"Power lines pass over the town of Lochiel, South Africa. When Jason Carter arrived, the power lines of First-World South Africa ran directly through the village in the former black homeland ... but the homes had no electricity." "In the aftermath of apartheid, few whites live as Peace Corps volunteer Jason Carter did - with a black family in a Third-World community. As he shows us, deprivation and illiteracy are formidable foes adding to the centuries-old legacy of oppression and mistrust that still casts its long shadow across a South African society struggling to redefine itself in the years following Nelson Mandela's presidency."--Jacket.