The other significant characters in the novel-Dikeledi, a fellow teacher at Margaret’s school and the future paramount chief’s sister Maru, the future paramount chief and Moleka, Dikeledi’s love interest, Maru’s best friend, and a lower-level chief-all face the reality of Margaret’s humanity, integrity, and intelligence. Margaret’s struggle to overcome racism is the novel’s central theme. Through the juxtaposition of Margaret’s ethnicity with her position, Head explores the interactions between race, gender, and class. However, being a teacher, she occupies a position of respect within Botswana society. Margaret, who could have passed as a “colored,” bearing a half-white, half-African ethnicity, instead bravely announces to anyone who asks that she is a Masarwa, who are considered inhuman by most people in Botswana. The novel’s events begin when Margaret receives her first teaching assignment in the small village Dilepe. An excellent scholar, she eventually attains a teaching degree. Young Margaret is raised within the mission environment where she receives fair treatment, kindness, and in particular, an education.
Margaret Cadmore, a Scottish missionary, takes in the baby and names her after herself. Margaret’s Masarwa mother dies in childbirth her body and her newborn are left on the side of the road.
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