Each of us had our turn upon the raised platform. We, too, were poked and prodded until disgraced in full view. Unlike the Wolof man, we did not fight. We had seen what they do to those who fight, so we surrendered and lived.

Our love for each other sustained us. We felt it, invisible yet tangible, wounded but living, hurt but not despairing. We stared it into each other’s eyes as a tribute to the battered yet steadfast survivors who would one day heal the nations. That was our new mission. That was why we’d been scattered to every corner of the earth. And, of course, the healer must be wounded to know the depth of pain. For out of pain comes restoration. We didn’t know that then. Most don’t know it now. But the trees will say it. The wind will send reminders. The rocks will proclaim it. Clouds will shift in the heavens and announce it. Waves will dash against shores of this new land and declare it: “These are they! These are they!” until the dark, beautiful souls of Africa rise and say, “Yes! We are they! We are here!”

Like broken branches of a tree, we parted ways. If the aim had been to destroy us, they had failed. If the aim had been to bruise our pride, they were victorious. Still, we knew who we were. The secret of our drums continued to reverberate in our souls. The magic of our weaving was still in our hands. The knowledge of God and the heavens was still in our spirits. We would dance our own dances again. We would sing songs of our ancestors until our children knew from whom they had come. We would call God by a different name, but OUR God would come in due time. We had endured. We were a changed people, but we were roots of the same tree.

Even in torture, our souls had not withered. They were buried somewhere deep within, in a place where no person could go. They were as timeless as the sun. Elders had taught us that a person’s spirit permeates their flesh, interpreting the invisible and feeling the intangible. Yet the soul never moves. It rests at the center of the Self, as the piece of God that dwells in every living thing. Throughout the journey, our souls fed hope to our consciousness when all hope was gone. It whispered into our weary ears, “There shall come a day when the last shall be first.” We believed. We believed because we needed to believe. We cursed our Gods only because we believed in them. Even when they didn’t come, we still believed. We welcomed Death because we believed in another life. We ate mush and endured the stench of human waste because we believed we could survive. And we did survive. And in surviving we began to dream. We dreamed so many dreams, we dreamed so many years. We dreamed of our people coming together and building families filled with joy and overrunning with children. We dreamed of someone studying those ships and learning enough to take us home. We dreamed of continuing our initiations in this new land until we were sure we were men. We dreamed of healing rituals that would calm turbulent minds. We dreamed of the pale boy who had loved us from his heart, and we hoped for him a lifetime of blessings. And we dreamed that, one day, our children would know the cost of our coming. That would be enough. That would heal our souls. We had learned our lesson.