excerpt from “maru” by bessie head

She walked to the door.  Below her the village of Dilepe spread out and swept towards the horizon.  It was a network of pathways and dusty roads weaving in and out between a tortured lay-out of mud huts, as though people whimsically said: ‘we want to live here’, and made all the little pathways and roads follow their whims.  A thousands wisps of blue smoke arose silently into the air as a thousand women prepared the evening meal beside their outdoor fires.  That peace, and those darkening evening shadows were to be the rhythm of her life throughout that year, and Dilepe village was to seem the most beautiful village on earth.

She was really no longer lonely.