Cross-posted from Turn Tahoe Blue
Themba
In Gogo's mind, she translated the word "hope" to the zulu word themba. "Themba" means not only "hope" but also "believe." For Gogo, "hope" is not a possibility but a certainty. Too often, perhaps, we lose hope because we fail to look for it where we least expect it - among poor black people in a South African homeland or an American inner city, or poor white farmers in clapboard shaks in south Georgia. But there it is.
Hope and believe, or "themba," that's what it is ultimately all about. Jason Carter, the son of last year's Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Jack Carter and brother of blogger Sarah Carter, comes to this conclusion at the end of his book, at the end of two years in South Africa.