Read the following extract, and then answer the question that follows it: 'The children belong to the families of Golema Mmidi,' Dinorego said, smiling. 'They are supposed to be out in the bush grazing the goats, but here they are all playing at the home of Mma-Millipede. I told her she will one day become bankrupt through having to feed all these children and goats, but she pays no attention.' An old woman walked slowly across the yard in a forward-bending manner as though her back troubled her. She wore a very long dress and had a scarf tied round her head. The children set up a clamour when they saw Dinorego, and she swerved round in her walk. 'Batho!' she said, addressing Dinorego. ‘But I say, you are about early today, my friend.' 'I have brought my son about whom we spoke the whole week, he replied. 'Batho!' she said, again. She turned and looked at Makhaya, closely. There was something so lovely in the expression of habitual good humour and kindness in her face that it evoked a spontaneous smile in him. Once he got to know her well, he was to find that she often prefaced sentences with the word ‘Batho,” which means, 'Oh, People' and may be used to express either sympathy, joy, or surprise. Whatever conclusions the old woman had come to through her inspection of Makhaya's face, she determined to keep to herself and discuss them with the old man once Makhaya had left. To indicate this, she glanced meaningfully at Dinorego from under her eyes. In reply Dinorego said, 'My son cannot stay long. He is just on his way to work.' 'Indeed! I am ashamed of you, my friend. What about the tea? There is always time for tea. Besides, I must gather some eggs to send to Gilbert. I was just about to feed the fowls.' She pointed to a basket in her hand which was full of corn seed. This made Makhaya look towards the chicken house and recall the vivid words of the old man on their first day of meeting: ‘If you have fifty-two fowls, you must build a coop fifteen feet by twenty-five feet ...' And indeed, the chicken house stretched the entire length of the yard. Three of its walls were built of a mixture of smoothed mud and bricks, while the front part was enclosed with chicken wire and had a small gate. Poles were spaced at neat intervals round the walls, over which was suspended a thatched roof. There were troughs for food and water and boxes for broody hens. Fat sleek fowls pecked in the dust. A child emerged from one of the huts with a tea tray, and once they had seated themselves, Mma-Millipede wanted to know all sorts of little things about Makhaya. Do you eat well, my son? she asked. Do you often get ill? If you get ill, please inform me so that I may accompany you to hospital as you are now far away from your home and relatives. About all these small things she chattered in her kindly motherly way, and they seemed like mountains of affection to the lonely Makhaya. He noted how the old man nodded his head contentedly in this sun of kindness and how the goats kept frisking their short tails and raising their forelegs high in the air, pretending to crack each other's skulls in mock battles, while the children tumbled in the dust. He was a little repelled at first by the generosity of the strange old woman. It was too extreme. It meant that if you loved people you had to allow a complete invasion by them of your life, and he wasn't built to face invasions of any kind. And yet, this isolation he so treasured had often been painful, because he too felt this eternal human need to share the best and worst of life with another. Thus he looked at the old woman questioningly. He wanted a few simple answers on how to live well and sanely. He wanted to undo the complexity of hatred and humiliation that had dominated his life for so long. Perhaps, he thought, her life might provide him with a few clues.