The Other Side

Zandile's P.O.V

By the time I had returned from the river about half an hour later, everybody was already up and about. Men were loading their ox driven carts with produce for the market, women were sweeping their courtyards and children were chasing each other around. I wouldn't say that the village was dull it was just never this lively. The usual grey cement walls of the huts had been scrubbed and some women had gone to the lengths of painting their walls with clay in various yellow, red and brown patterns. Today was the festival of rain. It was the end of October, the longest and driest month of them all. November usually brought much anticipated rainfall. Some men had gone to the extremes of renewing the thatch on their roofs. The knee height walls that separated the house fronn the street were being painted bright and colourful patterns. The dust from inside the courtyard (The space between the house and the wall) was being swept into the street by heavily (or more preferably traditional) built women. 

The village was being cleaned because if the village was not clean enough, the gods would not send rain. They would not give blessings to those who had unclean houses. There would be a festival of the moon, to pray for rain at the beginning of November, and then a festival of the rains, when the first rains arrived. The festival of the moon was always performed on a full moon night and was to ask the god of the moon to plead with her husband, the god of rain to send the rain. The festival of the rain was to thank him for sending us rain. People were out with shovels and buckets, for digging up the red clay which people would use as face paint. It would be a tough job because the last rains were six months ago, in March, so the ground was hard and cracked from being in the sun all day long. If they carried bottles of water along with them and poured it on the ground it would have been easier, but as usual nobody would listen to my suggestions. 

*Thablie's P.O.V*

I'm pretty sure that everybody knows how superstitious the Chinese supposedly are. Well multiply that by a hundred and you get the superstition level of Africans. It's amazing how stubborn they are. They won't listen to anything you say for fear of upsetting the "gods". I mean there only was one God right? Or was it three? I keep getting confused, is the Holy Spirit God? Oh well, time to focus on my first day outfit. Well, we had a uniform, but I always remixed it, I mean why can't the school approve of my fashionable changes? Anyway, my normal uniform was a white sleeveless shirt, black tie, black sleeveless waistcoat, green and black plaid skirt, knee high white socks and black shoes. Today I decided that for once, I would save my dad the trouble and wear my uniform normally for the first time since I started high school. I combed my hair back into its short black bob and fringe and put a thick black aliceband with a big bow through my hair. I looked in the mirror. I had cocoa powdered skin that shone like silver. My hair was chin length and was cut longer towards the front, Victoria Beckham style. I had cut my fringe so that it hung just on my eyebrows on the left side of my face. I was, above average height. Well WAY above average height. I was 1.85metres tall (6 foot high). Apparently my dad was considered a giant while my mother was a midget.

Well, I didn't mind being abnormally tall, the only down side was that I would probably never find a boyfriend taller than me.. Sigh, well life goes on right? On the bright side, I was the star player of every sport, but the only one that I could say that I truly loved was tennis. Tennis had always been my first love, ever since the day I held my first racket, a Babolat Pure Storm, heavy as a rock (well for me anyway) and hard to swing. It had challenged me to learn. (I was also humiliated at losing to my best friend because I couldn't hit a single ball, and I had sworn revenge). I wouldn't lose in ANYTHING. So, I had forced my dad to let me go for lessons, and after about a year of training, I beat her. Of course by then, tennis had become second nature. I had continued going for lessons, and of course, I couldn't settle for just being number one at school, I had to get to number one in the country.  So I worked harder and harder and here I was, nine years of training later, number one in the country of Zimbabwe. I planned on holding that spot for a while, a very long while. 

I started down the stairs, and halfway down I detected the smell of burnt food. I raced down the other half and ran into the kitchen. The room was full of smoke, and Molly was hopelessly swatting at the pan with a dishcloth which had just caught fire too. I sighed audibly before sauntering across the expansive kitchen, lifting the fire extinguisher and spraying the stove with the white foam. 

'You're welcome,' I said sarcastically and grabbed an apple and a bottle of water before getting into my vintage VW lime green buggy and driving to school.