Read Oral History #212. Available in English.
It was a hard time after my husband skipped the country [because of the apartheid regime]. The regime used to kick that front door whenever they felt like it because he left the country and they could trace him back to me. So they came back and harassed me. This happened all the time, for at least two years, until about ’78 or ’79, somewhere there…. When I came to the Mormons I found that they were doing exactly what my father used to teach us to do. So there was nothing much different from home. So it didn’t change my behavior that much. Except that it taught me to read for myself not to sit and to listen to other people telling me what to do. Yeah, that was the difference.
And, well, I was a square even before I was a Mormon. My neighbors and everybody used to think maybe that there was something wrong with me. Yeah, I don’t like people. And yet it was just my upbringing. People in the township like to, what is that name, they just like to be together and sit and talk all day and have nothing to do. One time I told my son that Soweto could be one of the most beautiful and cleanest cities in the world because people are not employed. But they sit and talk nonsense their whole day and never use their heads. So I am just different in the sense that I love gardening. And my garden is on top of the railway line. There used to be a railway line here. That is why I can’t have a big vegetable garden. So, I do a lot of things with my hands. I don’t have time to sit and talk. Talk what? Yeah. Unless there is something worth doing that I can attend to. Otherwise, I’m always home and attending to my things.