That's what we all are when we have given everything away to the white man's cities. We groan so pathetically under the emptiness of our minds. And there is nothing so grotesquely tragic as an empty tin that has only a small grain of sand in it. It rings all the more horribly. In this story, Ndebele pays tribute to the artist's ability to define the quality of oppression and to express the desire for a different life.
Art becomes a symbolic gesture of reclaiming one's land.
When helping his nephew with his geography homework, the uncle advises him to draw his own map of South Africa. He tells him to add a new place to the map when he has thought of something to give it. The map traces the boy's journey from birth. That is where your grandmother and grandfather are. Your younger mothers.