Side characters explained

Inspector of Schools

At the beginning of this year the Inspector of Bantu Schools in the Cape Midlands Region, Mr. Dawid Grobbelaar — he makes us call him Oom Dawie — came to give us Standard Tens his usual pep talk. He does it every year. We know Oom Dawie well. He’s been coming to Zolile for a long time. When he walked into our classroom we all jumped up as usual but he didn’t want any of that. “Sit, sit. I’m not a bloody sergeant major.” Oom Dawie believes he knows how to talk to us.

Member of the Audience

Who was the chap sitting there who laughed at all your jokes and applauded everything you said.

Thami: Stephen Gaika. He’s mad!

The Mayor of Camdeboo

Our mayor, Mr. Pienaar, was in our shop the other day and I heard him say to my dad that it was “very much to be regretted” that the first thing that greeted any visitor to the town was the “terrible mess of the location.”

A member of Isabel's Debate Team

So off we went . . . myself, Renee Vermaas and Cathy Bullard, the C.G.H. Debating Team . . . feeling very virtuous about our “pioneering” mission into the location.