Description
Thandiwe, whose name means Beloved, was born in the season when the grasses stood tall, and the elders say the herds came near the village that year without being called. He is a child of few words, for he is occupied with listening. Tilt your head as he tilts his and you will hear the wind. He hears the wind’s errand.
The birds bring him news of rivers he has never seen. The elephant, who forgets nothing, tells him what the land was before the village stood upon it. The smallest creature in the grass has a name it answers to, and a fear, and a hope, and Thandiwe knows them all. So when they placed a spear in his hand and showed him the way of the hunt, he set it down. Say not that the child is soft and cannot bear the killing. Say rather that he has been told where the water lies, and which way the herd has turned, and what walks the treeline at dusk, and he alone among them knows that the spear was never the only road.
They call him stubborn. The rock in the river is also called stubborn, and by the water. He does not argue, for he has learned patience from the seed, which never persuades the earth. He tends the young animals and he waits. And in the season when the rains hold back and the herds fall silent, they will come to the child who has been listening. He will not remind them what they called him. He will only tell them where the water is.
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