I

T is a languorous Limpopo afternoon and I am sitting on a bench overlooking the Letaba River, alone with my thoughts. I fleetingly watch as a young couple walks past me, with unhurried holiday steps.

Suddenly the urgency of a child’s cry breaks into my reverie, programmed as I am to respond to the screams of “Mom!”

Running towards the young couple, along the river bank, is a little boy of about five — an enthusiastic, energetic boy who throws himself eagerly against his mother’s legs, relishing her undivided attention.

A very typical domestic scene, but what made me look twice was that it was apparent that this child was not the birth child of the couple —