The Old Woman and the Strangers

In a village called Abenkyim, there had been no rain for six months. The wells were dry. The rivers were thin brown ribbons of mud. Every family had sealed their water jars and hidden what little remained.

One evening, three strangers appeared at the edge of the village. They were dressed in the plain cloth of travellers, their feet dusty from a long road, their mouths parched. They went from compound to compound asking for water.

"We have none to spare," said the headman. "We can barely sustain our own children."

"We have nothing," said the trader's wife. "If I give you water, my own household will suffer."

One by one, every household in Abenkyim sent the strangers away.

At the very end of the village, in the smallest compound, lived an old woman named Maame Ama Nyarko. She had no husband, no children at home, and only a small gourd of water she had been rationing for three days. She was herself very thirsty.

When the strangers knocked at her gate, she looked at them for a long moment. Then she brought out her gourd.

"I have only this," she said. "It is not much. But you may have it."

The eldest stranger spoke: "Grandmother, are you certain? This water must be precious to you."

"A person dying of thirst in front of me makes my thirst seem a small thing," Maame Ama said. "Sit. Rest."

She shared the water, and then brought out the last of her kenkey and pepper sauce and shared that too.

The strangers ate and drank in silence. Then the eldest rose. "Old mother, we have travelled this road for a reason. We are not ordinary travellers. You have given us what no one else in this village would give, from a heart with nothing to prove. Tell us: what does your village need most?"

Maame Ama thought for a moment. She could have asked for personal wealth, for a new compound, for the return of her children from the city. Instead she said: "We need the rain to come. We need the wells to fill. We need our children to have enough."

The three strangers bowed. They walked to the centre of the village. The eldest raised his staff.

By morning, rain had come, long, steady sheets filling the wells, greening the farms, restoring the rivers. The people of Abenkyim danced and gave thanks.

Maame Ama Nyarko told no one about the strangers. But every person in the village knew, somehow, that the blessing had not come for their sake. It had come for hers.