"The Hills of Ruarwe #2.

The path levelled out through plots of cassava and withered stalks of maize. We came to a group of huts. Alex disappeared to get water while I cooled off in the shade of a mud-brick wall. When he returned I asked him how much further we were going.
“Just up there, and over,” he said, gesturing the way ahead.  We carried on up a steep incline along the edge of a gully, carved out of the hillside by weeks of heavy rain.  A couple were coming down. The man was young, handsome and lean, followed by a beautiful young woman with a baby on her back. Their expressions were serious and, as they passed gave me cause for thought, as to what the matter might be. I wondered if perhaps they had argued earlier in the day and were now on their way to an event of a serious, and/or unpleasant nature, like a funeral they had to attend together, but weren’t relishing the prospect. Or perhaps their child was ill and they were going to the village for help. It was a hard life with only two feet for transport, where there were no doctors, nor medicines, and no schools to speak of, just hills where people eked out a daily living from the land.