We were waking up at Maru-a-Pula! After years of talking about it, we were finally there! A good night’s sleep helped to counteract the previous night’s frustrations, and we awoke to a peaceful school campus.
After 41 years away, Simon found the campus unrecognizable as we walked around that first morning. In his school years there were 50 students, one boys’ boarding house, a small dining room, the Headmaster’s house, and two classrooms.
The few original buildings were lost in the welter of the new, and novel touches like storm drainage, landscaping, trees, pathways and air-conditioning had been installed.
The periphery was where the school has changed most. Instead of bush, bush and more bush there was a grass sports field (which Simon’s class had hacked out of the bush, and which had been nothing but red dirt for many years), tennis courts, a swimming pool (which Simon’s class had dug by hand until a backhoe was brought in for the final touches), an enormous library building, the spectacular Maitisong performing arts center, the Bean Bag Cafe, and a great number of classrooms.
We began work on the book straight away, but had time that first afternoon for a quick drive around the immediate locale, looking for Elephant Rd and Simon’s old house – which was now behind a huge wall and electrified fence.
The Mall, once the city’s main shopping focus, had definitely seen better days, and although there was a craft market going on, it didn’t hide the fact the basic fabric of the place was crumbling and in urgent need of some TLC.
We had dinner that evening with Andy, the Headmaster, and had a wonderful reminisce about Simon’s days at school, while enjoying good food, superb wine, and the joy of a prodigal son returned home.
Walking around the campus would be a daily habit, and one evening we had a stroll in the twilight. Of all the things Susan didn’t think she’d have to say when we woke up that morning, “Simon, step back a bit so the monkey doesn’t pee on your head” was right up near the top. There were monkeys in some of the trees, Kalahari refugees from the drought that has gripped Botswana for the last three years. (There is a monkey in this picture; look closely!)
But we also finally discovered the Memorial Garden, where the conjoined ashes of Deane and Dot are buried. They are buried across from a little pond with calla lilies in it, and a bench to sit and contemplate. And, as per Deane’s instructions, his ashes and Dot’s are mixed together, forever one inseperable from the other.
Simon had been in touch with Deane via Skype for a few years before he passed, and had only missed seeing his Headmaster in person again by just a couple of years. Seeing Dot and Deane’s resting place was quite an emotional moment for Simon, but the peacefulness of the garden was fitting, and helped ease some of the sadness.
On our first afternoon we spent about an hour with Arlington, the staff member who organizes activities beyond the school that the students sign up for as part of their required social service. We volunteered to join them on a trip to Gabane, the impoverished village Simon’s class had “adopted.” Back in the 1970s MaP students would go out twice a week, along pitted dirt roads in the back of a pickup truck, to make bricks from mud and cow dung for patching huts; to help lay thatch for the villagers who needed their roofs repaired; to do chores and cooking for the elderly and the infirm; and to provide food to the most destitute among them.
We would be visiting a school to do tutoring and feeding, and would also sign up to visit two other schools and a community center to do tutoring. Those afternoons were so special we’ll dedicate our next blog to them, so stay tuned.
Our time at Maru-a-Pula was so joyful, and so sentimental for Simon, we can’t wait for the chance to return some day. So much had changed, but so much had remained the same, especially for that very first class that did their acceptance interviews and aptitude tests in Dot and Deane’s blue tent in the middle of the bush, with nothing but hope and determination around the plot of land that would become Africa’s most successful school.
Most of the students from that first class have gone on to do incredible things, many of them in social justice, and they have remained in touch over the decades. We were honored to include them in our interviews toward the book, and even more delighted to have established—and re-established—what will remain lasting friendships, including current headmaster Andy Taylor and Maitisong creator David Slater (below), and former first-year student Alice Mogwe and her husband Ruud Jansen (lower photo).
Next: “Take My Picture! Oh, And Can I Touch Your Hair?”
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