The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir

The narration jumps forward in time. Moore is living in Brooklyn, New York. While fighting her way out of thoughts of her ex-boyfriend, Wayetu thinks of Satta. She has a dream about Satta carrying a jug of palm oil. Several weeks earlier, she went to an African grocery store in Brooklyn “that still existed among the deluge coffee shops and yoga studios” to purchase “palm oil and frozen cassava leaf” (101). She wanted to make the dish that would make her feel better, the one that tasted like Mam’s cooking. When she arrived, she saw that the store had closed indefinitely, and she returned to her apartment, sad and forlorn.

One day in the late fall, Wayetu tells Mam that she has been dreaming of Satta. She sits on her windowsill and watches children play below on the streets of Brooklyn. Wi calls and asks how she is doing. Wayetu insists that she is fine and is getting her freelance and consulting work done. She longs for the cassava leaf that she had in Lai, “spread over parboiled white rice drenched in oil, with shrimp, with dry fish and pepper” (102).

Wayetu has just broken up with her boyfriend of two years.