SEVEN: Damasi’s Party
The distance to Damasi’s kraal was quite far, but it did not seem so to Nomusa or to her brothers and sisters as they walked toward it, single file. Far off, they saw a thin line of children coming in their direction. They, too, were on their way to the party. Nomusa wondered how many children would be at Damasi’s party. Maybe a hundred.
Kangata was terribly excited about going to a party in a neighboring kraal. It was his first one.
“We are near now, Nomusa, are we not?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. She began to laugh as she looked at her small brother’s face, for it was marked and painted in such a curious and grotesque manner that his nose looked as if it had been divided in two.
Kangata looked offended and put his grubby hand up to his face to discover the cause of Nomusa’s mirth. Nomusa quickly reassured him. “You have certainly made a design like that of no other. Perhaps you will win a prize.”
When the children neared the thorn fence surrounding Damasi’s kraal, Zabala walked forward quickly to lead the line of twenty brothers and sisters, all children of Nomusa’s father. Zabala, whose mother was called Great Wife because she was Zitu’s first wife, would be chief of Nomusa’s kraal some day, because he was Zitu’s eldest son.
Standing just within the entrance of the kraal to greet the guests as they entered were Damasi’s father and uncle and their wives. They pointed out the huts that had been reserved for the party.
Nomusa found Kangata close at her side, his eyes wide with curiosity, trying to see everything in the strange kraal at once. Delicious smells of food cooking filled the air and made Kangata’s mouth water.