Solomon Plaatje was a towering intellectual: intelligent, wise, discerning, erudite, well-informed and gifted. A walking library, he was a storehouse of all manner of information. If there were two or three or even a dozen people gathered, and Plaatje was among them, he could outdo them all, sharing his vast knowledge. People would listen with obvious interest and enjoyment. His conversation was not only witty and entertaining, it communicated firsthand knowledge of things he had experienced and events he had witnessed. He spoke in a loud voice and laughed a lot. A persuasive orator, he was gifted at languages and had an exceptional ability to dramatise and mimic. No matter what the subject of conversation, Plaatje outshone most people. He could take familiar words, or a famous text, and render them with gesture and voice so as to enthral his listeners. He was a marvellous storyteller and speaker, and he had a unique gift with words. He could take a piece of dry wood and breathe life into it, so that it would bud and burst into blossom. It would bring forth fruit like Aaron's rod of old.

My first memory of meeting Solomon Plaatje was in September 1898. He had come from Kimberley and had arrived at my mother Ma-Seleje's home or, as we would say in English, the home of Silas Molema. But in Setswana the house is named after the mother, who, in turn, is named after her firstborn child. When we say Ma-Seleje we mean Mrs Silas Molema, to refer to the home of both parents of Seleje, their firstborn.

Plaatje, having been an interpreter in Kimberley, had just come to Mahikeng to take up the post of interpreter at the local magistrate's court. The first time I met him he made a big impression on me that was to last a lifetime. He touched my heart in an unforgettable way. Because his face was very light in complexion I thought he was a Baster or a Griqua, or a person of colour, whom the elders called ‘coloureds’. He was even whiter than the light-skinned Molemas of Mahikeng or the Moswetes of Khunwane, the lightest among all the other Barolong.