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 Author: Dorian Haarhoff
On the day before Christmas Seth sets off alone in his donkey-cart across the Namib desert to take a gift to his mother. He is guided by a beautiful oryx and the evening star, until he reaches his father's shack in the village and finds a joyous Christmas welcome.
Seth lived in the Kuiseb Canyon in Namibia not far from the sea, in a small house with his mother and his grandfather. His father was mostly working inland on a copper mine. Fresh water flowed where this small commuitity had its home and where the zebra came to drink. Sometimes the fog blew in, with its clammy breath. Sometimes the sun sucked the water ponds like a hungry baby at the breast. Then Seth had to dig holes and draw water up in tins. Grandfather Nampa helped him cam the tins on a long stick. They made up songs as they walked, for Seth loved to sing. Seth had been in the Canyon for as long as he could rememher. He went to school in a house made of stone. His grandfather had been one of the builders. His long hands with lizard fingers had flicked away in the hot sun. One day, early in December, Seth's mother called him to her. "I am going to the village at the mine", she told him. "Will you be away a long time?" the boy asked. "1 shall stay there until our baby is born," she answered. "Grandfather Nampa will look after you." - "Can't you have the baby here?" - "No, Seth. There is a midwife at the village and I want to be near your father." Then she left. Seth missed her especially vvhen the sun set. [...]
The earth tilted so soft half-darkness as Seth travelled. Away from the sea he was going, in the direction of the rising sun. The cart rolled along in the twilight of a December night. Above him, the Namib stars were dimmed by a white moon. Seth's journey would take a whole night and a whole day, across ground he'd never seen before. But as he went along he too began to feel that he would find the place. "My young bones tell me that!" [...] |