Fun in Durban

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.

 

Art Deco condos on the waterfront

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

The South Africa press is all over the Pistorius trial

            For me, I got to enjoy observing the politicking in advance of the May 7^th 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. 

 

View from our room toward the ocean. See the stadium built for the 2010  World Cup