Hadado is a village emptied of its men. They have gone off with the livestock to look for water, or to towns like Mado Gashi and Duse to look for work. The women stay behind, raising children in a place where grassland has turned to scrub, ant hills and blowing dirt. The poem shows their days in short, plain details: children going to school in shifts, thin camels sniffing the wind, ugali on the plate, water drawn from a borehole.
The speaker doesn't announce any feeling. She reports what is there, and the flat tone makes the hardship hit harder. Repeated lines, like "All the men have gone" and "All the men have left," make the village feel stuck in a loop. The image of the ground eating at itself is bleak, and the water that "shivers with swimming things" suggests it may not be safe to drink. The mood is quiet, tense and patient. The last line leaves the women waiting for husbands, and for rain.