'The Story of Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys Band' by Parselelo Kantai

"Last night I had the dream of fish again, in which my departed mother Petrobia is a young woman throwing a party in the afternoon. All the people of God are coming to our house in Jerusalem estate, and she is a whirlwind of movement, shouting get-ready get-ready, how can the visitors find you so dirty as if there is no woman in this house and you are orphans, washing and ironing and scrubbing the courtyard with soap and water, brandishing the broom of my childhood, the long thin sticks tied together with strips of tyre from the abandoned lorry that leaned drunkenly against the outside of the courtyard wall, its axles resting on crumbling construction bricks." Read in full 'The Story of Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys Band' by Parselelo Kantai, a Caine Prize Award 2004 runner up, on the website of Kwani.org.