That’s All She Knew — Faith…

That’s All She Knew — Faith…

By Kateb Shunnar

Zola Bankole wasn’t even twenty when life decided to test her, and test her hard. Nineteen, cheeks still round enough to remind people she’d barely left childhood behind, and yet carrying burdens that would’ve crushed most grown women twice her age. Life doesn’t ask for consent. It just drops its heavy hands on some, and Zola got picked early whether she wanted it or not.

Her parents used to be strong, oh, they were strong. Her father, tall, broad, with a laugh that rolled across the market like a little thunderstorm. Her mother, graceful, quick with her hands, the kind who could turn a single yam into three meals and still hum a tune like heaven had set up residence in her throat. But illness… illness doesn’t care about strength. It sneaks in like a lazy houseguest, takes up space, and refuses to leave.

Over four long years, Zola watched them fade. Not in a dramatic, movie-like collapse, but in the slow, quiet kind of unraveling that makes your heart ache day by day. One morning her father couldn’t stand as tall. The next, her mother’s voice caught in her chest, stubborn as a goat. And before she knew it, Zola had become everything all at once the caretaker, the nurse, the decision-maker, the one carrying her family’s name like it was a basket too big for her arms.

The farm didn’t cut her any slack. Goats wandered off, some sold just to scrape together medicine, others disappearing into a neighbor’s stew under the gentle excuse of “bad luck.” The cattle, once proud, bells jangling like laughter, were gone. Pineapple rows stiffened into brown, stubborn stalks. Even the house seemed to fight her, walls cracking as if sighing, roof sagging and leaking so badly that Zola had to scatter bowls all over the floor like some makeshift Noah’s Ark just to survive a single rain. Her home had become a battlefield of tiny defeats, and yet she didn’t break.

Did she cry? Of course. Did she complain? Sure, she muttered under her breath but surrender? Never. Somehow, against all odds, she even laughed. Not the polite, tamed kind, either. No. This was the laugh that tripped over itself, caught in her throat, jumped out at the wrong moments like the time she slipped on mud carrying a pot of yam stew and ended up looking like the main course herself. Or when she scolded a goat like it could actually understand her: “You think you’re clever? Try boiling water first, then we’ll see!”

The villagers whispered about her “Her whole world is collapsing, and she’s giggling like a child.” But faith, Zola knew, doesn’t always look serious. Sometimes it wears crooked sandals and a grin that’s half mischief, half stubbornness. Because here’s the thing: tears? They don’t move the Creator. Pity? He doesn’t flinch. But faith? That tenacious, unyielding trust faith bends eternity. That was all Zola knew.

Her village, 37 miles north of Lomé, wasn’t rich. Life thrived on sweat and small cleverness. Women roasted peanuts, fried yam, voices rising like music across dusty roads. Men bent over soil, shoulders slick with sweat, while children darted barefoot through the marketplace, their laughter chasing dust motes like tiny warriors. Pineapple farming was lifeblood, and when the rains failed, ingenuity kept people alive. One yam stretched into six meals, and someone always joked: “Tomorrow, we’ll invent a seventh!”

Zola stood out, not because of riches or power. She carried something invisible, a rhythm no one else could hear. Even when her stomach growled louder than the village drum, she moved with this steady, peculiar grace. Even when neighbors shook their heads in pity, she held her chin high, as if someone unseen someone bigger than the world was holding it for her. She carried an old saying in her bones: “You can’t make me doubt Him. I know too much about Him already.”

Stories shaped the village. And Zola, blessed by them, grew a love for the magical, the absurd, the lessons hidden in the ordinary. Her grandmother had passed down a tale Zola never forgot: Adoma, the Talking Pineapple. During a long drought, a poor farmer’s daughter sat crying in the dirt. The pineapple, somehow alive with wisdom, spoke: “Child, stop watering the ground with tears. Water it with hope.” The girl nearly fainted. Who hears sermons from a pineapple? But she listened. And when the rains came, her field grew green again. From that day on, elders whispered, “Remember the pineapple that spoke.” Faith, Zola understood, doesn’t wait for evidence it listens when logic says it shouldn’t.

Doubt buzzed around her like mosquitoes. Swat one, and ten more came whining. She swatted them back with stubborn belief. And yes, Zola had her low days. Sometimes she stared at the moon, spoke to it like it was her grandmother. Sometimes she muttered at her pots for cooking too slow. Once, when the roof leaked while she cooked, she yelled at the ceiling: “Fall if you want, but don’t you dare ruin my stew!” Then she laughed, high and clear, until the wind seemed to laugh along. Faith, Zola knew, made space for absurdity.

She told children tales, too, often made up in dreams: The Goat Who Wanted Shoes. A goat, jealous of humans, stole shoes thinking it would make him important. He stumbled, tumbled, nearly cracked his horns. Eventually, he sighed: “What’s the use of shoes if you can’t even walk straight?” The lesson: envy the blessings of others at your peril. Faith, Zola knew, was about trusting what’s yours, not coveting what isn’t.

Day after day, she woke before the sun, hands raw, stomach empty, tending goats, patching roofs, coaxing the last stubborn pineapple shoots to life. Every now and then, she paused, glancing at the horizon same as always, yet promising, whispering: “Keep going. Keep walking. Keep trusting.” She shook her head at the absurdity: “Rain? Really? Just after I fixed the roof? Couldn’t you at least warn me?” And then she laughed. Loud. Unrestrained. The villagers started calling her the “girl who laughs at storms.” She didn’t mind. She knew a heart clutched too tightly by fear would never be free. Faith, she decided, was the only umbrella strong enough to hold her.

There was another tale from her mother: The Yam That Wouldn’t Wilt. During drought, one yam refused to bow like the others, whispering, “Grow anyway.” When rains returned, it flourished, bigger and sweeter than anyone expected. Zola carried that yam in her chest. “I am the yam,” she whispered on her darkest days. “I will not wilt. I will grow anyway.”

She endured scraped knees, sleepless nights, lost goats, rotting pineapples, all with stubborn humor and quiet reverence. Sometimes playful chasing a chicken that stole her only onion with a frying pan raised like a sword, bowing to it as if it were a worthy opponent. Life, she realized, could be serious and ridiculous all at once. Faith demanded both.

Even shadows became companions. She’d sit under the mango tree, counting shifting afternoon shadows, speaking aloud: “You’re sneaky, you know? Always following me like you own me.” And she laughed, because even in loss, even in scarcity, there were still friends hiding in plain sight.

Her faith wasn’t perfect. Sometimes she faltered, slumping to the ground after a long day, hands trembling, stomach growling, whispering to wind and crickets: “Why me? Why now?” And then she’d remember: pineapple, yam, goat, shadows. She’d stand again. Despair was contagious, but so was hope. And Zola, barefoot and bruised, stubbornly hopeful, became a spark. People whispered, quietly, “If she can keep going, maybe so can we.”

She didn’t need to claim greatness. She did what she could: trusted, persevered, laughed, prayed. Held fast to the unseen, to the rhythm that carried life even when everything else failed. New stories grew around her. Children wide-eyed, as she told: Toma, the River Who Forgot to Flow. A river paused, crops wilted, people despaired. But a small girl spoke to the river: “You are patient. Flow when you are ready.” Slowly, it trickled, poured, roared back to life. Faith, Zola understood, coaxed even rivers back to purpose.

By twenty five , Zola had lost more than most in a lifetime. Animals, crops, home, comfort, certainty. Yet she gained something else: a heart that refused to break completely, a spirit that laughed at misfortune, a faith that bent the heavens without fear.

Villagers whispered her story to one another: the girl who fed goats, patched roofs, laughed at dawn, whose faith was stubborn and alive, like a yam refusing to wilt. Faith, if held tight enough, they began to see, could carry them all.

Zola never claimed to be extraordinary. She simply did what she knew: trusted, persevered, laughed, prayed, and held onto the unseen presence that made all things possible. That was her rhythm. That was her anchor. That was all she knew. And sometimes, that’s all a person really needs.

Faith. That’s all she knew.

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