We bump down roads in the mellow afternoon, the fading sun turning the earth a more precious blood-red gold. The blood-red gold has spread to the plants and hedgerows that bow towards the road, the leaves of wild plants turned russet and burnt sienna, as if desperate artists had attacked them with coloured charcoal. The maize is grown and the stalks not yet burned back so the withered and dry vegetation shushes us as we drive. Bird song darts into our car, the rains has brought birds of neon blue, bright yellow and scarlet to the countryside, colours of a child's drawing. The green season has awakened an unexpected love of them in us.

Children, their skin the colour of new chestnuts, still shining from the their spiky cases. They turn idly towards our car then snap alive when they see us for foreigners. The stiff cyclist climbing hills meditatively, the boys fishing in temporary creeks with their homemade rods, women strolling with hands of leafy vegetable bouquets. Congregations of older women in their matching white headscarves and chitenges walking home in a regal file.

 

Because it is Sunday.