Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree

Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of sexual assault, gore, violence, war, and slavery.

This is a story told through the perspective of one unnamed protagonist, a girl who is referred to only as “Ya Ta” (which means My Daughter) but is based on the stories of many teenage girls who were kidnapped from their boarding school by a Jihadist terrorist group called Boko Haram in Nigeria in 2014. Ya Ta’s story begins with her dreams of a future as an educated woman, the first in her family to hold a university degree. She hopes to be a teacher and to also be a good wife who serves her husband and family. Ya Ta and her family live in the northeastern part of Nigeria, Borno state, and are of the Hausa ethnic group. They speak both Hausa and English and believe in the Christian faith. Ya Ta is the only daughter and has five brothers, four of which are older and one of which is younger. Ya Ta studies hard and is disciplined, wanting to prove that she is worthy of a prestigious scholarship for university and to avoid her teacher’s koboko, a whip he uses to punish students who do not know the answers to questions.