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Then it was the turn of Kgosi Mokgosi of the Balete, Seretse's good friend. He said he agreed with everything that had been said and he emphasized Bathoen's call for deeds as well as words: ‘But deeds will show. Let us be careful of what we say. Seretse and Tshekedi have come to an agreement and we should now help.'
²⁷
If the Bangwato started Councils, he added, then the Balete might decide to copy them. But he advised the Bangwato that if they were to bring in this new system, they should do it properly. He said he had visited countries where the system worked well. Finally he told the assembly that he regarded the diKgosi as one in three and three in one, carrying on the work of the Bangwato in thought and deed.
²⁸

Allison closed the Kgotla, at Rasebolai's request. His speech was listened to in complete silence, as it was translated into Setswana. He appealed to the Tribe to make Seretse's decision a success. ‘Any angry words and unpleasantness are an insult to him,' he said, ‘because they are an insult to what he has done.'
²⁹

The Kgotla was ‘absolutely quiet and respectful', reported Allison to headquarters.
³⁰
The addresses had been long, but the vast crowd had listened intently to every word. Their only reaction, as each speaker ended his address, was a solemn shout of ‘
Pula
'. Seretse had been ‘clearly the dominating personality at the Kgotla and he spoke forcefully and authoritatively'.
³¹
The meeting broke up in very good spirits and the ‘Big Three' went across to Rasebolai's house for a short press conference. Allison noticed that respect for Rasebolai as the Kgotla came to an end was very obvious – for Rasebolai was seen to have brought back Seretse.
³²

‘The people were happy to see me back,' wrote Seretse to John
Hatch, ‘but the question of my renunciation of the chieftainship was, as you can expect, reluctantly accepted.' There was a fear, he explained, that if they insisted on installing him as Chief and leader of the Tribe, in the place of the Native Authority, ‘your British Government would send me packing'.
³³
But despite the disappointment of not being able to call Seretse their Kgosi, there was great happiness and a sense of real hope for the future. Now that Seretse was back, Peto Sekgoma told the press, negotiations with Anglo-American would soon reach a conclusion. ‘We are hopeful', he said, ‘that this will eventually bring about complete economic independence for the territory and remove for all time the threat of incorporation by the Union.' But in any case, that threat now appeared to have slipped away. When the
Star
asked Tshekedi, ‘What about incorporation?' he simply answered, ‘I think we can forget about that.'
³⁴

The ‘Big Three' then travelled around the Bangwato Reserve. On 22 October a Kgotla at Sefhare was attended by about 1,800 people. Next day, there was an Assembly of between 500 and 600 people in Palapye. On the night before the Palapye Kgotla, Seretse had a nosebleed and a temperature; and at the meeting itself, he felt unwell. It was clear that the tour would have to be interrupted for a few days, to allow him time to recover. It was no wonder he felt weak, thought Wray, given the intense heat, the travelling and the general strain of his ‘continuously good performances'.
³⁵

Everywhere the meetings were a great success. Only at Sebinas was there any departure from the usual pattern. Despite a warm speech of welcome, followed by two other speakers who made a point of praising Tshekedi for bringing Seretse back, one young man, speaking forcefully – and despite the protests of the other men – complained that he had heard enough about Tshekedi, who had oppressed them too much in the past. Another speaker said that while he welcomed the settlement, talk of gratitude to Tshekedi would only keep the dispute alive. But the Kgotla ended well. When Rasebolai asked if anybody wished to speak against the settlement, there was an almost unanimous murmur that there was no disagreement.
³⁶

When Seretse and Rasebolai went to Mahalapye, they stopped off to see the local official, Winstanley, and stayed for tea. When the housemaid heard that Seretse was there, she immediately rushed out
to the veranda, ‘and kneeling humbly and reverently before Seretse greeted him with deep emotion. He responded with exquisite courtesy and shook her proffered hand.' It was ‘immediately obvious to me,' commented Winstanley, ‘why the Bamangwato adored him.'
³⁷

Rasebolai and Seretse were getting on very well together. Wray was aware, though, that these first weeks back in Bechuanaland were a terrible strain for Seretse. He was exhausted – ‘His right hand has been wrung by so many people that it is now rather sore.' He had been searching for a house for his family and eventually found a sprawling, iron-roofed bungalow in the middle of the village. He had originally thought that he should live outside Serowe, to avoid embarrassing Rasebolai, but they were getting on so well that this would clearly not be a problem. There was no electricity or gas in the house, but Seretse had a paraffin-operated refrigerator installed and there was a coal range; tapped water was pumped from a borehole.
³⁸

Seretse interrupted his tour of the Reserve when Ruth and the children arrived, three weeks after himself. The
Daily Mail
in London had made much of the difficulties facing Ruth, as she prepared to leave London:

These are the two worlds of Ruth Khama.
She leaves
a typical London home with accepted European amenities: electricity, telephone, radio.

She goes
to a country of thatched huts. To a country without power. To a country without radio. To a country separated from London by thousands of miles… and thousands of years.
³⁹

But the lack of amenities did not bother Ruth. ‘I am looking forward to returning to Bechuanaland which I regard as my home,' she told the
Daily Mirror
.
⁴⁰
The only thing that worried her, she said, was education – both Tshekedi and Seretse had gone to Lovedale and Fort Hare, but she and Seretse were prohibited immigrants in South Africa. Then she explained her support for Seretse's renunciation of the chieftainship. In London, she said, Seretse could do nothing for his people; but in Bechuanaland, even as a private citizen, he could do a lot. And there was a lot that needed to be done, because the lives of the Bangwato had declined: ‘Their sole source of income, cattle, has been allowed to run down… Well, now the Bamangwatos have two heads,
Tshekedi and Seretse, two of the wisest best-educated heads in Africa.'

She also felt there was ‘a big part, for me, as a woman, to play' with Seretse's help, she hoped to do something to improve women's lives. When she had lived in Serowe, she said, she had realized how backward the country was in terms of welfare and health – and that the women led ‘a purdah-like existence'; she remembered that scores of women had come every day to talk about their troubles. ‘Of course,' she added, ‘I was the Chief's wife then. It may make a difference now. But I doubt it.' She was longing to return: the greeting of the Bangwato, she said, ‘is already music in my ears…
Pula, Pula
, they say to you.'
⁴¹

Preparations for Ruth's return with Jackie and Ian had been causing headaches for the CRO, because their plane would need to land in Salisbury. The family would offend against the colour bar that dominated Southern Rhodesia and they were hated by most of the white community in the country. What should they do, worried Sykes, a CRO official, if the plane carrying Ruth and her family arrived in Salisbury too late to fly on to Bechuanaland the same evening? ‘I feel we can hardly expect two little children', he objected, ‘to bounce about in the back of a car during an all night journey in the way that would have been tolerable for Seretse.'
⁴²
He tried to make a reservation for Ruth and the children at the Meikles Hotel, the premier hotel in Salisbury, but the hotel refused. After long discussions, the Meikles reluctantly agreed – ‘but only on our plea', reported Sykes in hot indignation, ‘that children could not be stranded overnight'.
⁴³
The management said that Mrs Khama would have to take her meals in the bedroom with the children; she might be glad to do this, thought Sykes protectively, to avoid ‘ill-mannered stares in the dining-room'.
⁴⁴
To make the family as comfortable as possible and to avoid any embarrassment, he reserved a sitting room for them, where meals could be served.
⁴⁵

Sykes and Miss Emery referred respectfully to Ruth as ‘Mrs Khama' in their correspondence with each other. This was in marked contrast with the attitudes towards ‘Ruth' of CRO officials in 1950, when she had been banished from Bechuanaland. The story of the Khamas was now being seen through a different lens. Alan Lennox-Boyd, the Colonial Secretary – who had advocated the permanent exclusion of Seretse in 1951 – now enclosed a note of good wishes for Mrs Khama
with a letter to Lord Home. If appropriate, he said, he would be most grateful if the note could be passed on to Mrs Khama before she left London. ‘I congratulate you so much on this decision,' he told Home.
⁴⁶

With her two children clinging tightly to her skirt, Ruth arrived at Salisbury airport at lunchtime on 31 October and was met by the District Officer of Mafikeng, who had been at Oxford with Seretse. The stay at the Meikles Hotel had been so carefully planned that it went smoothly, and early the next morning the family flew on to Bechuanaland in a chartered light plane. When they arrived at the Serowe airstrip, Seretse helped Ruth down over the plane's wing and then embraced Jackie and Ian, overjoyed to bring them home. Allison, in his role as District Commissioner, officially welcomed Ruth. But Mrs Allison was not present, nor were any other European women. When Miss Emery heard about this, she was cross – there was no need for an enormous reception committee, she thought, but ‘it would have been a pleasant gesture, if one European lady, Mrs Allison, if possible could have been there'.
⁴⁷
Clearly, the European community did not want Ruth back in Serowe.

But the Bangwato – and especially the women – were ecstatic at her return, with the two children. Hundreds of tribesmen and thousands of Bamangwato women and children, reported the
Rhodesia Herald
, ‘were preparing to give Mrs Khama a rousing welcome'.
⁴⁸
She was greeted as the Mother of the people –
Mohumagadi
– and was driven to her new home through knots of dancing women. When she arrived, reported a correspondent for the
Daily Telegraph
, who had flown to Bechuanaland to cover the Khamas' return, ‘Bamangwato women besieged Mrs Khama in her new home at Serowe with shouts of welcome.'
⁴⁹
Ruth and Seretse, holding the children and smiling broadly, stood on the veranda in front of a vast crowd, who were craning their necks to see them and stretching out their arms. Ruth was wearing an outfit of green cotton, with a floral motif, and a black sequin-trimmed velvet hat and black accessories, according to the Johannesburg
Star
. She had arrived quietly and without any fuss, ‘with a measure of poise and dignity. She made it clear that she regards herself as a Bangwato subject.'
⁵⁰
Speaking on behalf of Ruth in Setswana, Seretse told the cheering people how happy his wife was to have come home and to be with them. Later that morning, Tshekedi
arrived at the house – and ‘the family reunion', said the
Telegraph
, ‘was complete.'
⁵¹

The Nationalist Government of South Africa had been silent on the ending of Seretse's and Ruth's exile. But in large parts of the country, there was jubilation – it seemed to herald a real change in the racial politics of southern Africa. In the townships of Johannesburg, towards the end of 1956, people danced joyfully to a song by Miriam Makeba –
Pula Kgosi Seretse
. The Federation of South African Women – which just two months before had organized a massive march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the extension of Passes to women – sent a letter to Ruth to welcome her back to southern Africa. ‘We salute your courage', wrote Helen Joseph, the National Secretary, ‘in opposing racial prejudice, your determination to choose your own way of life, to choose whom you marry.' They knew, she added,

of the difficulties that you have faced so courageously in the past, of the difficulties you will be called upon to face in the future, and we join with the other women of Africa in welcoming you, your husband and your children, back to the land of your choice, of your husband's birth.

She added that the National President of the Federation, Mrs Lilian Ngoyi, sent her personal greetings and recalled with pleasure getting to know Ruth in London.
⁵²

On the day after Ruth's return, she and Seretse strolled arm-in-arm through the town. They did some shopping and then drove round to the kgotla ground, where Seretse presented to his wife some of the African officials from the district. Then, with the children, they crossed the hill overlooking Serowe to the royal burial ground where Seretse's ancestors were interred. ‘Every tribesman bowed low as the family passed', reported the Johannesburg
Star
, and ‘every Bamangwato woman showed her respect. Some showed their joy by going through some motion connected with reaping the harvest.' On the long veranda of the Khama home, the reporter asked Ruth how it felt to be back in Serowe: ‘She stared at the tight ring of Native huts spread out over the town, took a deep breath and said, “I'm so happy, ever so happy.”'
⁵³

So were the Bangwato. It was not long, according to the
Daily Herald
, before a song of local dancers, beginning with the words, ‘Seretse and Ruth have come back to us', became popular all over the Reserve.
⁵⁴