The house Sthe and his six-year-old daughter Sbonga have been hobbling up Shayamoya Hill to reach is now in full view. Sthe puts Sbonga down. He had scooped her up a few metres up the hill, after she had almost slipped off one of the rocks standing in a puddle of mud.

“We’ve arrived, Princess,” he announces. He has to announce arrival at their destination or putting Sbonga back down becomes a Mission Impossible. Sbonga murmurs something. Sthe looks at her, baffled.

“Saloon!” she blurts out, finally. “That’s the place where hair gets done, isn’t it, Daddy?”

“Good girl!” Sthe shouts out in response. He high-fives her as a reward for spelling out a word without urging. He’s been looking at the word on the board. He doesn’t point out to his little princess that ‘Saloon’ as it’s written, as part of ‘Zandi’s Saloon’, is actually wrong. It should be ‘Salon’. It is painted on the board in bold white letters.

“I hope this Zandi plaits better than she spells,” he murmurs.

The house with the board looks worse than it did from afar. Its flat corrugated-iron roof has stones and bricks, car tyres and an old tricycle on top – all holding it in place, Sthe assumes. Most of the houses on the hill are built with mud. The ones that are built with brick or cement blocks are few and sporadic. They are like islands, hidden within a sea of houses like Zandi’s. The place seems a world apart, rather than just two blocks away from his Edendale Gardens residence. He has memories of Shayamoya having just a few houses. The hill is now almost invisible thanks to the houses covering it. When did it get this populated? he wonders. He makes a mental note to explore his neighbourhood a little more.

Sthe thinks about what his regular hair stylist Bongi said when she handed him over.

“I won’t be available to help you. But I’ll leave you in good hands.”

She had told him about Zandi and gone on to give him directions. “You won’t miss Zandi’s,” she said. “The house has a big board with the name of the business written on it.”

Sthe wonders how the snobbish Bongi forgot to mention that the word ‘Salon’ is actually misspelt.

Something else Bongi said comes to his mind: “And if the board is no longer there, for some reason; you’ll still see the house. It’s different; hard to miss.” She wouldn’t explain what she meant by that.

Sthe watches the house from outside the gate, which is made with strands of wire tied around thin branches of trees. Coming up the hill, he saw the house from the side. He hasn’t recovered from seeing a gaping hole in what he thought was the kitchen. Falling apart must be what makes the house ‘different’, he thinks.

A lady emerges from the house. She’s about up to his shoulders tall. She has on a black tunic and slip-ons. The tunic looks to have been black in its heyday. It is now a hazy shade of black. It looks brownish in places too, like grains of soil have been sprinkled on it. She has a child strapped to her back. Either the towel the child is strapped with is not knotted tightly enough or the child is heavy, Sthe observes. The child is sitting low, practically on the lady’s round buttocks. Sthe watches the child, sagging at the back of his or her carrier. He is convinced he’s found the person responsible for the shoddy writing on the board. He is reminded of his neighbour Mpilo. Earlier that morning he shook his head, seeing her. Her baby hanging for dear life off her one arm. The other hand clasping a quart of Black Label beer. She took periodic swigs of it, right there in the street.

Sthe puts the lady’s height at between 1.5 and 1.6m. She’s aged between 21 and 25, he estimates. Same height and age, give and take, as Mpilo. The baby cries, at which the lady rocks her, saying, “Thula Nana. Thula mfan’ omuhle ka ma.”

“Be quiet, beautiful boy of mommy’s.” Sthe digests the lady’s words. She does have a child. But she seems to have only one. Maybe she’s nothing like Mpilo who has two kids that were born a wink apart.

Something else Bongi said springs to Sthe’s mind: “You are going to love Zandi, you’ll see.” She winked, saying this. The hint of romance in Bongi’s wink had him cracking up with disbelief.

“You are going to love Zandi,” he murmurs Bongi’s words back. He rolls his eyes at the thought.

Tell us: How would you describe the kind of man Sthe is, based on his thoughts in his chapter?