Housekeeping at Luthuli House

Kitchens are strange and wonderful places of mystery and magic. I have always found the attraction of warmth, food, comfort and work appealing. We could not afford a domestic worker in Bethlehem where I grew up, so my mother did everything: baking, cooking, cleaning, washing up, and setting traps for the mice, which I disarmed behind her back.

As a mother and wife, she tried to keep the kitchen neutral territory. There was a big table where we could all sit together and eat, read newspapers, talk, or just look at the flames in the fireplace.