The harvest didn’t come last year, the grass was parched, and the cows were skinny, flies milled over them as if they were leeches. They herded the cows to all known veldts but the grass just didn’t seem to grow there either, even now when you listened carefully you could almost hear the ground cracking because of the dryness.
They had done what they had been told at the shrine by the svikiro but it seems the gods were upset. Had they not slaughtered cows and goats, brewed the special brew and danced around all night. They were sure they had seen the new moon come yet the rains did not fall.
The chickens were tired too they no longer crowed as much in the morning and they did not even look attractive to eat as a special meal with nearly three quarters of their feathers fallen off. Actually they were quite a comic sight, almost like crazy little chickens that just ran out of the coop after winning a battle with the ticks.
Yesterday though something happened, that crazy man who calls himself a Son of the anointed came to the village and told us not to visit the shrine anymore and he brought this book he called The word. What madness was this man talking about, could he not see that we were dying, hunger was gnawing at us slowly and that language he speaks, those tongues, who ever heard of that. Maybe he learnt them from that white man he speaks to. Hehehehe what a sight he becomes pacing up and down waving that word, mad man for sure.
But things are so bad so we will try out the word and this mad man just for the humor at least for a few minutes we will forget the hunger. So we danced to halleluiahs, swayed from here to there and spoke to ourselves, then the rains poured down like never before…….
