Peu
The piece is written mainly in Khelobedu, a language spoken in the Northern part of South Africa and a touch of English here and there. Although the language is considered a part of Sotho/Tswana language groups and has around 2 million speakers and although its speakers are a nation with a Queen and (recently a king), a culture and homeland, the language remains outside of the 11 official languages of South Africa.
The monologue tells the story of a woman who discovers that she is unable to bear children and is confronted with the difficulty of coming to terms with it. While smiling and congratulating pregnant women at face value, she is seething with jealousy and a deepening hatred that has her wishing the children dead before they are born. People’s questions about when she will have a child, drive her to a murderous rage and make it harder to accept that she will never give birth to her own child.
