Word: xhosa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...begins in Qunu, the Xhosa village where Mandela grew up and where he has been vacationing for the past week. Fog and rain blanket the Transkei hills, so the President must forgo his usual daily morning walk. At 5 a.m. he heads for the airport, where his jet waits to fly him 400 miles north to Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital...
There are ceremonial differences too. When new President Nelson Mandela enters the House, he is preceded by a loinclothed, jackal-skinned imbongi -- a traditional Xhosa praise singer. And in a multiracial assembly that represents 11 languages, several religions and any number of different churches, the traditional opening prayer -- once led by a minister of religion -- is out, replaced by a minute of silence for personal meditation...
When her Fulbright took her to Cape Town, she immersed herself in black South African culture. "She wanted to live among the people," says Bolich. Soon after arriving last fall, she was speaking Xhosa, dancing to the local jazz and spending nights with friends in the townships. Says Melanie Jacobs, her roommate, who is mixed-race: "She was color-blind and completely at home with us." At the University of the Western Cape, African National Congress legal expert and executive member Dullah Omar guided her research on women's issues and voter education. But her interests pulled her back...
Mandela's talent for leadership traces back to his tribal heritage as the son of a royal family of the Thembu tribe of the Xhosa people. After earning a law degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, he joined the A.N.C. With classmate Oliver Tambo, he set up the first black law practice in South Africa in 1952. Defiantly working from a whites-only downtown neighborhood, they specialized in representing blacks who failed to carry the passes that were required of blacks in white neighborhoods...