Where does Maureen run to at the end of July's People, and why?

The novel July's People ends with unanswered questions. One of these questions is "Where and what is Maureen running to?" The helicopter that flies over the village is unmarked and therefore unidentifiable. It may belong to white South African factions or it may belong to revolutionary native African South African forces. Maureen knows that to run after the helicopter could be running for a savior or running to a slayer. But still she runs.

What prompts Maureen to run? In her time in July's village, she has understood that the counterfeit dignity that she bestowed on July (Mwawate) according to her definition of dignity humiliated him because his dignity came from his identity as a African village man. He did what was best for his family and village. The fact that she made allowances for him when he would steal small articles from Maureen's home over the fifteen years that he worked for her was demeaning to him: Their ideas of human dignity didn't match. Maureen ran because she began to see life in a different way and it was a way that frightened her and made her run toward any fate other than more revelation.

In July's People, what happens to the character Maureen?

The answer to the question, in its most literal sense, is left entirely up to the reader's interpretation. When Maureen and her family's comfortable lives in Johannesburg are uprooted by social revolution surrounding apartheid, July, their servant, is able to effectively facilitate their escape. However, the situation soon becomes quite uncomfortable for Maureen, as she is not only in a completely new environment with a different culture, but the power dynamic between herself and her servant has shifted entirely.

The fundamental difference of race and culture between Maureen and July mounts a series of tensions that begin to make Maureen become unhinged. One day, as the novel comes to a close, she hears a helicopter landing and, seemingly out of animal instinct alone, she runs toward it, completely abandoning her family and new situation. Her fate beyond this is unknown.