My Younger Years

I thought back at my life today and especially growing up as a child in South Africa, the really good times we had and how lucky we were. What a good country it was then for us. We never really understood the underlying problems and the uncertain and challenging future lying ahead of us.

The earliest memories was living on a small holding (like a really small farm) in an area called Bredell. Bredell was on the East Rand (halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria). These days, a small holding or farm must be one of the most unsafe places to live on in South Africa.

We lived 2 small holdings away from the school. When the school bell rang, i could run and still make it to school in time. We had a lot of chickens, doves, geese's, 2 x cows and 2 x dogs. The 1 x cow, a black and white cow named Kolletjies, meaning "spots", i inherited from my grandmother when she passed away. How many times i stole my fathers pellet gun when he went to town to walk around in the bush and "hunt", shoot target or just to hold it. Me and my sister stealing cookies from the "spens" (store room), which my mother baked.

Beside all the animal life, we also have lots and lots of fruit trees, vegetable gardens, maize fields and a cement dam which my father filled with Karp (fish), which my dad caught. How my father taught me to raise birds (mostly pigeons) by feeding them with my mouth and how i raised a pigeon called "Piet" (a homer pigeon) and another called "choccy" (a tumbler pigeon). They were so tame that they would fly away and come back. Piet would fly through the house straight into my room and sit on top of my wardrobe which my mother did not approve of.

We lived there until i was about 10 years old, then moved into town into a normal 3 x bedroom house in Edleen (a suburb of Kempton Park, also on the East Rand). How i enjoyed playing rugby in the backyard, in the parks with my friends and at school? How we could walk to school without fear of being murdered, robbed..., nowadays that is not the case anymore in the "new" South Africa.

How sad me and my older sister were when we learned that my father received a job in Durban, Kwazulu Natal (about 700km away) and that we had to move again.

Durban is a coastal harbour city on the South African east coast with a huge Indian population. What a great life we had there, the friends we made that we are still in contact with today. This is where my love for curry started. After every night out, we would go and buy a "Bunny Chow". This was a quarter loaf of bread, hollowed out and filled with a South Indian curry ("a Durban curry"), with the soft hollowed out bread placed on top, like a lid. Normally served with sambals (a tomato, onion and chili salad). The Bunny Chow is normally eaten with your hands only by breaking pieces of bread off and dipping it in the curry. It is still one of the Durban locals most favorite food.

My parents getting divorced about 4 years after arriving in Durban. Me and my sister off to boarding school and me later doing my National Service in the South African Navy (it was compulsory at the time).

What great memories of the good times and the little challenges we faced in our young lives?