'Little Black Quasha'

A few days ago one of our daughters found this little book stored away in her attic. We remember it well for it was given to us....

....by our very dear friends Bibi ad David Witt at Christmas 1967, when we had been teaching for only a few months in what was then Ian Smith's breakaway state of Rhodesia.

Why Bibi Witt, for it is her handwriting on the title page, should have chosen this particular book as a Christmas present for a couple who were, at that time, childless, I have no idea.

In 1967 David and Bibi had three children, Pom-Pom, Jo-Jo and Faldi, and were working at a tiny secondary school way out in the bush, and we had been invited to spend Christmas in their home. I don't remember anything particular about that Christmas - we spent a great deal of time in their company during our three years in Rhodesia - but we loved being with them and the children, and a happier family you could not imagine.

So when I opened the book the other day for the first time in many, many years, I did so with some trepidation, for its contents probably do not sit easily with present cultural tensions, but I found, as the book progressed, nothing that would upset any broad-minded person, particularly when they look at this book from the perspectives of the 1960s.

In fact the book is very much a morality tale, with Little Black Quasha doing all the things a good girl should do, and being....

....suitably rewarded.

Like so many children's books, this one has a fair amount of graphic violence in it, but by the end all the good things have been done and the world left in a better state than when Quasha found it.

I'm very grateful to our daughter for keeping the book so carefully for it brings back a flood of joyous memories of Mrs MW and my early lives together, and of some of the beautiful people we met in our travels.