Certain Winds from the South

This story I found particularly interesting because it was told from a woman's point of view. The main characters, M'ma Asana, her daugher Hawa, and her son-in-law Issa, seem to be very poor people living together in a land that in not providing work or food for the family. M'ma Asana reflects on the birth of her first grandson by Hawa and Issa and draws a comparison between this new life coming into the world and the birth of her own child; Hawa. She seems overjoyed that her daughter has given birth to a son, a feat which she failed to do when she herself became a mother. M'ma also draws parallels throughout this tail between her life and her daughters when Issa tells M'ma that he will be going South to find work to feed his starving family. A few decades before the man that M'ma intended to marry had done the same thing and left her, pregnant, to travel south and join the army. M'ma struggles with telling Hawa that Issa has gone south as she recalls being left in a similar manner. The story itself is an example of the strength of women, the bonds that they maintain even when abandoned, and also the bonds of family.