Wheildon

kate was five years old, with freckles and flaming red hair.  depending on her mood, she either walked or stomped.

on this day, she was stomping, her mood unbecoming that of a young lady.  this was a thursday morning.  mondays, wednesdays and fridays saw kate at a little play school run by a friend for a few of us in the village who had young children.  tuesdays and thursdays, however, found kate at a loose end, so ginny and i decided to try something for our fledging rainbow nation and send her to the coloured play school in the anglican church hall.

according to our daughter, things had not gone according to plan the previous tuesday.  she had been sent with some of her favourite snacks in a tupperware for tea time.  these evidently had gone down well with a few of the children, excluding kate.  in addition to this setback, nobody spoke her language, and she did not speak theirs.  there also appeared to be a little segregation as she was clearly somewhat different to the rest of the children.  kate had chosen to ponder these things in a corner on her own.

so this thursday morning was a real tester for us.  our cottage was only 200 metres from the hall, and kate was well known throughout the village for her singlemindedness.  she stomped the whole way with not so much as a squeak.  we left her in the charge of a teacher and fled.  for the next hour we anticipated a knock at the front door, but nothing happened.

shortly before 12 noon, ginny and i left the cottage to fetch our daughter and were approaching the hall when the door flew open and two hysterical teachers fell out into the street, splitting their sides with mirth.  at the sight of us they made an effort to compose themselves, but with little success.  we politely asked what they found so amusing, whereupon they dissolved into uncontrolled laughter.  Kate, we were told, was the cause of their merriment.

kate had been left to her own devices during the course of the morning, until the school had been called to order in preparation for the bell and home time.  as usual, a circle was formed and all the children linked hands.  it was the custom for a teacher to call on one of the children to close the morning's proceedings in prayer.

normally this was done in afrikaans but on this day, for kate's benefit, a volunteer was called for in each language.  to their surprise, kate’s hand shot up and she confirmed that she would like to lead the school in prayer, whereupon she stepped forward in readiness to offer prayer.

when all heads were bowed, kate was invited to pray.

with all the sincerity and reverence she could muster, she prayed, “dear god, please make all these black children white.’’

all the coloured and black children responded enthusiastically, “amen!”

when questioned as to what would happen if god chose to reverse her request, kate had confidently replied that her father and god would settle the matter between them.