War Living: Part 2

Once a year we made the trek from Zimbabwe to Pretoria, South Africa, to spend Christmas with my mother's parents. It involved a day's drive south from one of the many towns we then lived in.

A day's trip in and of itself is hard enough, but no-one was allowed to travel alone during the war-time. Cars formed up in convoys kilometres long, with armed army vehicles at back, front and in the middle. These usually took the form of a "Ratel" mine-proof vehicle. Miss the convoy, and you got to wait until the next one came around. It was no use rushing if they'd left an hour or two before you - the border closed at 5 and you'd have to spend the night in the bush if you missed it anyway. Not the safest of sleeping-places in the African Wilds!

On one particular trip my dad's car got a flat tyre and only just made it to the half-way stop. Changing the tyre took too long, so off the convoy went without us. Tyre changed, and dad raced like crazy to catch up, praying all the way. We managed to slip in to the back of the convoy after nearly an hour's tense trip.

Many farmers bought their own Ratels - terrorists were known to mine farm roads and you couldn't take too many chances. For us kids it was yet another fun thing to ride in. We took delight in the many bits and pieces inside, peering out small windows as we hurtled down the dirt roads.

One friend of ours developed his own protection system. He made an upright "fan" of small black plastic tubes, rigged to a trigger system and loaded with a bullet each. He mounted one on each side of the roof of his vehicle. At the first sign of ambush he pressed a button, the fans fell down horizontally, and bullets sprayed in all directions.

While in convoy we once stopped near the border for a "pee and water" break. Mother was amusing us kids by blowing up balloons. Unfortunately for her, one popped! The car was immediately surrounded by scarily-armed soldiers, who had mistaken the popping ballon for gunfire! They gave mom a stern warning not to play with anything that could explode, and left her blushing with embarassment.

My dad, being a pastor, was often called out to folk who lived in the next town late at night. His trips there and back were spent praying for protection, praying he'd make it there safely and back in the pitch-dark night. On one occasion, we'd all been to church in the next town and managed to get home again by dark - only to hear that a mere 15 minutes after we'd passed a road-side shop there had been an attack on it, leaving all occupants and a number of passers-by dead.

I guess we'll never know half the times God had his hand of protection over us as we travelled the war-torn roads of our country