Jan 06 2009
Fending for her Children
Fending for her Children
In a tattered sleeveless dress, exposing her thin wrinkled arms, the widow bends to sweep the yard, coughing intermittently. Her sleeping children snore, turn sideways, sneeze once, twice, as their tender nostrils react to the smoky windowless hut. It is a new day, and as dawn breaks, Moira the poor widow shouts in her strained thin voice, “Marita, Marita, Marita, wake up, the water has boiled”. “Oh, Marita, my child!” In her daughter she sees hope. While the two girls head to the village school, Moira, with a torn sack over her shoulder, heads to the forest to collect wild fruits. Inwardly she hears her voice, “I will toil to the last drop of my sweat, fending for my children.”
