Dikeledi had been fascinated by the post from a young age. Some time after her mother had been killed and her distraught and heartbroken father, S’jumba, had left the country to try to start his life anew in South Africa, a letter arrived all the way from Johannesburg. The letter had been addressed to her illiterate grandfather, who had to walk the many miles to the school where it had been delivered to collect it. Her wary and weary grandfather had given the letter to Dikeledi, trusting and believing that the three years of education she had under her belt would be more than sufficient to enable her to read and understand the letter. Her grandmother proudly called other members of the homestead and other villagers to hear her granddaughter read the letter. Dikeledi, who was still struggling with literacy herself, read the letter haltingly but assuredly, confidently mispronouncing most of the English words, many of which had not been spelled correctly. The nine-year-old Dikeledi read to an appreciative audience that was for the most part none the wiser.

The letter said that the father-son had settled in Johannesburg (a city brighter than anything they could ever imagine), had found a job at a gold mine, and was doing relatively well. Enclosed in the envelope, along with the letter, was a money order for an amount that proved how well settled the father-son was in his new land. The letter, which could have carried with it sad news, brought joy. Her grandmother ululated and her grandfather danced a jig as he balanced on his walking-stick-cum-knobkerrie. They said that their troubles – troubles Dikeledi had not known about – were over and that happy days were here again.

As Dikeledi held the letter in her hands, she understood its power, and decided there and then that she wanted to be a postman. Even when, during her sixteenth year, a letter, not written in the handwriting of the father-son, was received from Johannesburg and contained within it news of his death – not in a mining accident as his mother had always feared, but from a corruption that had surreptitiously entered his lungs when he had worked in a factory that made asbestos roofing shingles in the City of Kings – Dikeledi did not give up her desire to become a postman.