South Africa's 4 million-plus whites still dominate an economy serving 45 million citizens. They claim nearly half of all income. Yet today they are joined by as many as 11 million blacks who are also solidly entrenched in the middle and upper classes.
More black children are in school; more black adults are literate; millions more blacks have clean water, electricity, toilets.
At the same time, a vast black underclass is swelling. Roughly half of South Africans are either poor or on the edge of poverty, economists say. Thirty to 40 percent are jobless. The UN says the living standard has fallen since 1990, mostly due to the devastation of AIDS.
Crime, among the world's worst, is terrifying for its strikingly gratuitous violence. Skilled workers still are leaving, but a much-feared exodus of whites never materialized.
For all its peaceful changes, this is not a land of lion-and-lamb peace. "Weary tolerance is one way to describe it," says Tom Lodge, an analyst at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Some whites feel the sting of lost power; many blacks resent whites' continued privilege.
Still, a force stronger than their mistrust binds Ndlovu, who rose in 10 years to the head of little Meithlo Construction Co, and the Henshalls, who run a bustling forklift business out of their US$225,000 home. Unlike the have-nots, both of them have a stake in making this miracle work.
Or, as John Henshall wryly puts it: "Everyone has something to lose."
As democracy arrived, Henshall held his breath. But the family business prospered. Fearing the consequences of white flight and economic ruin, the new government bent over backward to keep white businesses alive. Few of their nightmare scenarios came to pass.
"The only problem we've suffered as white people," Henshall said, "has been major crime."
Ndlovu agrees that crime is the government's biggest challenge. Driving from her home one afternoon, she pointed to the silver cell phone under her dashboard. It is her fifth. Her workers stole the others. Her car radio is also gone.
"They come at night and steal the petrol," she said. "I find out in the morning when I try to go to work."
Still, Ndlovu has hopes. She wants to finish the ceiling in her home and to move from subcontracting to better-paying contracting. She wants a computer and a fax machine.
She would like to replace her no-account former husband. But she fears AIDS, so "I just keep myself busy with work," she said.
She believes "some whites have changed." But her church, her daughter's high school, her town -- in fact, her whole world -- is black, save the whites who monitor her work. She figures she is too old to see that change.
"The new generation is the one that is going to get the new world," she said. "They are going to work together. Not the old people. The young generation is the one who is going to know the truth."
John and Li Henshall have hopes, too, for a safer and more harmonious nation. They say Nelson Mandela's message of tolerance is firmly imprinted on their three children. "You say one thing negative about the blacks, they will shout you down -- `You are a racist!'" Li Henshall said. "It is actually quite good."
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