Reading time: 21 minutes
I was told that big stories often start with a dream.
Mine starts with hunger.
Not the one that digs the belly at noon. No, a hunger that scratches the skin from morning to evening, which makes silence a mother tongue.
My name is Yacine. I'm 20 years old, but I wear my mother's age on my back.
In our village of DioganeThe sun is a lazy old cop who always hits the same people: the poor. There is no bank or high school, just a coughing well and a sheet metal school that also serves as a chapel and shelter against stubborn rains.
My mother's name is Awa. She's everything. Mom, Dad, nurse, architect of our meagre meals, and priest of the daily miracle: make six children survive with three handles of rice and two prayers.
Father? Left. One day, he went out looking for work. He found silence.
I remember the evenings when we laughed loudly to cover the gargouillis of our stomachs. We called it "wind feast." We were told that soon someone would leave. Someone would go far, where the houses are high and the kitchens full. And that someone would save us.
Since the age of ten, I have helped my mother beat the millet, pick up the wood, and treat my little brothers. I never had a doll. My childhood was washed with the dirty morning clothes, dried on a rope and forgotten in the wind.
But I had a dream. Learn. Read. Talk like the mistress. Then write like in the papers. Maybe even, who knows, become someone on the radio. But the dream hit the wall of hunger.
This morning, my girlfriend Mariama ran back from the market. She had eyes like those of a chicken who saw the knife.
She said a man was here. Not any man. One of those who "open the doors." They call it « opportunity ». It's a brilliant word like a jewel, but it cuts like a machete.
He spoke French, with an accent that smelled Dakar. He said, "Working abroad. High wages. Legal work, security, housing provided. For serious girls." It was like someone had read in my heart. Work. Help Mom. Feed the little ones. And maybe... start dreaming again.
He was showing photos on his phone. Girls like me, in a white coat, smiling in modern kitchens. "It's in Dubai, or Kuwait, or sometimes Lebanon. They earn 300,000 francs a month." Three hundred thousand. I thought I had misheard. My heart said yes, my legs said no, but my mouth said "I want to go."
Today, I told my mother.
She didn't say anything at first. She just looked at the ground, long, like she was looking for a word that was lost.
Then she cried. It wasn't tears of sadness. They were tears of fatigue.
She knew. She understood. The choice was no longer a luxury for a long time.
She took my hands and put them against her forehead. Then she said softly: "Come on, girl. But don't leave your soul there..”
The departure is expected in ten days. The man – he called himself "Tonton Djibril", what a sweet name for a crocodile – promised to settle everything. Passport, ticket, employment contract. He says everything is "clean." His phone keeps ringing. He always has a smile. He calls girls "my nieces," parents "my friends."
A generous man, really. He must have a honey factory in his mouth.
I'm starting to dream. A fridge. A bed of mine. A shower with hot water. And every month, send money. Enough for the little ones to eat to their hunger. Maybe even to go over the roof.
I'm leaving. For mine. For the future. To survive.
Magic papers
Today, Tonton Djibril asked to join him in Mbour. He looked in a hurry. I took a bus from the village, with Mariama. We had to "make the papers" he said.
Arriving in MBour, he came to pick us up at the Bus Station. I've never seen a civil registry office so full. There were girls like me everywhere. Some already seemed to know how to pose for identity photos.
I had put on my best scarf, the one my mother gave me on the day of my certificate of study.
We were photographed, signed papers that I didn't read. The office man said everything was already "prepared." You just had to trust.
Tonton Djibril told us that the passport would arrive "in five days". He had his entrances, his contacts. He knew people. He was talking about a certain "High Place" on the phone. He laughed loudly, as if he were part of an invisible government.
Last meal
Today is the last night at home. Mom had prepared some thiery in the millet. She had added a little dried fish, the one she keeps for great occasions. We ate in silence, as if the words were too heavy for our mouths.
My little brothers looked at me like a stranger. I promised them toys. I don't even know why I said that anymore. To reassure me, no doubt. So they can smile.
No one knows what "Kuwait" means. For them, I go to a world where everything is sugar and light.
Mom spent the night cleaning up my old blue dress. The one I wore for the holidays. She slipped in my baluchon a soap, a rosary, and a black and white picture of us all in front of the house.
This morning she accompanied me to the bus station. She wasn't crying. But his eyes... they were screaming. She said, "Be strong. You're not just a poor girl. You're my daughter. Never forget that."
The bus started. I looked back. The village became blurred. Like a dying dream.
I didn't cry.
Not yet.
Dakar, the station of illusions
I was already tired when the bus entered Dakar. I've never seen so many cars, streetlights, noise. It was like the night itself didn't want to sleep here.
Tonton Djibril was waiting for us at the bus station. He was wearing a ironed shirt, a perfume that piqued his nose, and a man's insurance that never doubted.
He took us to a transit house somewhere in Sacred Heart. A narrow room, six mattresses on the floor. We were six girls in all. I, Mariama, another coming from Tambacounda, one from Kolda, one from Louga, and the last, very shy, hardly spoke.
It looked like a camp of hope. We were talking in a low voice. We were telling our families. We thought we were gonna make it, we were gonna come back big ladies, bags full of money by hand.
But there was also silence. The one we don't say. The look that betrays fear.
Tonton Djibril came back around 10:00. He brought us together as a tourist guide gathers his clients:
— My nieces, listen carefully. Tomorrow you leave. You're going into a better life. There you will be respected, well housed, well paid. We're counting on you. Don't be silly. Be discreet, workers. And above all, never forget why you're leaving. For your families.
Then he showed us the plane tickets. He held them like gold notes.
— Look! Qatar Airways. It's not anything. It's serious. You're gonna fly like princesses.
He laughed. We smiled. By reflex. Because you had to. Because we didn't want to seem ungrateful.
That night, I didn't sleep.
The promises of honey – The trap closes
Airport
It was the first time I saw a treadmill moving on its own. And a door that opens without being pushed. Tonton Djibril's world was full of modern magic.
We were six girls. All from lost villages like mine. We weren't talking too much. We were watching each other. Our eyes were mirrors. We read: fear, hope, and a little shame too. Shame to have given in. Shame to run. But above all, a feverish expectation of what would change. We had nothing. Maybe we were gonna have everything.
Tonton Djibril gathered us near the recording counter. He was still smiling. The more her smile shone, the more my stomach would shake.
— When you get there, smile all the time. Be clean, respectful. Work well. And above all, don't ask questions.
I asked shyly: "And the papers, Tonton. ?”
He laughed. Sweet laugh.
— Don't do it, niece. Once you're there, we'll keep them for you to avoid problems. It's safer..
Something broke in my stomach. Like a rotten egg.
Landing in Kuwait
The desert seen from above is a sea without water. An ocean of sand that swallows the steps and the memory.
At the airport exit, a woman in black abaya was waiting for us. Not a word. Just a hand gesture. She held a phone in the other, glued to her ear, as if he replaced her soul.
We were pushed into a car. No look. No welcome. Nothing.
Silence has begun to speak. And I killed myself.
Golden cage
The house is big. Too big. Each room smells of new plastic and suffocating perfume. I have a room. Well, not really. It's a storage room with a mattress too short and a blue bucket for "my needs".
The "Madam" doesn't speak English. Neither do I. She's screaming. A lot. She shows me things with dry gestures. She's watching me with eagle eyes. And she took my passport. "To keep him safe," said the interpreter. I never saw the boy who said that again.
I can't go out. Not even to smell air. The window is there, but closed. Sometimes I look at her for a long time. I think she's looking at me too.
Work day, night, nameless
I rise before the call to prayer. And I'm going to bed after the last kid finishes his last game.
I wash, I rub, I iron, I recur. The walls are cleaner than me. The food I prepare is never meant for me. I'm entitled to the remains. When there are.
I'm not allowed to talk. Even when someone talks to me. I'm a piece of furniture. A moving chair, a machine that can fold the linen.
One day, I sneezed. The lady hit with a broom. Because I had dared to spread my microbes.
Another time she screamed because I made too much noise washing the dishes. "You want the neighbors to think I live with a savage?!”
She called me "abd." I learned it meant "slave." It was the first time that I was called by a word older than my lineage.
Mom's voice in my dreams
Sometimes I dream of my mother calling me. His voice is soft, full of fatigue.
She said, "My daughter, come back. Here there is misery, but not shame.”
But I can't come back. I don't have money. I don't have any papers. And I don't have friends. My only companion is the blue bucket, faithful and silent.
I haven't cried yet. Tears would burn my skin.
The invisible chains – Detention and humiliation
In the house without windows
I don't know what day it is anymore. Maybe Monday. Maybe the end of the world.
Time here is a snake. He wraps around me, slowly, never letting go. I don't see the sun anymore. The window is there, but its windows are like walls. I stopped counting the days. It's easier to survive when you forget.
Today, the lady woke up by throwing a slipper in the face. "You sleep too much!" It was four in the morning. I slept three hours. It's already a lot here.
The rules of the cruel game
There are rules here. Not written, but engraved in my flesh:
- Don't talk.
- Never say no.
- Always smile, even if it hurts.
- Don't look in the eye.
- Never ask out.
One day I dared to ask a question: "Ma'am, can I call my mother?"
She laughed. A laugh that looked like a slap.
She said, "I own you now."
I didn't understand everything. But I understood the essentials. I was no longer a person.
The other ghosts
There are other girls in the Villas. Sometimes I see them when I take the garbage out of the yard. Sighs, walking noises, suffocating sobs behind hedges.
We never talk. We're like dead leaves scattered in a garden that doesn't want us.
Once, I ran into another girl's look in the villa next door. She had dark circles like scars and damaged hands. She looked at me. Just looking. And it was like a mirror.
My hand trembles when I write
I started writing about pieces of cardboard. Intimate newspapers so you don't go crazy. I hide them under the mattress. Maybe someday someone will read them.
I write to survive. To prove that I existed.
The body that is untied
My body hurts. My back is a battlefield. My hands are split. My eyes are burning.
The lady makes me work more. She says I'm "slow." She said yesterday: "If you're not happy, you can go back to where you come from. But you're paying me back for your plane ticket. And your visa. And file fees.”
That's more than anything I've seen in my life. More than what my family earns in a year.
I'm chained. Not by chains. By an invisible debt. Fear. By shame.
The hidden tears – Shame, hunger, and letters never sent
Letter never posted
Mom,
I wanted to write. Tell you I'm fine. That I work, that I eat to my hunger, that I have a sweet bed and that my bosses are nice. But I can't lie.
So I write here, in the shadow, so that my words at least can breathe, even if they will never cross the sea.
I'm not well, Mom. I'm hungry. Not just food. Hunger of respect. Heat hunger. Hunger for a sweet word. Hunger of humanity.
I haven't received my first salary yet. I'm told, "The first month is to pay for your placement." That, too, is an invisible rule that I had not been told.
I wonder if I'm here to work or repay an eternal debt.
Watermark shame
When I was still in the village, I thought, "If I fail, at least I will have tried.”
But here, failure is a silent punishment. I can't tell my family.
How can I explain to them that I live like a prisoner?
Don't let anyone talk, eat to my hunger, rest?
They probably think I'm in an air-conditioned living room, a cell phone in my hand, a bunch of money in my pocket.
Sometimes I pretend. I'm writing a message in my head:
— Hey, Mom, it's okay here! I work hard, but it's for you. I'll send you money soon!
Then I'm out. Because it's not true. And because I don't even have a phone to send it to them.
A drop of rice, an ocean of silence
Today, I stole some rice from the pan. I was too hungry. I hid the grains in my palm. When the lady came in, I swallowed fast. Too fast. I almost choked.
She saw. She didn't say anything. But tonight she didn't feed me.
Silent punishment.
She told her husband, in a language I didn't understand, but the word "flying" was clear. He looked at me like a rat.
Nights are the only friends
At night, I speak to God. I'm not sure he's listening. Maybe he's busy somewhere else. Or maybe he doesn't know the address of this detergent-scented prison.
I'm talking to myself too. I tell myself stories. That I'm a great singer. That I have a red dress. That I walk on a free street, and someone says, "Bravo, Yacine, you did it!”
Then I wake up, and I'm still here. With my clothes holed up, my dreams garnished, and the blue bucket that listens without judging.
One thought for others
I'm not the only one. I know that. They're thousands like me. Dark sisters, scattered in the kitchens of the rich, imprisoned behind the walls of silence.
Some will never come back. They will die here, and their name will not even be inscribed on a stone.
I want to survive. For me. For them. I mean. To testify.
The breach – Lure of Hope and Exfiltration
Unknown passage
This morning, as I took out the trash, I met a woman with a different look. She didn't look like the others. Not the lady. Not one of the maids.
She spoke in French. Easy. As we talk to a wounded animal.
— You're Senegalese, right?
I almost cried when I heard it.
— Yes... I... my name is Yacine.
She looked at me. Long time. Then she whispered:
— I work with an organization. If you want to leave, I can help you.
I thought it was a joke. Or a trap. I got back. My instincts shouted "run," but my heart shouted "hold yours."
She slipped a paper into my apron.
— Call this number. Say you're the desert parcel. They'll understand.
Then she left, like a shadow. Like a miracle.
The phone borrowed
I waited for the night. When everyone was asleep. I stole the older son's phone. He left his charger on. I called.
Three bells.
Then a voice.
— Amal Organization. What's the situation?
I said, "I am the parcel of the desert."
Quiet. Then:
— Where are you? Can you go out alone?
— No. They took my papers. I'm locked up. And I give the address.
— Listen carefully. Don't talk to anyone anymore. In three days, at dawn, someone will come and knock: three shots, then two shots. You'll have to be ready.
I erased the number, hung up, and then put the phone back in his place. And I prayed. Not a Our Father. Not a learned prayer. I prayed with my bones, my blood, my fear.
Escape
At four o'clock in the morning, a discreet blow at the service door.
Three shots. Take a break. Two shots.
I've opened.
A man. Barbu, simple, security jacket. He put on a cleaning woman's uniform.
— Put this on. You work outside today.
My heart was beating so hard that I heard the blood in my ears.
I followed him. Silence. We crossed the courtyard, took the street. Nobody stopped us. Nobody looked at me.
A black car was waiting for us. Tinted windows. Engine on.
I'm up.
And I cried.
The refuge
They took me to a quiet house. There were already other girls. Ethiopian, Kenyan, Ghanaian. All had the same hollow eyes. Same twisted backs. The same invisible scars.
We were given clean clothes. Food. Care.
And sweet words.
"Miss Yacine”.
I didn't know we could still call me that.
Return
The return flight was paid by the organization. I was given a temporary passport. The flight stopped in Istanbul. Then Dakar.
I didn't sleep. I looked at the sky through the window. I whispered: "I'm still alive."
When the plane landed, I felt my heart crashing against my ribs. The soil of Senegal had a smell that I had forgotten. A smell of free dust.
My mother was waiting for me. She was crying. Me too. But in silence.
I wasn't the same.
The return to the village – An injury that does not heal
Diogane, my village
The bus left at the entrance of the village, where the sand begins to speak and where the sun never lies.
The kids ran to me. The same children who played with flat tires, who had seen me leave with a suitcase too light and eyes full of hope.
They shouted: "Yacine's back!"
But I felt like another girl was coming back to their place. A worn out girl. A girl who had no more light in her eyes.
My mother clung so hard that I thought she wanted to stick up the pieces of me. I didn't tell him everything. Not yet. How can you tell your own mother that you've been treated like a rag? How can we explain that the heaviest chains are not the ones we see?
She just said, "You're here. That's all that matters."
But that's not all.
The eyes
The people of the village are whispering. Some people think I failed. Others I did "bad things." Some look at me with pity, others with contempt.
Nobody really understands.
Nobody wants to understand.
I brought back no money. Just scars. And silence.
At night again
At night, I'm startling. I think I hear screams. I think I feel the lady's hands pulling me out of sleep.
I stand up in a rush, ready to clean, to obey.
Then I remember, I'm home.
But even here, something inside me stayed there. A part of my soul is still locked in this windowless storeroom, near the blue bucket.
Honey is bitter
To you, sister,
You who read this paper may dream of leaving. You who think that the other side is always better than here. You think your salvation is in exile.
I don't write to scare you.
I'm writing to wake you up.
"Well paid work" often hides chains. Sweet promises are made by well-dressed snakes. The dream becomes a nightmare, and the return does not erase the wounds.
I was called a slave. I was told I was worth less than a dog. And yet, I was a girl. A girl with dreams, dignity, family.
Today I live. But I don't live like I used to.
I want you to know. Let you understand. Let you think.
Money can feed, yes. But he will never redeem your humanity if it is broken.
Don't go without knowing. Don't doubt it. Don't sign without understanding. And most importantly, don't let anyone steal your name.
My name is Yacine. And this is my cry.
