Separation

The author uses repeated images of separation between bodies and individuals in order to explore the ways in which small distinctions threaten to divide people from one another. A half an hour before Chika and the woman find themselves enclosed in the abandoned shop, Chika and her sister Nnedi were shopping together in the Kano marketplace. While Chika "was buying oranges...Nnedi had walked father down to buy groundnuts" (2). The sisters, therefore, were separated amidst the initially innocuous confusion of the market. However, as soon as the riot breaks out, and people begin running around Chika, "pushing against one another," Chika is filled with fear when she realizes her sister is nowhere around (2). The riotous turmoil draws Chika and her sister further apart. She later learns that the woman has also been separated from a loved one: her daughter, Halima. She tells Chika that once the...