… Savitri, Tanka Maya and Laxmi often joke that they are “green cucumber”, too old to learn to
read and write. Yet, excluded from school as young girls, they now come to study at Arutar
literacy ckass until late every night. … From this perspective literacy is no more relevant to them
than the luxury green cucumbers of the title are to people about to die. Evidence from other
contexts suggests we cannot just take such views at face value. A literacy project in South Africa,
funded by the Department for International Development, instigated by Help Age International …