CHAPTER 4Okushiyekileyo eQunu
Survival in Qunu
I nod. “Do you have a ball?”
Sipho turns on his heel, runs into the house and comes back a moment later with a real football.
I turn it around in my hands, full of admiration. It’s not new, but it’s well polished and perfectly pumped up. “Great,” I acknowledge. “Is it really yours?”
“My big brother’s,” Sipho answers. I can feel that he is very proud of his brother, and that he misses him very much.
“How old is your brother?”
“He’d be twenty now,” is Sipho’s subdued answer. Why “would be”?
For the first time, Sipho looks at me directly. Just fleetingly. Perhaps he’s not shy after all, just sort of upset, really deep down inside. Also a little sad, but more than anything he seems hurt that his brother has deserted him for some reason – a
