We the Basotho, call the specific odour of brand-new clothes and other objects White folks’ fart or bosulu ba makhooa. Don’t ask me why. If you do, then I’ll have to venture a guess, and here is my guess.

Our traditional clothes never had that smell, no matter how new they were. The leather had always been beaten, washed, scraped, hung and processed, which left it smelling… nothing, really. We discovered White folks’ fart with the advent of factory clothes that arrived, of course, with white folks. Hence the name.

The consciousness of colour and race spilled over to us from across the surrounding borders of South Africa. In Lesotho, Indians are referred to as Makula, or Coolies. Merriam-Webster describes Coolie as “an unskilled laborer or porter usually in or from the Far East hired for low or subsistence wages.” It is an offensive term in my book.

We refer to nectarines as Marete a Makula, literally, Indian Testicles. This time even if you ask, I wouldn’t know what reply to venture. Do Indians have glabrous nuts? Nevertheless, I’ve always found the integration of Indians in Lesotho, from the point of view of native Basotho villagers, utterly complete.