Living on the Donkey Cart Highway

A man on a brown horse races by, off to nowhere, enjoying the speed for its sake only. A group of seven children tied together with a thin rope, run up and down the dirt road laughing. A young, very pregnant woman in a fluorescent orange T-shirt pulled taught across her big stomach passes too near the fence and the barely walking toddler accompanying her gets a big fright from my dogs which he doesn’t realise are shorter than him though have a bark as big as an elephant. The woman doesn’t comfort the baby. He screams all the way down the road in protest. A single sparrow, after all these days, sits at my bird bath, then looks at me with a face that says-where’s the water? Two donkey carts, wooden and unpainted, each pulled by four unmotivated donkeys, are piled high with watermelons, sticks of sweet reed hanging out the back. They rattle along headed toward the village; an old man is in the driver’s seat (is there a driver’s seat?) of one but a young girl holds the reins. The white corolla with a flapping rear fender tilted precariously to one side goes back to where it came from filled to overflowing with passengers. A black and white crow sits on the pillar complaining in his crow voice but only his friends can understand. A baakie coloured a blue that screams 1970, moves gently over the bumps in the road. The khaki dog, his left leg he’d been limping on now healed, walks slowly along the front of the wall driving the dogs insane with jealousy. He flaunts his freedom like a woman in new shoes.

The donkey cart returns empty.

This is the view out my window today.