Incensed and numb, she sold her body in exchange for food rations for her family’s survival. Gradually, the emotional abscess, dulled and flattened emotions.
She walked down the footpath that meandered to the once bubbling springs of water, now shallow and muddy, way beyond the hills. Drops of dew formed on the dry grass along the footpath. She gracefully strode on, bare feet. The skin on her feet hard and cracked from the loyalty of transporting her to places, kicked the dry wet grass, leaving a cooling and moistening sensation from the dew. The moisture gently caressed and removed the dust from the feet as they carried her emaciated frame through the hills and valleys of the north western countryside of Zimbabwe.
The sky was a blue carpet decorated with different shapes of white clouds floating aimlessly. At the far end of the horizon, a tinge of orange rays, punctuated by the yellow and violet reflections of the African sun, was the trailblazer to the end of the day. She took in with pain the fields as far as her eye could see. Thick forests and stretches of rich green fields in her memory, replaced by dry brown patchy land stripped bare of its vegetation stirred yet deeper heart ache. Skinny cattle, dragged hoofs desperately in search for fodder from the gold wilted grass.