Like Dimpho, that individual would be born into a place inhabited on the one side by indigenous people, ignored and marginalised, in the middle, tribal people constituting some portion of the emerging elite and on the other side, settler communities, wealthy and privileged. His and hers, again like Dimpho’s, would be customs unique to the place, and around him and her would be people of many ethnicities and races and who spoke multiple languages but only one of which would be this country’s official language.
The web of isolation which demanded hardiness defined his and her youth and adulthood. He and she would grow to have a close intimacy with the area’s harsh climate, its wilderness, its people, livestock and wildlife, all of which reminded him and her of his and her own imperfection, frailty and dependency. If, like Dimpho, he and she had ever been unsure about his and her preference for this area, I have often wondered if he or she would disclose it. I doubt if he or she would, because doing so, however sincere could be deemed to be a betrayal of what it means to be a person of the west.
