Mara retorted, “No, I am here to see you instead, have you got a minute I have something very important to say to you?” Seeing the seriousness in Mara’s voice, Beko did not dare to protest or ask any question why she was so desperate to talk to her and just nodded while beckoning her to come into the house to talk.
Mara sat herself down and went straight down to business. “You know when we went to Huru, we went to see the Hagas and visited Mama and Papa’s grave and saw Mabige who is Papa Haga’s younger brother. He is very handsome and I think you should marry him because he does not have a wife and you do not have a husband. Don’t you think it is a good idea if you could marry him?”
Beko was startled and was dumbstruck at the directness of Mara and she paused for a moment to connect what she had just heard with what her mother had said the previous night. She recollected her thoughts and replied, “Well, it’s not that simple to say that I would marry someone that I have never met or even know, but I can’t rule anything out until I meet this man. You seem to have a lot of faith in him and yet you have only seen him for a couple of days that you went up there.” Beko said it inquisitively.
Mara responded, "Well, that was not difficult to work out because he is very good looking and he is hard working and takes care of our yard real good, including the grave and he seems to like children, I got on real well with him. Tamura will tell you more about him, he is a real funny character and he was laughing all the time when he was talking to Tamura.
“Ask Tamura and see if I am lying, he is coming here soon as well, then you will see for yourself.” She got up and said, “I have got to go now else I will be late for school, but think about it, okay? I think you two will look great together like Leona and Tamura.” She gasped and ran off giggling.
Beko mesmerised at how mature Mara sounded as if she was hearing her mother giving her instructions, she just nodded while lost in thought again. As she watched Mara run off into the distance to catch up with her friends who had already started the journey to school, Beko’s heart missed a beat at the thought of Mabige coming to Goza soon to see her. She rose up to share the news with her mother who was still lying down on her bed. Elder Mondo, her father, had already left early morning to go fishing and game hunting as was his custom.
If the father was there, she would not have mentioned a word in his presence about Mabige as he was against marriage to people from other villages and of different cultures to their own, but Beko had always stood her ground that she would marry whoever she fancied regardless of where he was from.
The king and his troupe approached Towa in the late hours of the morning towards midday and were greeted by young boys and a brood of dogs which were barking at the intruders, especially at the donkeys. The boys looked amused and wary at the same time. The king and his men stopped in their tracks, to enquire of where they could find the village head.
One of the older boys told them to follow him with a gesture of the hand as if he was afraid to open his mouth. They followed him towards the expanse of the compound and found a few elder men sitting in a round circle on some wooden and clay stools. The men recognised the king immediately from the summer festival and rose up to meet and greet him and his men.
The men exchanged pleasantries and sat down to cool drink from a clay pot, while the younger men took Chega and Makada to show them where they would sleep and to offload their luggage from the donkeys, which were neighing in protest of the heavy load and fatigue. Before Chega and Makada returned to sit down for a drink, they had gone to tie the donkeys and given them water to drink under a tree for shelter from the midday heat.
As soon as the Towa women heard the commotion outside that they had visitors and the king was among them, they hurried to cook a feast to welcome their guests with. The men spoke heartily and reminisced on the summer festival with loud crescendos of bellowing laughter. They all spoke as if they were continuing from where they left off the last time they met. There was no awkwardness between them.
The king exchanged gifts with his host and gave another gift to the head man to give to his wife as a gift from the queen. It was a handmade embroidered silk scarf. Later when the women brought the food out for their visitors to eat, the king realised how beautiful the Towa women were, as these had always been kept hidden from the outside world.
When they saw the men, they felt very shy and timid and out of place, but the younger girls started flirting profusely with the younger Goza men. This was noticed by the headman and he gestured for them to disappear. The headman called his wife to come and she knelt beside him to receive the gift from the queen. She accepted it with a quiet smile and thanked the king for bringing it. She hurried
