Ramadan’s Humor: Yeteh-hono?
By Yero Jallow
Yeteh-hono was fasting. The African sun was too hot and you could see blazing rays drying the leaves. He decided to buy time (make his Ramadan fast go faster) by going to sleep. Nanoseconds turned into seconds, seconds into minutes, and minutes into hours. The mighty yeteh-hono is awake. He rushed to his backyard to observe how far the sun has traveled. It was right over head smiling at him. He reluctantly retreated to the room again and crept under that cold blanket. He was consumed in time consciousness entirely. He was up again sooner than you will imagine gazing the distant sun. To his surprise, the sun was overhead still. He again agreed and went back to the room. He came out couple of times after that to look at the sun's position. The truth is not much as he didn't allow enough time to elapse. Mighty yeteh-hono has gone nuts this time around. He came out with his traditional gun locally called "Kartuse" on his fifth outing and aimed to shoot the sun. In a crazy tone, he said "I am not saying that you will get my fast over with, but I want you to leave my backyard as you are right overhead in position,” and he repeated this loud and even louder.
In another occasion, yeteh-hono was late to get up for his mourning meal (shuhur) as by the time he woke up, the sun was already out. Well, he was out of luck. His mind jumped around for a bit and he came up with an idea that darkness could be created in the room by getting the curtains (blinds) down. He would do just that to create darkness to enable him eat his “shuhur” meal and then he started fasting from there.
I now want to ask you readers: Yeteh-hono? You probably already know the answer and I am just saying it is….(Fill in the dotted line).
*Yeteh-hono is a Fulani word meaning, “whose surname”. Its context is for humor only as traditions holds; there are joking relationships (sanaku) among certain groups, tribes, people, cultures, and even races.
I wish you all a successful Ramadan!