Zambia World Wide

Our final departure was to be a holiday, so we left the train at Durban to board a Union Castle cruise liner. Our parents took us to see the aquarium in Durban, and as we exited I had what was probably the most terrifying experience of my life thus far. There in the foyer, eagerly awaiting wealthy tourists, was a small crowd of rickshaw men. Now I don't remember ever having seen a rickshaw, but that was not the cause of my fear. These black men were all dressed in traditional tribal costumes. I have no idea what tribe they were from, but what I saw were huge men in leather and beads with great brightly-coloured feathered head-dresses. In other words, to me they were Indians, and the only Indians I had ever seen in my life had been those in the movies shooting arrows and killing people. Of course I was certain that was what these men were going to do, and the more they beamed at me, the more certain I was that they were trying to kidnap and murder me. However, my mother must have decided, as we were unlikely ever to have the opportunity in our lives again, that it would be cruel to deprive us of the experience of travelling around Durban in a traditional rickshaw, and so we were all made to pile into one. I don't think my father joined us, and maybe my smallest sister was not included, but certainly I remember we all squashed in with my mother, the rickshaw tipped up and the little girls screamed and screamed! It was like the firework display all over again. I don't recall whether I felt more unsafe because we were just on two wheels and the rickshaw kept tipping as though it were going to fall backwards, or whether it was the thought that we were going to be whisked off to some wigwam encampment then scalped one by one, but oh how delighted I was when we eventually escaped back onto terra firma!

The liner docked at East London and Port Elizabeth, then left Africa finally from Capetown, though not before we had ascended Table Mountain in a cable car, and also met a disabled child who was the daughter of a friend of my father's. I have no idea who she was or how my father knew them, but we sisters were all puzzled by this child who was obviously much older and bigger than us but who behaved like a much younger person. She smelt very sweaty, and kept wanting to kiss us. She was treated like a younger child, but still trusted to take us all off to the toilets without the adults at a park we visited. When we asked my parents about her we were simply told that she was handicapped and was born like that. This we accepted, as children do, but the memory rested in my heart and brain of this girl who seemed so different yet so loving.

I have poignant memories of sitting at a table on the deck of the liner with my father, sipping original flavour Lucozade (actually, I think that was the only flavour in those days), watching Table Mountain disappear into the sunset as we sailed further and further away. I sensed the sadness in my father as he told us to say good-bye to Africa, but didn't really understand that we were not just saying farewell to a continent, but to the whole way of life that I had enjoyed for my first seven years. For many years to come, I would cry when I heard the Zambian national anthem, and be haunted by recurring dreams when I would be trying to return to our home in Mufulira. Usually, there would be some problem or obstacle that would prevent me, in my dream, from reaching my destination, but on the rare occasions I did succeed in that dream land in returning home, there would always be other people, usually black, living there, who would chase us away.