Gambian women turn pain into song

Banjul, Gambia – The women arrive with laughter before they begin to sing. More than a dozen of them wear oversized men's shirts and baggy trousers to show they are as strong as men. On their heads are bright scarves of yellow, red, and green.

They tease each other as an empty plastic bucket is turned upside down and beaten like a drum. The sound echoes through the compound as voices rise in Mandinka, one woman leading the chorus before the others join in. “I did not come here for food; my belly is full. I came for something greater than that.”

At weddings and naming ceremonies, they are entertainers, drawing crowds with jokes, dance, and song. The small contributions they receive at these events help support the group and its activities. But beneath the laughter lies another story.

At 84, Mentending Trawally is small and stooped, her face lined by time. A yellow scarf frames her face, covering her ears. She no longer sings as loudly as before. When the Kanyeleng – a tradition that brings together women who have experienced infertility and child loss – gathered on a Sunday evening in July under the shade of a house in Bakau, a coastal town on the outskirts of Banjul, it was younger voices that raised the songs that have been sung there for decades.

Thirteen women sat shoulder to shoulder as the late-afternoon heat eased, some swaying gently to the rhythm, others clapping along. Outside the compound gate, neighborhood children stood on tiptoe peering through the entrance as the singing spilled onto the street. Trawally sat among them, tapping her foot softly on the ground, smiling whenever someone forgot the lyrics she still knows by heart. Age has slowed her body but not dulled the songs that have been with her for more than seven decades.

“I was born into Kanyeleng,” she said.

Bakau is home to the largest concentration of Kanyeleng, with about 10 groups, but the tradition spans all seven regions of Gambia. Historian Hassoum Ceesay estimates there are more than 100 groups nationwide, and similar traditions exist in neighboring Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone. The exact age of the tradition is hard to pin down, but Ceesay says it goes back generations. Tied to Mandinka culture, Kanyeleng is a cultural practice rather than a religious one and is not limited to a particular ethnic group. Related traditions have been adapted across communities. For example, the Fula use the word “geedereh” (garbage dump), while the Wolof use “morrso” (scrap of cloth).

This tradition shaped Trawally's family long before she understood its meaning. Her grandmother became a Kanyeleng member after losing most of her children in infancy, leaving only Trawally's mother as a survivor. Years later, her mother also joined. Trawally remembers little of her grandmother, only the songs, the groups of women gathering in the family compound, and the rhythm of dozens of dancing feet.

In Mandinka, Mentending means tomato, a name her family ties to survival, like a plant that keeps growing despite hardship. “My mother gave me that name because I survived,” she said, her hands resting loosely in her lap.

When she married young, she dreamed of a house full of children, little footsteps running through the yard, and the joy of watching them grow. But five pregnancies ended for unknown reasons before she could carry a child to term.

“I cried until I had no tears left,” she told Al Jazeera. In her community, motherhood is how women are seen and valued. People saw the absence of a child but not the pain behind it. After marrying and enduring successive miscarriages, Trawally returned to the Kanyeleng tradition she had grown up with. The women welcomed her into a circle of those who understand the pain of child loss and miscarriage. Among them, she did not need to explain her grief.

Decades later, Trawally still remembers the lyrics learned in her teenage years, the women who came before, and the younger voices now carrying them forward. “Those songs are my life,” she said. For the Kanyeleng, music allows experiences that are hard to put into words in ordinary conversation to be expressed collectively. Through shared humor and rhythm, they turn loss into moments of connection.

Every Sunday as the sun sets, the women gather at Trawally's home, a modest compound with two corrugated iron-roofed houses arranged around a partially tiled courtyard. A small mango tree casts a shadow over the yard where the women sit in a circle, singing, clapping, and interweaving laughter. Each member contributes 200 dalasis (about $2.70) into a common fund to help any woman facing difficulty, whether illness, bereavement, or unexpected situations.

The neighborhood children stand outside the gate, drawn by the rhythm and the improvised drumming. They wear T-shirts and shorts, peering through the entrance. To a visitor, it may seem like a celebration. Trawally smiles: “Outsiders only see the performance. They don't see the pain that created it.”