Every morning before the sun fully rose, Chumuka was already awake. The village still yawned in silence while she and her mother arranged baskets of ripe red tomatoes under a faded market shelter. The tomatoes glowed in the cool morning light, fresh and firm, the kind buyers loved to touch before they bought. But Chumuka had been taught otherwise.
"Watch their hands," her mother always said. "A tomato can look strong, but too much squeezing ruins it."
So when customers came, Chumuka stood straight, lifted her chin, and spoke boldly. "Please look, but don't touch."
At first, people laughed. Some said she was too serious for a young girl. Others teased her and called her proud. But soon the whole market knew her. Some even smiled when they saw her stall.
"There is Miss Don't Touch again," they joked.
Yet her tomatoes sold faster than many others. While some sellers returned home with bruised and half-spoiled stock, Chumuka often finished early. Her father would nod with pride and say, "A careful hand keeps the harvest valuable."
One evening, after a good market day, her grandmother sat with her near the cooking fire and said, "Mwana usuma ulatotelwa ku malembe." Then she explained, "A good child is guided early."
Chumuka never forgot those words. She did not yet know that the lesson of the tomatoes would one day follow her far beyond the market, into school, friendship, love, heartbreak, and womanhood.
At that age, she thought she was only protecting tomatoes.
She did not know she was also being prepared to protect herself.