My very first lesson of my Standard 6 (Grade 8) was mathematics. A new teacher, Mr. Mfeka from Natal (today KwaZulu-Natal), had just been appointed to the school. He walked into the class with a textbook, a newspaper under his arm and a short wooden cane that he used for disciplining us. As he walked in, he shouted, “Wiskunde!”

The whole class fell completely silent.

“Wiskunde” is Afrikaans for mathematics. So here we had a new teacher who was supposed to teach us a subject that was not always our favourite and in a language that was foreign to all of us. He went on to write something on the board. We recognised the numbers but we could not understand a word he was saying. – Die UDF-veteraan en gewese regeringswoordvoerder Themba Maseko in sy pas gepubliseerde boek, For My Country: Why I blew the whistle on Zuma and the Guptas...