Sheela Langeberg

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Ndelawasi is looking forward to going to finish her unyago (sex education) course with Shangazi Siko. Her young sister Kadogo is envious of her and can't wait to 'grow up'. At the beginning of the story we see the two sisters reminiscing about their school's soccer team - and the boys they liked. As Ndelawasi teases Kadogo over her newly acquired knowledge about sex from her auntie Siko, Kadogo is envious. Breaking with tradition Ndelawasi starts to teach Kadogo what she has learnt from her Auntie.

Waking from a nightmare Ndelawasi is confronted with the problem of the parting of the two sisters. Ndelawasi has to go to a boarding school while Kadogo has to go live with her Auntie who will teach her to behave. She has been over zealous with sexual matters and as things go in their village, sex is better discussed with an auntie than with one's mother.

As time passes the girls change. They acquire different characters but their love is undiminished. The society changes in the meantime and that simple life of the village is tainted with urbinisation and globalisation. There are too many problems for these two girls to solve by themselves. They need the society but the society too has its own problems.

At the family home a fight has ensued. The father is angry at learning that Kadogo is pregnant. He becomes a monster, hitting mother and daughter, Kadogo is almost killed. In the meantime Kadogo looses her child and the anger of the dead spirits erupts. The village comes to the aid of the family to counsel them and arbitrate. It is here where the living and the dead work on concert. Through ritual the peace of the family is desired. But there are always the hard-headed ones. The father does not accept the truce brokered by the elders and the ancestors. Change is not easily accepted.

Ndelawasi comes back to a broken home. She is reunited with Kadogo who has changed but is happy for her when she tells her that she is getting married to a white man - Hans. Though her father is no longer able to talk and he sanctions her marriage. The spirit world is happy too.