RUTH KHAMA’S LIFE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29245, 1 July 1960, Page 2

RUTH KHAMA’S LIFE

“Think Of Africa As My,.,Home”

(By SUSAN VAUGHANI A new crisis faces golden-haired Ruth SKhama, unofficial white queen of the African Bamangwato tribe in Bechuanaland. Her husband, Seretse Khama, who lost his paramount chieftaincy when he married a white girl, is in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, with ulcer trouble. “Queen” Ruth is living in a boarding house nearby and visits him every day.

half-an-hour with Seretse,” she said. “But I stay just as long as a I can, pretending I haven’t noticed the time.” Ruth and Seretse have been through many more than the usual troubles that arise from a mixed marriage, for- there have been pressures from government as well as the normal soicial stresses. Ruth had a nervous breakdown as a result of criticism and since her first child was born she has been anaemic. Once she blacked out while, driving her car. After that Seretse banned her from driving. But after 12 years together Ruth and Seretse are steadfast and happy. They now have four fine children. < . th Buchuanaland, Ruth works untiringly to raise the status of women and she is longing for Sereste to recover so that she can return to her work and her home. “Yes. of course, I think of Africa as my home.” she says. “I never think of myself as white.”