When Rain Clouds Gather

If any one character in When Rain Clouds Gather can be designated as the novel’s main protagonist, that character would be Makhaya Maseko: an educated, thoughtful, handsome, and hot-tempered young man who facilitates momentous changes in Golema Mmidi. As the novel opens, Makhaya is fleeing his native South Africa to re-settle in Botswana. South African society, which is structured around a system of legalized discrimination known as “apartheid,” is an inhospitable setting for a black man such as Makhaya. He had at one point planned to blow up a building in his discontent, had consequently served a prison sentence, and now is eager to escape the combination of white condescension and black provincialism that he detects in South African life.

Makhaya settles in Golema Mmidi and quickly bonds with Dinorego, Gilbert, and other residents of the small village who are proponents of new agricultural methods. They share a vision of a transformed Africa (or at least a transformed Botswana); they are also united by their experiences of hardship and disillusionment, and their opposition to Matenge, the self-important and resentful chief who oversees the village. Of all the characters that work to change Golema Mmidi, Makhaya may be the most cynical.