Living the dream… on the Durban docks.

Five stories high I sit in my luxury five by 12 metre flat overlooking the Daehoo Frontier, a Panama cargo ship anchored in the harbour. I dreamt it came whizzing by me last night, but it is still there, waiting, waiting, like the ghost town of a development that I have found myself in.

The Sails is circular with a little river running through it. It has two stories of empty shops, except for a cocktail bar that opens on Fridays and Saturdays. Most of the flats remain empty, because prospector buyers are waiting for a better time to sell. Some people live in penthouses on top, with their manicured gardens and pools overlooking the Durban beachfront. A canal winds its way around The Sails, continuing on its fruitless journey around several other luxury buildings. It’s beaming with fish, a result of uShaka Marine World releasing its water into the canal.

There are also gondolas with little battery powered motors, which, if you pay R60, will give you a somewhat watered down version of the Venetian equivalent. Walking by them the other day, I met two guys holding leaf catchers. There weren’t any leaves in the canal and they looked bored. But they had to keep holding those leaf catchers, lest someone spotted them (via CCTV) not doing their job.

The whole development area is deserted. There is a private security company that keeps the place as safe as a fortress. When you walk around this area, be it in the morning or past midnight, you feel safe, because there are lights and CCTV cameras everwhere you go. So safe … and dead boring.

There are several reasons why this monster of a development isn’t getting the annoying wealthy residents it so desperately craves. Firstly, the boat club, which has given such joy to Durban residents for so many decades, has fought with all its puny might to stay where it rightly belongs. But money buys politicians and it buys power and it buys land. The club will be demolished soon and a small luxury harbour will be built so a Richard Branson-type of guy can sail right up to his penthouse in The Sails.

The next reason why its still has its gift wrapping on and is lying under the Christmas tree well into September is because the Point Road area has been taken over by Aliens. Not District 9 aliens. No, much worse. Nigerian Aliens. And rich, niave brats don’t like driving through that area to get to their kitsch paradise. I’m sure the powers that be will eventually find a place to evict these unwanted refugees.

Because of these delays in cleaning up the area, certain developments are half finished. The old pub that was so famous, lies half gutted. A beautiful scene lies just in front of my Daehoo. It’s segments of walls that have remained after its building was gutted. The reason for this is that Amafa (who is chaired by the Ilanga MD who I have just worked for and whose offices lie in front of this site) says they must retain the original outer walls in their new design. “The architect is actually pretty switched on,” the MD/chairman told me.

I took a run tonight that really made me happy. It reminded why I love being in this crazy country. I started in my fake Venice, crossing the countless bridges (some already falling apart), found myself in a construction zone with a fellow runner (we were both slightly lost and trying to find our way back to a place of running safety), and then I went down to the fateful boat club where a hundred or so paddlers were getting on the water for a surf ski dice. I ran past two lovers wrapped in each others arms, past poor fisherman who were catching their family meal; I ran past Moyo, a touristy restaurant that has a bar on the beach, past the ship that I had dinner in recently (it has big ragged tooth sharks in a fish tank, which swim past you while you eat the line fish of the day), and past uShaka’s water world.
That’s really where the luxury ends. Suddenly you’re in another construction zone and to escape it I ran into the Point Road zone. Here began the real South Africa. People of different backgrounds sat in their cars listening to music, some starting braais on the sidewalk, others enjoying their hard earned beer. Kids played soccer on a helicopter pad, while in a car park some guy taught his friend the latest hip hop dance move. The promenade that was built over 40 years ago is crumbling. The water rides have no water in them. I imagine the beaches back in Apartheid being in complete working order: I see it full of white people only, I see orchestral bands playing music, kids playing in the water baths; I see the glamourous in the nearby hotels and restaurants that were once so fashionable. Nice. But although that time in the past was so slick, it was also so very evil. And I am so happy that I was never a part of that; I am happy that I am apart of this, even with its crumbling decay, even with its lack of prestige and fashion.

When returned to the boat club I looked back. The sun was lowering over a fabric of the new (uShaka), the old (a vandilised Edwardian building with two fading snakes on the wall revealing its Salvation Army links) and the future (Moses Mabhida Stadium).

When night falls, queuing ships light up the sky, creating a mystical circle with the bright lights on the beach front. This truly is one crazy paradise.

Which is why, home will be such a pleasant change.