What Nhleko can teach us about the art of the fire-pool excuse

My dad's first post as a principal was when he was sent to a rural school in a place called Inteke in the Mariannhill area west of Durban. One day he's sitting in his office, doing whatever it is that principals do in there, when some nine-year-olds come in. One of them has something stuck on her finger, cutting off all blood supply, and now the finger is grotesquely swollen and has taken on a blue-purplish hue.