A SCHOOL, A HAIR SALON

THIS morning I drove down the mountain into the Tyume Valley to meet the principal of Gcato Senior Secondary School, Mr Anderson Dibela. The kids from the school were busy carrying their chairs and desks to the new school building, which replaces the one that was destroyed in a suspected arson attack in June 2008. Across the road, at the Binfield primary school, a boy was chasing three pigs off a makeshift athletics field so that he and his schoolmates could practise for an upcoming event. The entire valley is clad in a coat so green that it hurts the eye, and the clouds above me were swollen with rain.

Afterwards I drove to the nearest shops, in Alice, and found the God Is Great Hair Salon just outside the entrance to the shopping centre. It struck me as a good setting for another Alexander McCall Smith novel.

The third pic is the scene that met me as I left home this morning: a mare and her very shy foal grazing along the road next to our orchard.