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When the drum pounded for the first time and Mama’s hands lowered to her lap, a silence ricocheted from wall to wall. The blade was now limp in her grip and as her fingers surrendered the chaichai leaves, I watched them scatter into the basket of her kitenge. The drum pounded for a second time. A third time. In her focus, the hot sizzles of water boiling over, the crackle of flames beneath the pot, the heat; the sweltering heat were lowered to a mute. She was waiting. Listening. A fourth time. A fifth time. I had no idea what we were waiting for. A sixth time. A few seconds passed and it was over. Mama frowned for a few moments, bowed her head and then swiftly got back to work; in her doing so, life restored to the room. She hushed the brimming pot with a quick stir and gathered the chaichai leaves before her which she then offered to the water along with a few cups of sugar. The steam from the water, now a blazing tone of caramel was seeping into the cracks of the mud-clay walls, dampening them so much so that I remember wondering how this small structure, the kitchen, could possibly withstand the weekly torrential down pours. The last rain was a few days ago now; from underneath the tin roof, the droplets were bullets, shrapnel showering down and splashing at any bare ankles which came too close to the rectangular gape of a doorway. It had been a bad storm. “Dakika tano.”, she declared, stirring the pan one more time. Five minutes. This would have been enough time to ask her what the drum had meant. But having carefully flicked through every page of my mental dictionary, I could not scavenge the words. At 8am, the sun reached its perch above the banana tree leaves in the backyard, morning trickled in though the doorway, just catching the edges of Mama’s profile. Gold beamed from her rich oak skin, her round cheeks lifted slightly as she moved two red mugs onto the footstool between us. Tea poured. Tea drank. Thank yous. Good byes. My first thought as I left the house that day? Quiet. Beyond four walls of clanking crockery, ricketing footstools and hot sizzles from the wood stove, it was quiet out. The school children shod with separating leather but dressed in crescent moon grins were not sprinting down the road to greet me. The bells of two dozen cows did not jangle, nor were they dusting the orange track with hoof prints. Even the chickens seemed a little more reserved as they pecked in and out of the maize that morning. And slowly then. The drums began. To start with, in the distance, quiet. Beads of sweat that had pooled across my hairline in the heat of the kiln of a kitchen were resurfacing. It could have been the sun. I wish it was the sun. But the drums were not nearing alone. With every step, they were crescendoing to the loudness of the kitenge that followed; electric yellows and deep gem blues, greens, reds. Happy colours considering the purple that led the drums. Purple looked no more than a metre and a half in length, draped over strong arms. Some behind the drums were dancing and singing, some were screaming. Purple did neither. The drums were bellowing at me from just feet away when I realised what this was and Purple swallowed the sun from the sky whole. 10 small toes swayed with every step, back and forth, never wriggling. 10 small fingers did the same. The body in front of me, I saw that the purple that met her hair line was not quite purple but rather a rusted brown tone. Blood. The last rain was a few days ago now; from underneath the tin roof, the droplets were bullets, shrapnel showering down and the lightening that had thundered through the village was relentless. I remember thinking it was beautiful. It was deathly. Here, three drums marked the death of an adult, Here, six drums marked the death of a child. That day, the drums were purple.