This is a story about one Muslim man who changed – and saved — my life. No, not Zorhan Mamdani, the dynamic young Muslim mayor-elect of New York City, which was my home for twenty years. The Muslim man of this true story, Youssef Tounkara, was someone I met while serving in the Peace Corps in Gabon, Central Africa, nearly thirty years ago. He was the first Muslim friend I’d ever had, the first Muslim person I’d ever really known. His impact on me was and remains profound.
Youssef, a Malian born and raised in Côte d’Ivoire, was a self-described “adventurer,” just passing through Gabon for a while on his life’s larger African adventures. He was single, tall, slim, and soft-spoken, a freelance photographer twenty years younger than I.
One afternoon, while visiting my home, he told me about his religion, explaining to me the five tenets of Islam; but he stressed he wasn’t evangelizing. He’d been one of eleven children brought up in a strict Muslim family; he referred to his brutal father as “the Ayatollah,” someone he had no intention of ever emulating. Like me, Youssef was steeped in the religious morals of his youth but no longer adhered to his religion’s manmade dogmas and strictures.
(Youssef in Gabon, 1998)
Because we both enjoyed cooking – I’d been a caterer in New York, and he’d been a chef at a small restaurant for a while in his travels – we began making lunch together from time to time and sharing our midday meal at my table. He would tell me about his travels –we spoke in French, a second language for both of us – as well as his early life at home, his beloved saintly mother, his hopes and dreams and photographic ambitions. We created our own little ritual: Before eating, we took turns asking God, the same God we found we both believed in, to bless our food and use the energy we derived from it for good.
One day in late November 1997, when Youssef arrived for a visit while I was preparing for a Thanksgiving feast for eight friends, including Youssef, I could see he was very ill. As I described this day in greater detail in my Peace Corps memoir HOW TO COOK A CROCODILE:
“… Youssef had malaria – le palu, the Africans called it – when he arrived at my house unexpectedly the day before Thanksgiving. So I led him to the spare room I called my office, with the makeshift desk and rudimentary daybed I’d made. … ‘Please lie down here,’ I told him, and then I covered his shaking body with a blanket.
“He complained of fever, chills, painful joints, headache, dizziness, weakness. I took his temperature, which confirmed a high fever, gave him some malaria meds from my personal, Peace Corps-issue medical kit, and told him I’d make some chicken soup for him for lunch.”
Already the poultry stock – destined for my Thanksgiving menu’s first course, pumpkin soup — was gently simmering in a huge stockpot on the front burner of my new, small stovetop and filling my home with its homey fragrance. I had plenty of stock bubbling on the stove, so I knew I could spare some of it for Youssef’s healing soup.
“I walked down the short hallway toward my kitchen at my usual, brisk, Manhattan-pedestrian pace. When I turned the corner hurriedly into the kitchen, I didn’t see that something had spilled on the floor. Water? Oil? Whatever it was, it was slippery for my bare feet on the terra cotta tiles. The heel of my right foot skidded on it. I lost my balance. I reached wildly for something to grasp to catch my fall. My left hand fell on the handle of the tall stockpot sitting on the stovetop at the entryway to my kitchen. Without knowing, without thinking, without seeing, I pulled the heavy pot toward me, pouring the boiling liquid down onto my bare left thigh [I was wearing tennis shorts], knee, shin, and foot.
“I was on the kitchen floor, rocking and screaming in pain when Youssef appeared at the kitchen door, wide-eyed, shaken. ‘Qu’est-ce-que se pas?!’ (What’s happening ?), he said as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Or ears. We had always been so quiet together. He had never heard me raise my voice, much less scream.”
Youssef then ran to get the head of the hospital, Dr. Christophe Djimet, who lived not far away:
“Youssef found Dr. Djimet at his house, further up the hill from mine, directly across from the hospital where I worked, having lunch with his family. When the two men returned, they lifted me up and put me between them in the cab of Dr. Djimet’s pickup truck and rushed me to the hospital’s surgery room, where Dr. Djimet treated my burn. Youssef stood beside me. He gave me his hand, and I squeezed it with all my strength, to counteract the pain.
“ ‘Youssef a le palu’ (Youssef has malaria), I told Dr. Djimet, gritting my teeth, trying to be brave, as brave as I imagined an African would be under the same circumstances, as I lay there on the operating table and Dr. Djimet tore the layers of burned and blistered skin from my entire left thigh. But he was concentrating on the task at hand. He ignored my words. The meds I’d given Youssef, though, must have worked their magic because his palu seemed to have vanished.”
In the days that followed, my condition worsened. I had a violent allergic reaction to the mercurochrome Dr. Djimet had used liberally to dress my wound. I experienced high fevers, cold chills, and gushing sweats for days. But Youssef never left my side. He cared for me, night and day, doing everything he possibly could to comfort me and ease my pain. He fed me, took me to the bathroom, changed my drenched shirts and sheets, washed my face, brushed my hair.
“One night, when I was delirious with pain and fever, I thought I saw two women – one white and resembling my mother, the other black and unknown to me – reaching out to me from the next life. I wanted to go with them. I wanted so much to go. Wherever these women were, I knew there would be no pain.”
“I want to die,” I told Youssef, who was sitting beside my bed.
He responded softly, “God has sent me to tell you, you cannot go now. Pas encore (not yet). This is not your time. You have more work to do … .”
To me he was an angel who had not only saved my life – I might well have died from burn shock had he not been there and acted so heroically – but he was also doing his super-human best to keep me alive.
When my postmate Morgan arrived by motorcycle a few days later from her village many miles away and saw my condition and Youssef’s exhaustion, she swung into action. She found a phone in town that actually worked and eventually got through to the Peace Corps Medical Officer in Libreville, who arranged for my evacuation on the next scheduled flight to Libreville out of Lastoursville. I asked that Youssef fly with me, and the Peace Corps agreed.
This was the first time Youssef had never flown. All of his previous travel-adventures throughout West Africa, he’d told me, had been by land, in trucks or by bush taxis.
The Peace Corps arranged for me to have a private room in an excellent clinic in the capital city of Libreville, where I received superb care. Youssef stayed with me at the clinic, sleeping in a reclining chair beside my hospital bed at night, attending to my needs all day for the three weeks I was there. Except for his afternoon forays to the marché to buy fresh tropical fruit for me while I napped, Youssef never left my bedside.
No one in my life, either before or since – not even my own mother, whom I know loved me – has ever given me such selfless devoted care. Youssef and I were friends at the time; he was not my husband, my boyfriend, nor my employee. He was not being remunerated in any way for his time and effort.
When I would ask him, “Why are you doing this? Why are you so good to me?” he would always answer only, “C’est normal.”
Normal? I thought. Normal for whom? For him and other selfless Africans, perhaps, for whom human connectedness, worth more to them than gold, is the rule. But not so much where I come from, where money, more than kindness, too often rules. As one former boyfriend, a financier in New York, used to express this ethos, “He who’s got the gold makes the rules.”
When my Peace Corps service ended the following year, Youssef and I traveled to Muslim-majority Mali and stayed for a while in the compound of his cousins and their families in Ségou. As Youssef had told me I would, I fell in love with Ségou, the kind, generous, good-hearted Muslim people there, their creativity and eagerness to learn and grow.
Ultimately, Youssef moved on, on his wider African adventures; but I stayed in Ségou. On my own I created ecomonic development projects for women and girls. Like my two-year Peace Corps experience, my three years in Ségou were life-changing for me.
I’ve lost touch with Youssef over the years, but I’m still in close communication with members of his extended family in Ségou. One of Youssef’s cousin’s sons, who was just a young boy when I lived there, is now a married man with little children. He named his baby daughter after me. He sends me photos of my darling namesake regularly on Facebook. Here is one:
(My namesake in Mali, 2024)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
To learn more about my relationship with this one Muslim man, both in Gabon and in Mali, see my Peace Corps memoir HOW TO COOK A CROCODILE and its sequel HOW TO MAKE AN AFRICAN QUILT (https://www.bonnieleeblack.com).
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I grew up in Mali. I love your story. Yes the value system in Africa is so much better than our “how much money do you have?”
Thank you for this, Shary. So you, too, must have many wonderful Mali stories! 🙂
Gratitude, Bonnie for this moving, heartening witness of your Muslim friend’s kindness.
Thanks so much, Rae. I’m hoping this post finds its way into some hearts out there in Islamophobialand.
Bonnie dear you must be tired of my accolades so Ill just say here – I really regret that we never reconnected over the past hm mm years ! What stories and friendship we might have shared.
xoxs Jan
Well, dear Jan, we have NOW! So glad we’re now connected. — xx
What a wonderful story. He sounds like a truly special person as you are.
Thank you, dear Victoria. It takes one to know one. 🙂
I remember reading your book, Bonnie. All very moving.
Yes, Karen. I seem to be sharing more and more from my Africa books because so few people have read them! Thank you for taking the time to read the Gabon book. — xx
Bonnie querida, I remember reading your wonderful memoir. (All of them are!) Your namesake is adorable.
Si, Te, she is truly adorable! I just received a new photo of her earlier today. If I know how to attach it here, I would do so. 🙁
Loved this story. VERY interesting!
Thanks, Pat! Glad you liked it!
I have to say that revisiting this story always makes my stomach hurt a little bit. You were so lucky to have Youssef there with you, malaria and all. He was such a sweet and gentle person. So happy that you recovered and continued on to more adventures. Love you.
And YOU, dear Morgan, former P.C. postmate and forever dear friend, saved the day for both Youssef and me! You are truly one of the heroes of this story. Thank you for all that you’ve done and for all that you are! — Love you too, xoxoxox (P.S. — Just imagine: Youssef just turned 60 years old. Hard to believe, isn’t it?)
Very beautiful account. We need to hear that story of kindness. You know far too well, we are in deep trouble n the US, with, it seems not many showing such empathy and goodness – government least of all. You shoulda’ married that kind man!!!!
Thank you, Pamela — and it’s good to hear from you! You’ll be interested to know that Youssef DID ask me to marry him… The whole story is in the book. 🙂
There is something so amazing about this story I’ve never heard you tell, Bonnie. I know nothing of Mali, it’s only a place on the map for me. But a few years ago a friend here in San Miguel gifted me with a vintage Indigo poncho from Mali, the first time I’d ever known there is such a thing as Indigo Mudcloth. She gave it to me because it was old, ripped, not the least bit wearable, but she felt I could make use of it in my recycled textile world. All this year, I’ve worked on upcycling it, mending it, and now that it’s finished, I have your story of another piece of Mali history. I don’t know why, but it all feels complete now that I read this blog. Thank you, the world just got smaller and more beautiful because of your story.
Ah, Lena, thanks so much for this. My Mali book (HOW TO MAKE AN AFRICAN QUILT) is the story of the work I did with seamstresses there; they wanted me to teach them patchwork quilting. I learned a lot about Malian textiles, including mudcloth, when I lived there. You and I must have lunch one day and discuss all this!
We absolutely must, Bonnie. and soon.
I propose a Thanksgiving-y type of lunch, at my place, while Jaime is here. What do you think?
Love it and very timely.
Thanks, Toni! See you soon!
What a harrowing story. I was stationed in Makokou, and spent a month in 1983 at Clinique Chambrier in LBV. Bongo’s personal hospital I was told. I wonder if that’s where you were too?
I truly don’t remember the name of the hospital, Charles. I vaguely remember that it was small and quite modern and new. As I recall, someone said Bongo’s wife (or one of his wives) who was a doctor, ran it. (I was on morphine most of my time there, so my memories of it are fuzzy.)
Oh, dear Bonnie, what a story! I loved your book « How to Make An African Quilt? »Now this adds another chapter, one that has touched my heart deeply. I look forward to one of our « fiestas de te » muy pronto. I too, hope more hearts open to the richness of living in a more inclusive culture.
Thank you, dear Sher. Yes, much of this post was excerpted from my Peace Corps memoir, HOW TO COOK A CROCODILE (which precedes my Mali book, HOW TO MAKE AN AFRICAN QUILT). It comes from the chapter titled “Jean d’Arc,” because the doctor in the clinic in Libreville called me Joan of Arc! 🙂
As a realtor in Houston near the Medical Center, I worked with people from all over the world. One couple were Muslim. The U.S. propaganda groups all Muslims as bad people, like all Mexicans. However, this Muslim couple defied all that propaganda, as do the Mexican people I have met. They where some of the kindest, medically brilliant, and best, clients I have ever had.
Thank you SO much, Betty, for sharing this experience. I think more Americans need to be exposed to such positive true stories, don’t you?
Love love love – comes in all forms and so often unexpectedly. Thanks for sharing!
So true. Thanks, Barb!
Dearest BB,
Harrowing as the burn story is, I loved reading again about your (good) times with Youssef and recalling my visit with you in Segou, when Mali was the exemplar of a benevolent Muslim society. I am so sad that that beautiful country has since been plagued with religious fanaticism and intolerance, as has the United States.
your MF
Gracias, Monty dear. How wonderful that you were able to visit me in Segou and that we have such meaningful memories of your stay. Just today I was telling someone about our adventures on the way to Timbuktu! Now, as you point out, tourists wouldn’t be as safe traveling in Mali. It is sad.
Thanks, Bonnie, for re-telling this story of a caring and lasting connection. May we all be so blessed. Warm wishes.
Thanks, dear April. Yes, I feel blessed to have known him. I know you understand. — xx
What a riveting story, Bonnie! I can only imagine the pain and suffering… How lucky Youssef was with you! Otherwise, we wouldn’t have met…
Happy Thanksgiving!
C
Thanks so much, Carolina. Yes, I often think of Youssef’s words, “God sent me to tell you you have more work to do…” I guess I STILL have more work to do! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family too.
Dear Bonnie, What a beautiful and inspiring post/story! Youssef is amazing–what a gift of friendship he gave you and you gave him back. Hoping to see you before long (at the Writers Conference). Keep up these WOW posts!!
xxoo Lela
Thank you, dear Lela. Yes, he was a gift. And my ongoing connection with his extended family is an ongoing gift. I’m very grateful. And, yes, I’m looking forward to seeing you again here, in Feb.!
Beautiful story Bonnie. We find love of all kinds in the most unlikely places.
Gracias, querida Kim! Yes, you know this. — xx
Dear dear Bonnie! How could I forget the stories you shared all those years ago about this fine young friend who was there for you when you needed him most. Of the tragic mishap of the simmering stock. How he cared for you so selflessly with grace and kindness. I’ve always referred to you as an angel, and I know Youssef was yours. May his memory always bring joy, wherever he may be. And how beautiful is this darling namesake!? xoxo
And YOU, dearest Michael, are another of the angel-men in my life! I am ineffably grateful for you and all that you’ve done for and meant to me over these past 40 (count them!) years. Love forever, your Bonnie Fare xx
Dear Bon,
Youssef is truly a guardian angel for how he took care of you during this horrendous experience. Having him with you at this event made the crucial difference, and we who love you cannot bless him enough for being there for you. It’s wonderful that you are able to keep in touch with his cousin and his cousin’s lovely daughter Bonnie!
Love,
Paul
Thank you, Paul, dearest. Yes, Youssef was definitely pivotal in my life. I feel so blessed to have known him. I think about him often. I hope you are doing well and you’ll be enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving with your family. — xx