Preview of …… The Outcasts

by Nancy Mankins Hamm

Chapter 1

Maamo rocked slowly back and forth in her roughly woven hammock, which had long since lost its vibrant colors. Her once-shiny black hair had faded to dark gray and now fell limply down her back. Deep lines in her weathered face accentuated her age, and her thin, four-foot-seven-inch frame was no stranger to hardship and hunger. However, a spark remained in Maamo’s dark brown eyes—a spark that smoldered and refused to go out.

At age fifty-seven Maamo was the oldest woman in Ulgana. For generations the isolated village in the dense tropical rain forests of Central America had remained virtually untouched by the outside world—as though suspended in time…suspended, that is, until men from Ulgana had ventured farther upriver and discovered a small outpost town. The Nala people had believed that Ulgana and its sister villages were the total of humanity. It was a fearful thing to learn that other people existed—people who looked different and spoke an unintelligible language.

Maamo remembered clearly the stories that had been told at night around her fire. Little by little, village men had begun to trade crops of plantain and avocado for items from the outside. Families now had plates, spoons, and large cast iron pots for cooking food over their fires. They valued their salt and matches, and the lucky ones even brought back cooking oil. The men now possessed machetes, files, and fishhooks. A few even had shotguns. So, as they ventured outside of their realm, life had begun to change. But they still had no idea at all about the vast world beyond the outpost town.

Maamo continued to sway in her hammock. She had never traveled even to the closest Nala village—except in her mind, that is. Often she tried to imagine her way along the dirt-packed trail that she envisioned from the stories she’d heard. In her mind’s eye she tried hard to picture the steep, rugged path…snaking through the dense, green jungle, at times skirting the swiftly flowing river toward the village where her three sons and their families had lived for well over fifteen years. She certainly wasn’t the only one of her people who had never visited even the nearest of the sister villages. Most of the residents of Ulgana had never ventured to make the grueling trek. The other two Nala communities, however, were so far away that she knew she couldn’t begin to imagine them, so she didn’t even try.

Maamo shivered. She pulled the musty, threadbare cover tighter around her. Years ago, her youngest son, Diego, had brought the blanket to her on one of his rare trips back to Ulgana. She glared at the cold fire pit. I’m out of wood, again. Why…why has my life turned out this way? She closed her eyes and allowed her mind to take her back nearly forty-three years…

The feeble cry of a newborn pierced the semidarkness of the small hut.

“A girl!” Maamo’s mother exulted. She laid the infant on a banana leaf to await the delivery of the afterbirth.

Maamo’s joy was short-lived, however. More contractions wracked her body. “What’s happening?” she cried out, as a second daughter made her way into the world.

“Twins!” her mother choked out.

“A curse!” rasped the grandfather, who had been standing outside the hut with Maamo’s husband.

The room grew deathly quiet, except for the faint cries of two tiny infants.

“Nooo!” Maamo’s scream pierced the night.

Quickly Maamo’s mother wrapped each baby in banana leaves. Tears streamed down her face as she ran to the doorway and handed the tiny bundles to the men. Maamo’s babies were whisked away into the dark night to appease the spirits.

“Nooo! Please don’t take my babies!” sobbed the fourteen-year-old mother. Desperately she fought to break free from her own mother’s arms to rescue her infants, but she could not.

“Hush. Here, take this,” her mother said, quickly forcing her daughter to gag down a foul-tasting black liquid. Immediately it dulled her senses and gradually lulled her into a deep sleep….

How I wish I could have rescued them! Could I somehow have rescued them? Had my daughters been allowed to live, my life would have been so different.

One year later Maamo had given birth to a healthy baby boy. Her empty arms were filled, yet her questions and heartache remained. Two years passed and a second baby boy arrived, followed by a third boy two years after that. With each birth Maamo secretly mourned her baby girls all over again.

Then, an illness struck the village. Everyone knew the spirits had caused it. Over a third of the people died. Maamo’s husband, both of her parents, and her only sister were among the casualties, leaving Maamo and her babies destitute. She had no family members left to haul large fire logs for her to cook on. With her babies in tow, she gathered sticks and twigs. With no one to watch her small children while she was gone, she struggled to maintain a meager garden and haul plantains and bananas. She had no relatives to gather building materials or to participate in the village projects, so her house was never on the list to be repaired. She could not replace the thatched roof or the bamboo walls when the harsh rains and hot winds took their toll year after year.

Eventually, at ages ten, eight, and six, her children were all able to help her plant and harvest food, haul fire logs, split wood, and repair the hut. But all too soon, it seemed, each son found a bride.

Why did all three boys have to find wives in Luwana? Maamo questioned, even these fifteen years later.

I begged Diego not to go! I pleaded with him to find a way to bring his bride here to Ulgana to live with me. She could still see the shocked expression on Diego’s face, as if she’d lost her mind. His look unmistakably told her he would not defy the custom of living with the wife’s family. He stared incredulously at her—everybody knew that the blood lines ran through the mother! As custom dictated, his new wife’s family would gain a son-in-law to help provide for them. It wasn’t his fault that his mother didn’t have daughters who would marry and bring sons-in-law and grandchildren into her home. Maamo’s fate had been sealed.

The spirits are never satisfied, Maamo thought bitterly. They took my baby girls, my husband, and my family. Why should I obey them? Isn’t there any other path to follow? Please, I want more for my grandchildren! There has to be a different way!

Maamo had no way of knowing that in the farthest sister village to the west, another Nala woman’s life was about to change forever...

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the permission of the publisher.