Gcina Mhlope.

GCINA Mhlope’s beautiful one-woman show, My Travelling Bag, is being staged at the Rhumbelow Theatre in Cunningham Road, Umbilo, Durban at 2 pm on Sunday, May 15. I was lucky enough to see this show at the 2015 Musho Festival and I urge you to go and see it.

In My Travelling Bag, Mhlope shares the story of journeys she has taken since she was a small child.

“From a very young age I got to travel all over my home province, KwaZulu-Natal,” she says. “From my hometown Hammarsdale to Port.Shepstone, to Dundee, to Nongoma, it all seemed like such faraway places. I thought I was the most widely young person ever. It felt great!

“But my beloved grandmother, Gogo, sounded a word of warning: ‘There is a bigger world out there’. Those were wise words indeed. How very prophetic too.

“In the past 33 years I have been blessed to travel the length and breadth of this amazing world. The number of suitcases I have bought, the stamps in my passports, amazing friendships.

“Oh the amazing experiences the countless the mementos and memories that fill my head like an enchanted African forest. The amazing theatres, long hours at international airports, delayed flights, the many cultures and frustrating times filled with fear and homesickness.

“But nothing can top the joy of sharing the stories of my people on world stages, the magical universality of these stories, proving once and for all that people are more alike than different. In my travelling bag there are all the 33 years of international travelling. But they can only be told and shared, one bowl at a time.”

Tickets are R140 (pensioners and block bookings of eight or more R120) at Computicket. Booking is essential. Bring food picnic baskets but no drinks. There is a cash bar. Inquiries: email roland@stansell.za.net or phone 082 499 8636.