The path dipped in front of a large house. It was the kind of house, with a long deep porch for sitting out under, that in style was more European than African; and was essentially for those who could afford an iron sheet roof and plastering of interior and exterior walls. But an air of dishevelment and neglect hung over this house, like a murky veil of decay, cultivated by exposed patches of mud-brick, where the plaster had fallen away, and mildewed white-wash, eaten pale by the sun, through which the ochre-grey cement grinned, grimly. The house was set away from others, on higher ground with its back to the hillside, which rose steeply up behind it, sown with plots of cassava and maize between jagged rocky outcrops.
A family was having their midday meal on the porch, and there again was Alex. He crouched down and offered me his hand in greeting. It was a clammy hand; a damp dew coated its palm. The fingers were long and slender that gripped mine, with a quick, wiry strength and pulled me up on to the porch. There I was offered a place to sit, along with his family on the hard cement, since there were no chairs. A handsome, fit looking woman in her forties, whom I later discovered was Alex’s aunt, passed me a plate of nsima, boiled pumpkin leaves and usipa; and a bowl of water to wash my hands in preparation for eating with my fingers, as was the custom. Alex’s younger sister could not have been much more than a couple of years his junior, and his young brother was still just a child. Alex’s elderly grandmother, who he later explained had been left lame after a stroke, sat to one side, propped up against the wall of the house.
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