That night he had a dream that he was going to be more famous than the king and that he was going to become a very powerful and influential man when he would get older. He saw himself owning businesses and travelling all over the world to trade and making lots of money, but as yet, he didn’t know how. It was just but a dream.
He saw himself getting married to Leona and having a family of his own. He saw Baka and Mara being very successful, Baka as a veterinary surgeon and Mara as a lawyer.
He smiled in his sleep and felt so contented that he fell into a deep sleep, with a smile still painted on his face. In Mara’s room, she slept and held her doll so tight even as she was fast asleep. Each time she turned; the doll would still be held tight in her arms for comfort. Somehow her sleeping had greatly improved overnight, since coming to Goza.
Baka of late had a tendency to mumble in his sleep about his conversations with Tyza during the day. At times, he would recite the events as though he was talking to his friend there and then.
Tamura was aware of his sleep talking and left him to it as these were very short episodes, which were not necessary for him to wake the boy up for, despite himself getting woken up when Baka was particularly loud or when he fell into a deep sleep and started snoring.
Chapter 9
The Eve of the Summer Festival
The place was agog with the hustle and bustle of all the families in the compound rushing around with great excitement in preparation for the big day tomorrow. Even the domestic animals seemed rather excitable, as though they were expected to carry out their role in preparing for the event.
It seemed as if some of them knew they would be facing an untimely death where they would join the herbs, onions and vegetables in the big three-legged pots prepared for the great feast. In a way, they seemed to show moral support to the people, as compensation to be spared the big chop tomorrow. Or so they thought.
Decorations of many colours seemed to appear from nowhere tied around tree trunks and on branches, blowing away in the wind ceremoniously. The men were busy building a massive shelter with wood, leafy branches and long grass, tied securely with tree buck to each post.
On the platform are seated there two huge chairs, almost throne-like for the royal couple to seat in the centre of the platform and two more smaller ones, on either side of the huge chairs. The chairs were still bare waiting for the women to come and dress them up intrinsically fit for the king and his queen. The women took great care and pride in doing this work.
Especially Mama Kama, who was the second in command in terms of female rank to the queen. A position she took for herself without being chosen.
She had airs and graces all about her, as she took on the position of being the prettiest and the brainiest of them all, and she loved to flaunt her expertise in everything, and the rest of the women had no choice but to stand in awe of her beauty and wisdom at all times.
Some of the women retired to cooking a feast of meats of all kinds with leafy and root vegetables, while others to fetching water and making a home brew. They had had several meetings in the past few weeks where duties were allocated and re-allocated over and over before finally agreeing on a consensus as time was running out. Most of the meetings ended up with heated arguments and people storming off in anger when they felt they were not given a good enough task or felt their opinions were being ignored.
Some men were assigned to slaughtering two big bulls for meat and five goats. They seemed to be working like machines as killing the beasts and skinning as well as dissecting the meat into portions seemed like child’s play, from years of experience.
Then a small squabble ensued where agreeing on who would take the animal skins after the slaughter seemed impossible. As usual, the most dominant male wins. He took the best bull skin and gave one to one man of his choice and the rest scrambled over the goats’ skins, which they really didn’t want. The bull skin could be used as a rug to sleep on or used as leather material for shoes and bags.
In this case, homemade slippers were top of the list for the leading man, Tamu, and he almost immediately started reminiscing about how much money he could have made if he made the shoes to sell at the market after the fete. Unfortunately, the skins were too fresh to use for making shoes or anything else for that matter.
The other man, Chega, who had taken the second largest skin, said he would use his as a rug for his children to sleep on as winter was soon approaching. The ones who got goatskins didn’t say one word, although their dismay was written on their faces.
They could not argue as that would cause the domineering leading man to treat them with indignation and malice for as long as he wished. From experience, they knew that Tamu could really make their lives a misery if they crossed him as he had so much influence among the male ranks. King Gama secretly despised him, but thought he was good at keeping the younger males under control.
Chega was Tamu’s lapdog and got what he wanted so long as he worshipped Tamu. The rest of the men were wary of his two-faced behaviour and could not say anything behind Tamu’s back in his presence as he would run back to Tamu to tell him.
The men cleaned up the
