FUN IN DURBAN
We needed
some time off. It has been a long Term 1 at school. I have been busy with many
things, from peer educator training to safe male circumcision recruiting to
launching the school newspaper to teaching guidance & counseling to
teaching maths to coaching track and then softball. The school schedule
included a one-week break in April, so we decided to take a short trip
somewhere. We wanted a place where we could just relax. At this point we are
fully integrated into our community, so we did not feel the need for a similar
cultural experience.
We decided
to visit Durban, South Africa. With 3.5 million people, it is the nation’s third
largest city, after Johannesburg and Cape Town. It is located on the Indian
Ocean, on the eastern side of the country, and it is pretty much ignored by
international tourists. It has a humid subtropical climate and long sandy
beaches, making it a popular summer (i.e. December) holiday destination for
middle class South Africans. It also has a good port, and so most goods from
China, Japan and India destined for southern African countries arrive in
Durban. Also, South African exports are shipped from Durban, including sugar
from the many sugar cane plantations that surround the city. The port is
supposedly Africa’s largest, and it dates back to the 1850’s when settlers
began to grow sugar cane in what is now the Kwa Zulu Natal province.
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| Art Deco condos on the waterfront |
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| Stephanie inspecting the container ship cranes at the Port of Durban |
It is hard
to describe Durban. Because of the mixture of beach, port and other businesses,
it is sort of a cross between Miami Beach and Long Beach, California. It is modern
like an American city, but it is definitely not American. The majority of the
population is black Africans, followed by Indians and whites. The Indians came
to Durban in the nineteenth century to work in the sugar plantations. They have
a big cultural influence here: “Durban curry” is a spice found throughout
Africa on everything from packaged sauces to potato chips. While walking
around, by chance we came across an old office building that once housed
Mahatma Gandhi’s law office. He began to work on civil rights issues while
there, and took his experiences with him when he returned to India many years
later.
Since
Durban is in South Africa, apartheid played a big part in its development. The
neighborhoods, many businesses and even the beaches were segregated through the
1980’s among whites, coloreds, Indians and blacks. All of that has been
scrapped, and there have been many efforts to supply new housing, electricity
and water in historically black areas. Still, economic segregation remains, and
it largely falls along racial lines.
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| This is a photo of South Beach, Durban from the 1980's |
That’s
enough history. We stayed at a very nice bed & breakfast in a residential
hillside neighborhood with a view of the ocean. We walked a few blocks away to
a street full of good restaurants, sort of like the Adams Morgan neighborhood
in Washington, DC. We walked to the Durban Botanic Gardens to see rare southern
hemisphere plants and blooming orchids. We took taxis to enjoy the beach, the
port area and the Indian market downtown. All in all, we just enjoyed ourselves
being tourists.
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| Inspecting the tree ferns at the Durban Botanic Gardens |
Lucky for
us, our trip coincided with two interesting diversions. Stephanie was able to
keep up with the Oscar Pistorius trial via, of course, the Oscar Pistorius
Trial Channel, a real cable channel available on the television in our room.
The channel broadcast each trial session live, followed by hours of color
commentary. While we were staying there, Oscar was undergoing the grueling cross-examination
from the prosecutor.
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| The South Africa press is all over the Pistorius trial |
For me, I
got to enjoy observing the politicking in advance of the May 7th
elections in South Africa. Political parties posted signs on street light
poles. The city was full of billboards and sound trucks and noontime rallies.
The newspapers were full of election stories. I am not going to get into any
further detail, because Peace Corps Volunteers are forbidden to get involved
with local politics. Period. Our job is to help with the development of
communities, and our role could be compromised if any of us appears to be
campaigning for one politician or another. Even though we are based in
Botswana, there are Peace Corps Volunteers in South Africa, so I have to be
careful not to say something on the Internet that conceivably could compromise
some volunteer’s effectiveness or safety.
Finally, a
word about safety in Durban. Guidebooks warn tourists about crime and describe
several areas that tourists should avoid. We walked all over the city and
experienced no problems. The gritty commercial blocks near the Indian market
are supposedly a no-go area, but we wandered around without problem and even found
a street side restaurant serving great chicken shawarma. They say that the way
to find a place that serves good hygienic street food is to locate one with a
line of local people out front. That’s what we did.
Nevertheless,
in the upscale neighborhood where we stayed in Durban, all of the house lots
were walled in, topped with electrical wire and spikes. Each front wall sported
a sign revealing the owner’s “armed response” security company. The
neighborhood property owners also pay for private security guards to drive and
walk around the streets. In light of our experience in Durban, I wonder whether
it is overkill (maybe a poor choice of language). Still, I do not have enough
information to judge, and I do understand that police response times in South
Africa are less than ideal.
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| View from our room toward the ocean. See the stadium built for the 2010 World Cup |
