathering place and a source of shade on hot days. The baobab tree is referred to as the “tree of life” (8) for all of these reasons. Ya Ta’s papa tells stories about the origins of the baobab tree, which came down from the gods, and of the many ways the tree has been used over the years. Ya Ta compares the person she loves, Success, to this tree: “Like a baobab tree among the trees of the forest, so is he among all the young men in the world. I delight to sit in his shade, and his alone, and his fruit is sweet to my taste” (47). Much that is good is wrapped up in the baobab tree. When Ya Ta and Sarah stumble across a baobab in the forest while in captivity, it is an instant relief and reminder of their previous life and joys—until they approach it. Buried underneath the tree are the victims of Boko Haram’s mass violence, and the Hausa peoples’ beloved tree is turned into a symbol of death. These actions speak to the consequences of Oppression, Terrorism, and Religious Extremism.

Papa’s radio is a symbol of knowledge and the family’s connection to the outside world. Papa is always listening to the BBC Hausa, which relays all types of news. These broadcasts are contrasted against one another, with news about celebrities and current movies presented alongside news of terrorist attacks by Boko Haram. Several chapters are titled “The Voice on Papa’s Radio” (72), and each brings increasingly severe incidences of violence and death. Because Ya Ta only hears about these things on the radio at first, she does not imagine it affecting her directly until the attacks reach the nearest city of Maiduguri. When they reach the Izghe village nearby, reality starts to set in: “We are frozen, all of us, by the voice on Papa’s radio. Boko Haram is in Izghe” (72). Later, when reflecting on her papa and his death, Ya Ta notes, “In a way, Mama’s prediction came to pass. Papa and his radio left this world together” (128). For Ya Ta, the radio will always exist as a memory with her papa because the two were so inseparable. It was clear that Ya Ta’s papa placed a high value on education and wanted his children to know what was happening in the world around them. Only knowledge can combat oppression and subjugation.

In the novel, menstruation represents feminine strength and the everyday adversity girls and women in Ya Ta’s culture face. In Ya Ta’s culture, menstruation is seen as shameful and dirty, something to keep hidden at all costs. Because she only has access to cloth, she had an embarrassing experience once of bleeding through her clothes. Since then, she and many of the other girls avoid going to school on their period at all, and some like Sarah experience debilitating cramps. When a woman in a pink van arrives at Ya Ta’s school to distribute pads to the girls, Ya Ta is surprised by the woman’s openness about the subject. She is grateful for the gift, even though she still finds menstruation shameful. She preserves the pads for emergencies and later decides to give them to Sarah. The perceived need for secrecy and shame regarding menstruation is part of a wider problem involving The Effects of Abuse and Subjugation on Women and Girls.

At the camp, Sarah is lashed for lying about being on her period to get out of prayer. The girls are continued to be seen as untouchable while menstruating, and when they are married off, Ya Ta becomes grateful for those times because it means she is left alone: “Did her husband push her to the edge of the mattress with his feet as mine does whenever I am menstruating and too unclean to be useful to him?” (224). At the refugee camp in the story’s conclusion, the pink van returns and Ya Ta is once again given pads, even though she does not currently need them. The scent of them brings back her memories of school and the innocent days of worrying about exams. She has experienced much since then and has come to understand the value of menstruation; she is no longer ashamed.