Durban Urbanite

I’ve never been much of a fan of bus travel – I think largely because traveling by bus always seems to be strangely expensive and impractical in the US – and my overnight trip from Joburg to Durban last night was no aberration from this indisposition. Trying to sleep, cramped into a tiny seat surrounded by people eating smelly fast food, with overhead speakers playing music until past 3 a.m., I didn’t get a minute of shut-eye on my journey to Durban. When I finally arrived at the station at 7:00 a.m., my host, Lauren, kindly came to bus station to pick me up and transport me to our common abode in Berea near the University of Kwazulu-Natal. Setting foot in the home, I felt that all of my hopes and desires had been fulfilled. The large house, which is leased by four (perhaps five) South African university students, has a stunning view of the city and Victoria harbor – the main focus of my research. A mere several feet from my bed, I have a comfortable, shaded patio where I can recline on a chair and write or read while looking above Durban’s skyline into the depths of the Indian Ocean.

After settling into the room that I share with Justin, a post-grad student about to receive his masters, I set off to the University of Kwazulu-Natal, where Lauren works as a coordinator of the Durban International Film Festival. She graciously introduced me to her array of interesting colleagues before escorting me to the University’s Center for Civil Services, where I had a couple of meetings set up with researchers from the University. Talking to various players within CCS, I conducted a number of rich and engaging interviews and obtained many more potential contacts from my interviewees. Leaving the University around noon, I elected to hop on a bus and attempt the short trip to the downtown waterfront area.

Getting off at the Workshop – a vast shopping district with indoor and outdoor vendors selling everything from traditional Zulu garb to computer chips – I set foot in an energetic and bustling downtown that overflowed with diversity and vitality. After talking to a couple of local workers outside the immense colonial post office, I proceeded to check out some Chinese shops clustered on West Street before finally settling down to a delicious afternoon lunch of curried chicken at one of the districts hundreds of Indian restaurants (Durban has the largest population of Indians in any city outside of India). The medium-spiced curry burned a hole in my mouth, and it was only later in the afternoon that I felt my taste buds coming back to life.

I made it back to the University just in time to play a 7-on-7 game of pick-up touch rugby with friends that I’d met earlier in the day. The level was intimidating, but I jumped right in and tried to learn as I played, correcting mistakes as they were pointed out to me. It struck me that nearly every player on the pitch, regardless of age or experience, would probably be knowledgeable enough to serve as the Williams coach (no offense to Bruce, the Williams coach). It just goes to show the incredible disparity in rugby ability and popularity between the South Africa and the U.S. The game itself was incredibly fun, and I only retreated back to Lauren’s place after a diving attempt at a try left my two knees bloodied and burned from the prickly grass.

Walking home, I thought more about my initiating rugby experience in arguably the best rugby nation in the world. It had been fun, no doubt, but I couldn’t help think about the racial breakdown of the people I’d been playing with. Just over half were white, while the remaining players were both black and Asian. While this would be an impressively diverse crowd in the U.S., in South Africa, where over 90% of the population is non-white, it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. To make matters worse the soccer pitch next to ours was being played on by an entirely black crowd numbering over 30 players or so. While I absolutely love the adrenaline and competitiveness of rugby as a sport, I’m conflicted by the historical baggage that it appears to carry here in South Africa. To be fair, the group I was playing with was in fact very diverse. But it was far from proportionally representative of the population here. And even if it was, why wasn’t there a single white person playing soccer with the 25-30 black athletes on the pitch next to us?