Chapters One and Two Summary

Tambu's brother complains about the trip to and from missionary school, but she loves the walk. Children were seldom restricted and were allowed to swim in the pools. Men have a specific place for bathing and women bathe in a place ideal for washing clothes. Tambu doesn't want to become a woman who'll have to do laundry rather than play in the "interesting" pools. When the area around the swimming holes gets an increase in traffic, the bathing spots are forced further upriver, but Tambu sometimes does swim in the deeper holes.

Tambu's brother, Nhamo, excels at school. By 1968, everyone except Tambu's father begins to worry about Nhamo, who has refused to return home during the brief breaks, staying to study. On the November day Nhamo was expected home, Tambu arrives from her work in the fields...