Member-only story
About Me,
What sticks in my memory
My background:
Seventy years ago, I was born in South Africa to mixed-race parents. My father was a Hindu & a door-to-door salesman. My mother, a person of color & a servant in boarding houses for white people. They were not married but lived together & had four children. I am the oldest of three girls.
If you know anything about racial issues in South Africa, it was not only between whites & blacks. The worst form of racial hatred & prejudice was among the non-white races.
The Indians despised coloreds & blacks. At the age of five & six years, I remember how my father's family verbally abused my parents.
At that time, my father had two general stores in our hometown & he was an astute businessman. So my mother addressed him as Mister & I called him daddy.
His Indian family often visited & constantly berated both my parents for their 'evil' relationship. I do not remember any of my mother's family. She was the illegitimate product of an Afrikaner & maid discretion. She worked as a domestic servant & had no schooling. I remember we had a large house. My mother worked at one of the stores part-time & took care of us.
Well, now, I have no idea how both of my parents became alcoholics. It must have been a curse, as his family predicted…
