THE DARK CHILD

"At the end of the third year I took the examinations for a certificate of proficiency. We were told that a minimum of sixty percent was required to pass the tests in technical and classical subjects and that the Conakry engineers were to be our examiners. Then the school designated the fourteen most likely candidates. Fortunately my name was among them. "I was determined to pass. I had worked hard for three years. I had never forgotten my promise to my father, nor the one I made to myself. I had always been among the three highest students and hoped to maintain my rating. But I wrote my mother to see the marabouts and get their help. Was I superstitious at the time? I do not think so. I simply believed that nothing could be obtained without God 's help, and that, even if His will were predetermined, our actions, though these too were predetermined, influenced it. And I felt that the marabouts were my natural intermediaries .... "Finally the exam came. It lasted three days. Three days of agony. But the marabouts must have given me all the help they could. Of the seven candidates who passed I was first." P.166-167, THE DARK CHILD by Camara Laye (1954)