MAMBHELE: Look at this stupid Sdudla, she's mad, you know.

MAMPOMPO: I’m sick and tired of her.

MAMBHELE [laughs]: She's always carrying an umbrella. It is raining all the time for her.

MAMPOMPO: I’m not here to look after her. I am here to sell Mrs Ntlebi's chickens.

MAMBHELE: What does she think, must we sell her oranges and fat cakes? I’m not here for her. What she is always selling is politics.

MAMPOMPO: Politics. What is politics?

MAMBHELE: She was in Poqo, man.

MAMPOMPO: Politics makes me mad. Let's go and help her.

They pick SDUDLA up and take her downstage right. Long pause.

MAMBHELE: Mampompo, business is very bad today. I don’t see any people. I’m worried [silence]. What about your husband, does he give any money?

MAMPOMPO: Oh yes, Nozulu is a very good man. He is earning R30 a week. R2 for bus fare, and he gives me R24, that is something.

MAMBHELE: That is something, mfazi, my husband is a nuisance in the house.

MAMPOMPO: Which one?

MAMBHELE: Hey, I don't like your jokes! My husband, Noma’s FATHER?

MAMPOMPO: Oh, I am sorry, I was just joking. Yes. I know Noma, she is the one who always comes here to fetch the heads and the chickens’ legs. [She laughs.]

MAMBHELE: She is helping me a lot at home. My husband takes the money and drinks at the shebeen.

MAMPOMPO: Do you mean he is not working, taking the money? He is a nuisance, chuck him out of the house.

MAMBHELE: I wish I could, but you chuck this one out you get a worse one.

MAMPOMPO: Mambhele, I don't understand how men think. My husband can be funny if he wants to. When he came out of the hospital I was in Crossroads. He told me to go and stay with him in the hostel. [She gestures for MAMBHELE to stand close and keeps on looking over her shoulder.] Mambhele, you know there are a lot of men there. And the beds are like shelves and Nozulu's bed was on top. I had to take a stepladder. [She gestures with her hand, indicating sexual intercourse.]

MAMBHELE: But I thought he was too sick.

MAMPOMPO: Not for the Smarties [gestures with hand] my dear.