There were the remains of a fire. They must have caught some birds and roasted them. And perhaps they had taken some yams from their mothers’ vegetable gardens. What a good time they must have had, thought Nomusa.
She could see large worn-out banana leaves on a small clay slope. These the boys had used as sleds for coasting. What fun it was, and how easy to find another banana-leaf sled when the old one was worn out!
Under a tree lay a large ball of leaves, twigs, and moss. Nomusa knew what that had been used for. Her brothers, lined up on two sides, had hurled pointed sticks at the ball as it rolled swiftly downhill.
Small wonder that Zulu boys grew up to be such great hunters with their spears and bows and arrows. Even little Themba had a toy bow and arrow with which he played at hunting. But he used the chickens and dogs around the kraal as targets, much to the annoyance of his father’s wives.
Nomusa came upon some long sticks standing against the trunk of a tree. She had often seen the boys play this game in their kraal in the evening. Standing opposite his opponent, each boy would try to strike the other’s body, holding the stick in the middle so that a large piece extended on each side of him. The boys used all their speed and agility to try to ward off the blows from their opponents’ sticks. A player had to be skillful indeed or he would soon be covered with bruises.
As Nomusa had expected, the cow was nowhere to be seen about the pasture. She began whistling loudly and calling the cow with all her might.
“Nyawuza! Nyawuza!”
From a long way off came faintly the echo: “Nyawuza! Nyawuza!”
Nomusa decided she must go into the woods. Where else could the cow have gone? Picking up a pointed stick, Nomusa walked into the shadowy woods.