Mzala has made all the arrangements he wants to make for the second funeral of his mother, my auntie. Whereas our family, all my cousins, should have come together and lived in one place all the days of this week, in a house where the occasion is going to take place, and a body would have been seen at the place where it is kept, and arrangements would have been put together in the presence of elders of the family, including my grandmother who is on a bed in the Room-of-my-Birth and Oom Tami who is locked in his unfinished house, and people of the church and members of the community would have come to say prayers and offer their condolences and would have been notified about the funeral arrangements, this is a different occasion. All action seems to be within and around Mzala. He is the bereaved. He is the mourner. He is the organiser and the spokesperson all in one.

He comes to fetch me and I am shocked that none of his siblings and virtually no one else is there. The house is just like any other house, a strange thing when it is on the eve of a funeral. “What has happened to us?” I ask myself.

I walk in and am met by his jovial wife. She leads me to their lounge. She asks if I would take coffee or tea and before I can choose, Mzala suggests whisky. I sit there caught in between the two offers, but of course, this is Mzala's house and everything goes his way in his house. At this time his wife disappears into the passage.

In comes the helper, not in the apron, overall and head cloth of my grandmother's generation this time, but in a tight-fitting skirt that has a price tag hanging on the side with a matching tight-fitting top with opened buttons at the chest area, revealing her adolescence. She must have been interrupted while fitting some new clothes, I think. She is carrying a tray with two glasses, a bottle of mineral water and Irish whiskey.

The domestic girl is in a good mood. Her eyes are full of African respect and acknowledgement. Her forehead is hidden in the falling Indian hair that covers her head and, still, her entire face retains its honesty and sincerity.