People from overseas, who visit South Africa for the first time, are often surprised at how Westernised and 1st world our main cities are. But don’t despair, around the next corner, you may come across a sight like this and be reminded that you are indeed in Africa! You feel like you have entered a time warp, the pace of life for these guys ambling down the street is so different to that of the motorists behind them, huffing and puffing about being slowed down in their frantic rush to get wherever they are going! Personally I love the reminder that life wasn’t always about deadlines and tight schedules!
I also love these, but I always worry about the welfare of the donkeys – some of them are terribly abused and neglected. I believe there is a charity called Donkey Care that campaigns for their wellbeing and educates owners – i wondere if you coudl publish contact details for them as I’d love to tell people about them.There was a piece in the paper here in London last week about a similar charity that aims at educating donkey owners in Ethiopia, where owning a healthy donkey can make the difference between a family’s survival or not. The one woman interviewed said she now gave her 2 healthy donkeys as much living space and luxury as she gave her own family, and she believed that if every Ethiopian had two healthy donkeys they would be happy. It made me ashamed to ever be dissatisfied with any part of my life!!
Not everybody agrees with me, but I think we should have a couple of donkey carts on the beachfront to do pleasure trips along Marine Drive with tourists and holiday makers like the ricksaws in Durban. I may just become a great attraction.