Traditions Lost

I wondered what it would mean when, a few years ago, a cellphone company put up  the first transceiver on the plateau where my parents-in-law live. Add to this a 12V solar-powered socket that I installed in the home, so that cellphone charging was ready to hand. Earlier this year, I discovered what it meant. My father-in-law said to me, in Afrikaans: “The old men had respect before these cellphones came along. Now everybody talks to everybody. We are out of it. We mean nothing any more.”