After the sunset
“Wake up Tendai ,wake up the bus is coming!” Tendai rolled over and fell with a thud from the wooden, single bed he was sleeping on. MaTendai raced about the house, stopping by Tendai’s heavily packed bag and picking it up before rushing into the kitchen to pack four, red, well-cooked sweet potatoes and filling an empty cascade bottle with rich, mature mahewu. This was going to be the boy’s last term in school; it was his sixth year. As Tendai and his mother briskly walked past the cattle pen, he noticed that it was left with only two thin brown cattle; the rest had been sold by his parents to pay for his school fees. The previous evening they had gathered in their small, round, grass-thatched kitchen to have supper. They had encircled the reddish, yellow flames that glowed from the fire. As usual, they had eaten from two plates, one with a huge, mound of thick sadza and the other with smoked bream plus overcooked pumpkin leaf. After the meal, they told stories and laughed, MaTendai...