azaad's easter weekend at the beach

dad and me on the beach


should i eat the sand or put it in the bucket


dressed and ready for the beach.

little guy went on his first holiday with dadi. he ate most of the sand on the beach, but seemed to have great fun frolicking in the waves.

i remember my trips to Durban as a child with a great deal of fondness, we were much older, the seventies were the height of apartheid, so just to get there was an adventure, my dad had a company car on loan for the December vacation, the road was a single lane in both directions, so the drive would sometimes take 11 hours, we weren't allowed to use, the public facilities at roadside petrol stations, the "blacks only" facilities, were so awful, you would rather expose your rear to other travellers, by using the veld on the side of the road, if you were desperate enough.

once we got to Durban, the hotels would not take black clientele, so we lived with my dads cousins in isipingo beach, the designated Indian area, with it's little lagoon, and views of the oil refinery, those were fun days for us, city kids who would spend summers, on the beach, the ramifications of separate beaches lost to us at the time. eventually international hotels like the holiday inns, started taking people of colour in, then we could go to the centre of town, order room service, and have the beach close by.the car would be packed with all types of beach paraphernalia, buckets, spades, umbrella,and sandwiches that would inevitably get sand filled, on a hungry stomach, the sand didn't matter much.

the beaches were segregated according to skin colour, beware if you happened to trespass on whites only soil, it might get contaminated, the best surfing and swimming beaches were for the sole use of "white" south Africans, if you were Indian, your stretch of beach was next, then the coloureds, and the blacks at the end of the line, next to the lagoon, which was the choppiest stretch on that particular strip.the blue lagoon, as it's called where the river pores into the sea, is still a favourite hangout for fishermen, the Indian community, made this little strip their very own, on weekends families came out to picnic there, today the spirit of the area remains with a few differences, stalls selling pickles, corn in cups, toys, sweets, and teenagers hanging out in their cars with loud stereo sound, competing with the sound of the sea.

the beaches are no longer segregated, during holiday weekends there is barely a white body to be seen along any of this stretch of beach, those previously so privileged, stay home on these weekends, while the previously disenfranchised flock to the sea to frolic, and eat sand filled sandwiches.

as a teenager my first holiday at eighteen with friends from school was in Durban, we travelled by segregated train ,to stay at a friends family home in shell cross, another designated Indian suburb, we were a mixed bunch from a catholic school, Indian, black and white, the trip to the beach each day, by local taxi, with tunes from south Indian movies, blaring out of the stereo, we would go to the beach each day, our mixed group caused quite a stir, the people on the bus were friendly, always thinking they had to give up their seats for the whiteys in our group, who were getting their first real taste of how people of colour lived, no cars, no mummy's wagons to pick you up and drop you off.

then the beach, which do we use, the Indian beach it had to be, as whites were allowed everywhere, but we couldn't go the other way, we tried to use the toilet, and the poor Indian lady who's job was to clean the place, burst into tears, for fear that she would loose her job, if she allowed us in, so back to the "shit hole" on the Indian sector, where the smell alone, would encourage you to keep it all in, till you caught the bus back to shell cross.

we did it though, holidayed together, a mixed bunch of eighteen year olds, in it's way a blatant defiance of the laws that struggled to keep us apart.and when the holiday was over, the trip home was made by mini bus taxi, happy sun kissed eighteen year olds.

azaad, is a post apartheid child, none of this will be a part of his growing up, dadi, can take him on holiday to her own beach house, which would never have been possible in the seventies and eighties, he can socialise with kids of all colours on the beach, and his dad can afford a car.i remember when we got home from that first holiday in isipingo, dad's boss insulted him for using the company vehicle, to take his kids on vacation, suffice to say, the boss was flat on his back, the job a thing of the past, and dad never looked back.

the result, azaad and his siblings, will never have to be humiliated in this way ever.we have truly come a long way.