The Gardener of Faranaya

The Gardener of Faranaya

By Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

Once upon a time, deep in the sacred folds of the Fouta Djallon highlands near what is now Sierra Leone, there lived a Fula man named Jalimadi he was tall, lean, and known for his hands that healed the earth. The people of his village, Faranaya, called him The Gardener Who Prayed. He had a dream: to cultivate enough land to grow a harvest that would feed not just his people but also the neighboring tribes the Mende and Temne, with whom old rivalries had carved wounds of silence.

Jalimadi lived simply. His round hut was thatched with palm fronds and sat near a stream that whispered songs of the ancestors. His mother had once told him, “When a man plants with love, the land sings back to him.” And so, every morning he anointed the soil with palm oil and prayers. He danced barefoot across his garden beds, singing old Fula songs, his face painted with tribal markings white kaolin to honor peace and brown ochre for strength.

But his dream required land more than the patch he inherited. The council of elders, wrapped in woven indigo robes, warned him: “These are treacherous times. Do not trust the smiles of hungry men.” Yet he pleaded with them, invoking the names of long-departed heroes and quoting proverbs: Ko ɗum jooɗii, a yiɗi, a noddi. “If it is planted, you must water it and watch it grow.”

He was granted the land on one condition: unify the three villages through his harvest. And so began his journey thrilling, arduous, and sacred. He visited each village bearing gifts of dried smoked fish, kola nuts, and cassava bread. He danced with them under moonlight, shared krain krain and cassava leaves stew from earthen pots and learned their songs. He even fell in love.

Her name was N’Yarie, a Mende woman with laughter like rain on tin roofs and strength like baobab roots. She taught him the ways of her people the meaning of their face tattoos, the rituals behind their ankle bells, and how to cook groundnut soup thick enough to coat rice like silk.

But not everyone rejoiced. Malik, the son of Faranaya’s chief and a warrior trained in bush and blood, saw Jalimadi’s rise as an insult. “A gardener cannot lead men,” he sneered. Quietly, he began to sow discord. He bribed the council, poisoned the water used for irrigation, and spread rumors that Jalimadi was conspiring with the Temne to seize Fula lands.

One dark evening, during the Fire Dance of Atonement, where men spun with torches and women chanted around drums, Malik struck. A barn full of Jalimadi’s harvest was set ablaze. Smoke painted the night with screams. The villagers panicked. Crops that would’ve fed thousands withered in the flames.

Jalimadi wept not for the loss, but for the hatred behind it. “How can a man love the Creator whom he has never seen,” he cried aloud, “yet hate the brother who shares his breath, his dust, his hunger?”

War drums thundered days later. Malik rallied young bloods who stormed neighboring villages. There was fighting machetes clashing, arrows flying, children crying under overturned baskets. A young Fula warrior, Bah, was murdered in cold blood at the border, triggering retaliation. Sabotage followed wells poisoned, totems desecrated.

In the chaos, N’Yarie was captured. Malik planned to use her as a symbol of betrayal. “This gardener’s love has cost you your daughters,” he shouted to the crowd, “and your sons their lives!”

But under the moon’s gaze, N’Yarie escaped with the help of an old Temne herbalist who still remembered the day Jalimadi healed her son with ginger root and marula bark.

As blood soaked the soil meant to yield food, the spirits of the ancestors stirred. The village griot, an elder woman with bones like reeds and a voice like thunder, stood before the smoldering fields and recited:

“When fire eats the harvest, the soul of the land weeps. When hatred takes root, the rain hides from us. Only love can bring the season back.”

It was then the Creator moved. A storm unlike any seen in generations swept through. Lightning split trees. Rain fell in walls. The villagers, hiding in their huts, listened. And when it ended, only silence and the smell of clean earth remained.

Jalimadi, beaten and bloody but unbroken, stood in the center of his burnt land. He knelt. He prayed. He wept.

Weeks passed. Shoots of green poked through the ash. The women returned to sing planting songs. Men laid down their weapons. Children danced the Fula wodaabe style shoulders trembling, eyes wild with joy. The tribal face painting returned, not for war but for celebration. They feasted on jollof rice, okra stew, and fried plantains. For the first time, the three tribes cooked together, their pots stirring as one.

Malik, exiled and bitter, left the region, never to return. N’Yarie and Jalimadi wed beneath the great baobab tree. In honor of the fallen, a sacred grove was planted. In the center stood a stone engraved with the Fula proverb:

“The heart that sows hate reaps emptiness, but the soul that forgives harvests eternity.”

And thus, the Gardener of Faranaya became a legend not because he conquered enemies, but because he watered even those who sought to destroy him.

And some say, to this day, when you pass through the fields of Faranaya, the wind still hums his prayer.