RICKSHAWS AND CYPERSPACE

Growing up I was privileged  to experience yearly holidays from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to Durban. It was a three day journey by car.

Bearing in mind that this was a pre-technology era, no TV and certainly no cell phones or computers, we derived our entertainment by using our imaginations and worked with what we had. I had two great parents and two sisters who were much younger than I was and who were no fun to

be around whilst we were growing up, but who are great to be with now!

My dad was in the Air Force and we lived in Thornhill which was the married quarters.

To get to Durban we would travel to Beit Bridge, which is the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. As we crossed the bridge going over the Limpopo River joining the two countries, the border is marked by a change of tar colour half way across, and it was with much excitement that we crossed this line and shrieked with joy as we debated who was first over the border. It would obviously be the ones sitting in the front!

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Lovely, isn't it?

Our first stop was Pretoria where we would stay with my grandparents. We would spend Christmas with Uncles, Aunts and cousins. Us children would fill the lounge and dining room with mattresses, catching up with the cousins was huge fun.

Then onto Durban to more grandparents. They lived in Gilletts, just outside Durban. We would set out for the beach each day.  Traveling down Fields Hill towards the city, we would catch glimpses of the sea, and of course, we also had competitions as to who would see the sea  first!

My favourite, the RICKSHAW RIDES!! In those days they were everywhere and very glamorous with their enormous head dresses which were so colourful and spectacular adorned with beautiful beadwork, horns and whistles, together with the traditional Zulu atire, they would leap into the air and I would have ridden in them all day.... and in my child's mind there seemed to be hundreds of them lining  Durban's Beach Front.


This means of transport was brought to South Africa in the late 19th century by sugar magnate Sir Marshall Campbell and was imported from Japan. These Zulu men were very proud to be the owner of a Rickshaw.


Today our children have very different forms of entertainment, cell phones that do everything except eat, computers which are a wonderful playground for everyone, including myself! It its own way, gives us as much fun and entertainment as the Rickshaws of my childhood.


How full my life has been, I have experienced the best of both worlds, and wouldn't have it any other way.