Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Home for Christmas (11/20/08)
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TITLE: Lena's journey | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gillian Dobson
11/21/08 -
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As she bent to her work, worn brown hands tugging and smoothing the fabric ahead of the hot iron, Lena thought about her own journey home for Christmas. She wondered how she would manage with all she needed to take home. Everybody would be expecting a gift of some kind, and then she also needed to take one of those 5 litre tins of paint to smarten the outside walls of the hut, as well as a new iron cap for the apex of the thatched roof, to replace the one that had blown away in the last storm. Last time they spoke, her neighbour Ma Dube said that the water was pouring in through the centre of the roof every time it rained. Sipho and Dumisani, her sons, had tried to fashion a temporary capping from some old rusted iron but cutting the correct shape was made more difficult by the corrugations in the iron sheet and water still managed to find its way under the cap.
Of course, there was also the rooster to consider. Sipho had complained that the hens were laying less and less and Lena thought perhaps it was time to replace the old rooster. She had spotted a fine proud rooster when she went to visit her friend Anna. He had been strutting around the neighbour’s yard, displaying his beautiful shining black and green tail feathers, stretching his neck to the sky and crowing his own magnificence for all to hear. It had not been easy to persuade the neighbour to part with him, but the promise of a big bag of maize seed when she returned from the farm after Christmas, on top of the twenty Rand she offered for the rooster did the trick.
Lena reached for another piece of ironing. A small line of perspiration snaked down the side of her face beneath the doek covering her grey hair. It was oppressively hot. Outside she could hear the high pitched buzzing of the Christmas beetles and the hum of distant traffic.
Through the kitchen window Lena could see Max, the family dog, busy with his favourite occupation – stalking the Hadidas that strutted majestically around the lawn, stopping from time to time to push their long curved beaks down into the soft earth in search of insects. “Kwaaa, kwaaa.” The big grey birds protested loudly as they rose into the air, escaping Max’s snapping teeth once again. He never seemed to catch one, but it didn’t put him off trying.
Lena returned to her contemplations. She would have to put the rooster into a sturdy flat-bottomed cage that could be tied to the top of the minibus taxi. If she wrapped some cloth over and around the cage the bird should be protected from the wind as the vehicle sped along. Then when the taxi reached her stop, she could simply transfer the cage to the top of her head and carry it balanced up there. The cloth would protect the bird from the heat of the African sun, and her hands would be left free to carry her suitcase, the paint tin, the roof cap and the big bag of presents.
Again Lena sighed. Eish, it would be quite a journey. Perhaps she should get a message to Sipho and Dumisani to try and meet her at the taxi rank. The hut was another five kilometer's walk from the taxi rank and by that time her arms and shoulders would be aching from the load, but oh how good it would be to get home for Christmas!
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