MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer
Abdoulaye Traore, at right above, cousin of Mamadou Makadji, top, grieves during the funeral in Elmwood Park, where Makadji was killed Monday.
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Annette John-Hall: Malians gather to grieve
It felt numbingly empty and quiet in Elmwood Park the other day. Not from the heat. From grief.
Its only visitors were about 30 African men, some in their native dress, who sat in folding chairs in the shade of the giant elms on the Buist Avenue side of the Southwest Philly park, speaking in French quietly among themselves.
You'd think they were having a picnic if not for the occasional neighbors who stopped to give $5 or $10, which the men dutifully noted in a red ledger book.
This was not a celebration, but a vigil, one they've held day and night since 22-year-old Mamadou Makadji - a recent immigrant from Mali and one of their own - was slain early Monday morning.
"This is what we do under any circumstance," says Moussa Traore, 54, past president of the city's Malian Association, which represents the interests of the estimated 2,000 Malians in the city. "Whenever something happens, people send in their financial contributions so we can send the body back home." Visitors came from as far as New York and Washington.
"I still cannot believe he's dead," said Mohamed Sissoko, 19, a friend of Makadji's. "He wanted to go back home after he earned his bachelor of arts degree in 2015. He always said he wanted to go back."
But God forbid it would happen this way.
A hot night
It was hot last weekend, so Makadji and his pals sought relief from the stifling heat of their apartment, which is how they wound up across the street on a bench at Elmwood Park.
They had gone there to chill, literally.
Makadji was a student at Temple, studying English as a second language. When the thug demanded that he empty his pockets, Makadji, whose native language is French, didn't immediately understand.
That hesitation cost him his life.
"I'm just glad we hosed down the spot so his family didn't have to see all the blood," said neighbor Cathy Brady, who woke up when she heard the gunshots and dialed 911. "I feel sad for the kid. He was a good kid minding his own business."
Brady, 53, one of a minority of white residents who have stayed in their lifelong neighborhood in the Southwest, has no intention of leaving.
"I'm not going to let a stray hoodlum run me out of my neighborhood," the union organizer says. "I've got a neighbor from Sierra Leone and one from Liberia. I have another one from Korea and a white neighbor. It's a very diverse community, and it's usually safe around the park."
Until thugs with guns come around.
The city's real-life mad men.
There's an African proverb: "Some hardships teach."
If that's true, then the African immigrant community has learned through the most sorrowful circumstances over the last year.
The rash of tragedies began last July, when shopkeepers Amissi Ndukumassabo and his wife, Bintou Soumare, both West African immigrants, were gunned down during a robbery attempt in their neighborhood store in Feltonville.
Then there's the heartache of the fire in Southwest Philadelphia the day after Christmas last year in which seven Liberian immigrants, including four children, perished.
And on Tuesday night, another Liberian immigrant, 9-year-old Madousou Konneh, was swept away and drowned in the deep waters of the Schuylkill after being pushed into the river. Her body was recovered yesterday, much to the comfort of her devastated family.
It's easy to understand why African immigrants come to this country. They flee the poverty, war, and disease that plague their countries to seek a better life here.
And they take advantage of every opportunity, rebuilding their lives and communities here and sending money to support family back home.
Along a 10-block stretch of Woodland Avenue are African-owned shops, eateries, cell-phone stores, and braiding salons.
"If we were able to make half the money we make here back home, we would never leave," Traore says.
Makadji was the first in his family to graduate from high school in Mali. For him to have made it to the United States was an unimaginable accomplishment.
But unimaginable violence also awaited him. In reality, it occurs all too often on our streets. There have been 189 homicides already this year; though that's down 8 percent from last year, it's hardly anything to celebrate.
Across the way, the majestic elm where Makadji went for shade was struck by lightning during a recent thunderstorm. An enormous branch lies next to the park bench, as though in solidarity with the fallen.
"We figure that's him telling us he's all right, I guess," says Brady.
Contact columnist Annette John-Hall at 215-854-4986 or ajohnhall@phillynews.com. Read her work: http://go.philly.com/annette
