And so begins an isiXhosa story...
...such a very long time ago, in a place not very far from you, there lived a boy and girl. The boy, a farmer, planted all sorts of delightful plants - butternut, peas, mealies, tomatoes - and picked them when they were fat on the vines and stalks. The girl, who wasn't a farmer would none-the-less help the boy everyday in his plantings and pickings.
A few days after the start of this story the boy pulled the girl aside at the end of a particularly normal day and whispered a secret to her.
"I don't really want to be a farmer", he told her quickly, " I want to be a traveller."
The girl was excited and whispered back, "Well, let's go and be travellers, I will go with you and we can see everything and anything that we can only imagine now... Let's leave tomorrow!"
She made up her mind for both of them and that night they slept deeply.
Before the air could begin to warm the next morning, the boy and girl had vanished. I am unsure about how eary they left, suffice to say it was too dark for me to see anything. But by the time it became light enough to see they had left their homes far, far behind. Each carried a bag with a little bit of food, all their savings and a warm jersey. And at the heels of the boy a puppy trotted, almost too close but never quite bumping he's nose on the foot of the walking boy. The air warmed to its usual salty smells.
By the time they wanted to eat lunch they had left the tree filled place that used to be their homes, and they could only spy grass and trees for as far as their eyes could see. At the very next tree that they passed (which was not very soon as there were few trees) they sat and ate lunch. The puppy (whom we will call Pup for this story) was far, far too excited to stay still and after swallowing he's food in three and a half mouthfuls he commenced chasing his tail repeatetiously (Oh dear... please excuse absence of correct spelling in the case of absence of dictionary).
And not so very long after they had sat down to eat but a very, very old man sat down next to them, with a lazy eye and an oh-so-sad smile on his face. His skin, so very leathery, was covered on blue ink tattoos and his body was wrapped in clothes too big for him.
He sighed deeply when both the children looked at him and only then did he say anything and even that was filled with such sadness. He said he was tasked to help them but that he didn't actually know how much help he could actually give them. He said he had a bottle of sweet tea to give them, a magical tea that they could only use when they really, really needed it, otherwise it would not work as it was meant to. He sighed again, very deeply, at the end of his story.
...to be continued...
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