Yesterday,24th March,I attended a 50th birthday party of one of the Mohamed siblings,Sureya Holt.These Mohameds are descendants of the Magezas through the marriage of one of our cousins/aunts Baby Mageza(Mathye) to a man of Asian descnt,Mohamed. The party was hosted by Suraya's sibling,Nisha at her house in Hurlingham Manor,Sandton. The Family Mohamed,practises Islaam as a religion. I had never met,on a social level,the Mohameds.I met them very recently through a contact of one of them,Baby's grand daughter,Zenith ,whom I befriended on face book and we became soul mates.I had met her mother,Rashida,many years ago as children at the home of one of our relatives,Sam Raphalalane,where she visited way back in the 1960's.I had no opportunity to meet the rest of her siblings.Zenith's contact led to my meeting the rest of the Family Mageza-Mohamed. Meeting the Mohameds was quite a cultural shock to me.These were socalled coloured people in the South African sense.They are Moslem,they live in Kliptown 5kilometres from where I grew up,they are my blood relatives and I did not know them.Quite a culture shock. So,as I say,I have never met them on a social level. This night,I am at a party with them and I don't know how it's going to pan out. I arrived at the party earlier than a lot of of guests.Even the celebrant,Suraya,had to be fetched from 70km away as it was a surprise party for her.This waiting gave me the opportunity to stand at a vantage point to watch this new experience unfolding.The people that arrived were of the "coloured "type.Asian-coloureds,European-coloureds,socalled coloureds that look as African as me,white people,African people as in the ones from the townships and and and.So you have to interact with this new world without sounding perplexed or patronising.One needs to be very courageous to wade into this world and hope to come out without being racially bruised.South Africans from Apartheid have been so segregated that to get back to a world of unconditional integration will take quite some doing.However,the little ones who accompanied their parents went on their playing all night without the hang ups that I had all night.We need child like instincts to get back to each other.I wish I could be a child again in this era. I have been made to understand that Moslems are teetotallers.But at this party alcoholic beverages were served to some guests.Makes you think. Kitts Mageza