Durban – the secret city
// August 20th, 2007 // Durban, Life (and the living of it), Strange Nervous Laughter
I have an enduring love affair with Durban.
It’s early morning and I’m sitting watching the lights go out as Cape Town wakes up, and I have to admit, I love this city. I love that you can walk around semi-safely, I love that there’s a long promenade next to the sea that I can pop down to during my lunch breaks, I love the bakeries.
But Durban, now there’s a city you can’t get over too easily.
I went home for a weekend a little while ago and it just reignited my passion for it – that maelstrom (is that the word?) of colours and sounds and cultures, that layer of filth that covers everything, that heady scent of tropical on the breeze. Getting a bit too lyrical, you think?
Maybe I love it so much because it’s not an easy city to get. Tourists don’t get it, people who visit for the weekend don’t get it. You have to really live in Durban to understand it. The beauty of a late-afternoon swim at Battery Beach, the overwhelming stench of fish at Victoria Street Market, Little Gujarat treats after walking the city for hours, the exhausting heat, the comfortable familiarity of Musgrave Centre. Yip, I even love Musgrave Centre.
There’s just something about Durban that’s very kind – it’s slower and sweeter than the other cities.
What’s so strange for me now is that I’m reading over excerpts of Strange Nervous Laughter (my book) and it’s such a Durban book, and then I look out the window and I’m in Cape Town, the most un-secret city of them all.
And I love them both, really, but I wonder if you ever get over the city you were born in?
5 Responses to “Durban – the secret city”
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I also think Durban is a special place; hard to get to know, but great once you do. I also think that for everyone anywhere, the place where you grow up seems like that, probably because you spent your magical childhood years there.
Check this out:
http://nosundays.livejournal.com/13954.html
http://nosundays.livejournal.com/14632.html
http://community.livejournal.com/untamedgirls/58744.html
This is such a good description of Durban which made me miss it! I should head out there soon again to catch some of those warm, hollow waves.
There is a part of Durban, which I love so, because it truly illustrates the beauty of being South African. St Anthony’s Catholic Church with its traditional architecture and innocent statues faces the modern Orient Islamic School, which shares a wall with the colourful Kendra Temple. Where else in the world, can such diversity live in harmony?
Yip, there is something nowhere-else about Durban. I wonder if it’s the mix of cultures (and such a large Indian population)? Or is it because we were kids there, as Stump says. I definitely feel most at home in Durbs.
But then there’s the rest of the world!
Is it okay to love one city and stick to it when there’s so much world to see?
Oh Bridge,
After reading that, I feel my favourite word: nostalgia.
“…A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.”
Miss you guys. London is Grey and Cold and Windy – and i’m a nerd… for today.