The train to Sea View ...

Hi Everyone,

In 1993-4 we lived in Sea View, Durban and I worked in the centre of town.

Since I was employed as a public servant, I decided to take some courses at the ML Sultan Technikon in Durban. Lectures happened after work and the quickest way home was by taking a train from Durban's Berea Rd Station to Sea View station. I would normally walk to my classes going West down Smith Street (now called Anton Lembede St), turn into recently renamed Julius Nyerere Rd and onto Centenary Rd where the Technikon was situated. ML Sultan amalgamated with Natal Technikon and move main campus   From the end of classes I would walk the 800-odd metres to the Berea Rd Station through various roadside stalls and a taxi rank. I would make my early night train all the time.

My Good Wife was not happy with my choice of transport but affordability trumped her safety concerns. See we had two kids in school and a third on the way, so finances were tight. So tight in fact that belt tightening was not useful - constantly wearing a financial corset was the norm! Funnily enough we were both working and earned reasonable salaries. The fact that the two kids were at former Model C schools did not help the budget much but we took a decision early in our marriage to invest in our kids' schooling as opposed to saving money for their and our futures. The idea was that we would work till they finished their schooling then we would be in a position to save some for old age. We also decided that we would plough such investments into an available business, work therein until we drop and that would be that!

It has not quite worked out as planned but we are not far off making the ideal come true!

This post is about a specific incident that happened in the few kilometres between the Technikon and home.

The Beast was long past on to rust heaven, and I had replaced it with a black la kaka Peugeot 305! and thereafter with an amazing little Ford XR3.(ran like clappers on the smell of an oil rag!) The Ford was supposed to be Valentine's Red but had so many age-induced airflow vents that it was difficult to tell its real colour. The Good Wife did not like it because of its appearance - I was crazy about this little tar banger!

Back to a specific train ride!

One evening after class, I was walking to Berea Rd Station when a car started hooting crazily behind me!! I made sure I was on the pavement and then turned around. From what I could deduce, the driver of a little car was hooting at a minibus taxi. The driver managed to get his small car wedged in front of the taxi a few metres further up the road and jumped out to confront the taxi driver.

He was a youngish white Afrikaans-sounding chap and he ran to taxi driver's open window with a rather large pistol which was pointed at the temple of the taxi driver. I stopped a few metres away to watch the
drama unfold.

The youngster shouted loud obscenities at the taxi driver. Then ... something really scary happened ...
The taxi turned his head hard into the muzzle of the gun at his temple to look into the eyes of his tormentor and without any visible fear in his eyes said in IsiZulu something to the effect: You! You see me, I'm a Zulu taxi driver, so what are you going to do with this thing pointing at my head??!!. It was the most chilling display of coolness under fire I'd ever seen and I really did not want to be in the young Afrikaner chap's shoes at that moment!!! The youngster immediately withdrew his weapon and trudged off to his car and pulled off in a huff!

This was an isolated incident that ended well but had the potential to end in tragedy. The other interesting part was that afterwards no one in the taxi or on the pavement went hysterical. We simply went on doing what we did before. I carried on the last few hundred metres to the station, etc., etc.

Suffice to say, that when I told the Good Wife of this incident, she increased the pressure on me to quit my night classes. As a man (not being a Zulu taxi driver), there is only so much pressure one can bear, so I caved in shortly afterwards.

That night I observed some of what our country had the potential to become post 1994, both in terms of bravery and tolerance. I felt a lightness of being on that train that night borne of positivity.

I also stopped casting any aspersions at Zulu taxi drivers from that point on which saved me many a time in the future, I think.

I hope you still enjoy the blog, although one of the readers indicated that it lacked "fire!"


Travel well.

The Beast in Durban ...

Hi y'all,

The last time I wrote about the Beast was a rather eventful trip to Durban through the then Orange Free State.

Now when we got to Durban, safely I might add, I found out where I was staying. Because coloured areas were few in Durban under Group Areas Act and I had to attend a formerly white educational institution, Natal Technikon, our company found lodging within short walking distance at a place called the Melbourne Road Flats. When I called upon the address given to me, I found a goodly elderly lady and an unknown fellow student from the Burghs (that would be Pietermaritzburg also known locally as Sleepy Hollow).

She was to be our landlady for the duration of our first study stay in Durban. We, my fellow student and I, found ourselves through no fault or design staying in a block of flats that had its own gang known then as "The Flat Cats" It had a leader called Dutchy and Dutchy had a relationship with our landlady's daughter.

So it came to be that we bumped into the local gang leader far more often than necessary or healthy. I had the dubious fortune to own the Beast. A sought-after source of motive power at any time but especially for 'gentlemen' who followed a code representing alternative money-making methods. Some of the older members of the Flat Cats were reasonably respectable with standard jobs and families but many were "alternatives".  The Beast and I were in high demand usually for some less than kosher activities. Due to my accommodation situation I had little chance of not being available at the 'required' times.

I remember bumping into a grumpy Dutchy once. He 'asked' if I would give him a lift to Newlands East. Rumour in Durban had it that, at that time (early eighties) Newlands East was the 'Badlands'. I told him I did not know where Newlands East was (true at the time) but he indicated that he will be happy to provide directions. This written piece does not quite reflect the tone of the 'discussion' between Dutchy and I but children also read this blog .. I presume...

To cut a long story short, we ended up outside a block of flats in the East and Dutchy liberated himself from the Beast with a few expletives, took out pistol (9mm by the looks of it) from his belt and rushed off into the block swearing he was going the kill the so-an-so! Believe what you will but I had no idea who the so-and-so was, neither had I any idea before then what the purpose of our visit was, nor did I notice the presence of the 9mm before then. Let's just say that Dutchy can become brusquely uncommunicative at certain times and our ride from Melbourne Road flats was such a time. I however did not have much time to reflect on his miserable mood while in the East.

A few rather unpleasant thoughts had inserted themselves into my suddenly elevated consciousness; to wit: Was I going to become an accessory to murder? Even if the cops did not get me, people in the Newlands East flats would easily recognise the Beast (colour, Stellenbosch number plate, etc.) which would make me a target without even knowing my future hunters wherever I go in Durban in the Beast.

So the questions that kept pouring through my stressed brain at the time were simply binomial: Do I stay or do I go? Both options had less than optimal consequences for my future well-being. While the internal debate on the least damaging option was still raging, Dutchy emerged from the block of flats looking even more visibly upset than when he had entered. I took this to mean that he did not find his target and that I was free from a possible accessory charge. My relief was palpable. Now Durban has a humiture (humidity combined with temperature) that matches or exceeds that of Miami, Florida in summer but at that point I stopped sweating with relief. The fact is that my slow thinking processes, constricted as they were by fear, saved me from rashly rushing off!!

I therefore seemed a cool ally to the gang leader although I was anything but (the but at the end being a uniquely yet not exclusively Durban township way of putting certain things).

The Beast must have been just as relieved as I because it seemed to fly back to Melbourne Rd even without further directions from Dutchy. I entreated myself with my good fortune and thinking up ways of avoiding landing in the same situation again with Dutchy.

I was blessed by our Heavenly father throughout this episode and I never had to repeat a similar undertaking.

The Beast undertook many other far less stressful and more enjoyable activities in Durban. And we enjoyed each other's company.

Unfortunately, the Beast came to an unfortunate and unexpected end at the hands of another person but more about that at another time.  

The other unfortunate thing is that I have lost all my Beast pics through moving house multiple times.

Be blessed y'all - I am.