Mini emnandi kuwe!

I celebrated my 28^th birthday last week.  It was definitely a bittersweet moment.  Though I really missed all my friends and family from home, I was very grateful and appreciative for my new ones here in South Africa.

My birthday celebrations began at the office when my colleagues surprised me with a birthday cake at lunch time.  They sang happy birthday, including the Zulu edition of the song, and then I blew out the candles. 

There is nothing like having Happy Birthday sang to you in Zulu - "Mini emnandi kuwe!"  It melted my heart!

 After work Ali and I decide to go to Zack’s for dinner.  This is our usual place across the street that we go to on Thursdays for the live music.  An oldie but a goodie!  We had our usual waiter, Ruben, who has now taken quite a liking to us.  Ali has even noticed that he keeps an eye out after we leave to make sure we get home safe.  By 9:30pm we had to be at the airport to collect (South African way of saying “pick up”) Joseph, who was flying in from Jo’burg for the weekend festivities.  We had decided to wait for him before we have birthday cake (we actually had milk tart instead!) and Amarula!

On Friday we fetched (another South African way of saying “pick up”) Mat from the bus station.  Mat had just arrived on the overnight bus from Grahamstown and was definitely ready to party! J 

First on the agenda was a tour of the Warwick Market (which has always seemed like a very intimidating place whenever we drive by it).  Here is some information:

The Warwick Junction lies on the edge of the Durban's inner-city and is the primary public transport interchange in the city. On an average day the area accommodates 460,000 commuters, and at least 6,000 street vendors. Given the confluence of rail, taxi and bus transport, this area has always been a natural market for street vendors. The Markets of Warwick includes between 5,000 and 8,000 vendors trading in 9 distinct markets. Currently this is the only informally structured market in a public space of this magnitude, and thus establishes itself as the single most authentic African market that South Africa has to offer.  The products available vary from beadwork, traditional arts and crafts, traditional cuisine, fresh produce, music and entertainment merchandise, clothing, accessories and traditional medicine.

The tour was extremely interesting.  We started off at the Victoria Street Market and proceeded from there.

Our first stop was the Bead Market, which is only open on Fridays.  The bead vendors, who sell their own products, usually travel from the coastal regions adjacent to the city to trade. 

 Our next stop was the iMpepho and Lime Market.  Here traders sell balls of white and red lime used to paint the faces of trainee and recently qualified iZangoma (Zulu healers).  Vendors also sell mpepho which is a traditional incense used to facilitate communication with one's ancestors.

We then went through the Music Bridge Market to get to the Herb Market, where one can buy muti (traditional African cures) for just about anything.  Vendors were selling different coloured powders, dried parts of dead animals, and various plants cut up in tiny pieces.  Sherylle kept on trying to convince me that I should buy some mother-in-law muti to make my future mother-in-law like me.  I kept on trying to tell her that I should be fine without it.

Next we visited the Bovine Head Market.  Bovine head meat is a Zulu delicacy. Originally the preparation of cow head was done only by men, however nowadays mostly women prepare the meat and are the predominant traders within the market.  Yes this was as gross as it sounds.  We were offered to sample some bovine meat with steamed bread, salt and chilly peppers. 

It wasn’t awful, but it probably would have tasted better if there weren’t cow heads staring at us.

We finished our tour with the Early Morning Market, which sells a variety of fresh produce, spices, flowers and live poultry, followed by the Brook Street Market and Berea Station.

Overall the tour was incredibly interesting and a great way to learn about African culture, tradition and way of life.

To continue our cultural experience Sherylle took us to Wilson’s Wharf to have some Indian food (of course a Durban delicacy).  Sherylle, Mat and Joseph all ordered bunny chows, a South African fast food dish consisting of a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with curry, that originated in the Durban Indian community.  Personally, I wanted something “lighter”.

In the afternoon Ali had to go back to work, but Sherylle took Joseph, Mat and I to visit Chatsworth.  During the apartheid era Chatsworth was the Indian township created as a result of the Group Areas Act, populated by those removed from their homes in mixed-race and whites-only areas.  Today, it is one of Durban’s largest suburbs with just over 450,000 residents.  We visited the Hare Krishna Temple of Understanding.  Sherylle also showed us the house where she grew up as well as her current home.  Overall, the entire day proved to be a wonderful cultural insight into Durban life, both past and present.

On Saturday morning Joseph and I went for a 10k run.  Yes that is right!  I did it and I was so proud of myself!  I have never been a runner, in fact I have always dreaded it.  But after I arrived in Durban I discovered that this is by far one of the best and most enjoyable ways to stay active.  So I have been running about 4.5 to 5k every morning before work.  Not only that, but I have actually come to love it!

We spent the morning at the beach!  Yes!  I finally went to the beach.  (It’s not my fault though, the weather hasn’t been great.) 

Sabrina joined us around noon.  She had only arrived on Saturday morning from Grahamstown and had arranged to do a market tour as well.  We spent the afternoon shopping and getting ready for the night of festivities ahead of us.

After we got ready, we quickly discovered that calling taxis would prove much more onerous during COP-17.  So we went outside and Ali managed to work her charms in hailing us a cab. 

We had reservations at Spiga D’Oro, one of the best Italian restaurants in Durban.  Ali’s co-workers Willene and Emma met us there.  We had a wonderful dinner with a lot of wine, appetizers, pastas and desserts. 

After dinner we went to Rocca, a club located in an incredibly sketchy part of town, which proved to be really nice.  We had tons of fun! 

It was an awesome night!  Thanks everyone for making my birthday celebrations so special:  Ali, Sherylle, Tando, Amy, Iqbal, Joseph, Mat, Sabrina, Willene and Emma. 

On Sunday we were supposed to go surfing, but the weather and the blue-bottles in the waters made that impossible. 

Side note:  I just looked up blue-bottles on Wikipedia (because I had no idea what the guy was talking about) and they are actually called Portuguese Man o’War J  It’s a jellyfish-type thing.  Its venom can paralyze small fish and other prey.  Its sting usually causes sever pain to humans, leaving whip-like, red welts on the skin.  Thanks but no thanks!

So anyhow instead we decided to climb the 550 stairs that took us to the top of the Moses Mabhida Stadium.

Then we went to uShaka Marine World, where we visited the largest aquarium in the Southern Hemisphere.

It was a wonderful fun-filled weekend.  Though the weather didn’t exactly cooperate and our planned schedule was pretty much shred to pieces we had an awesome time.  I’m not lying when I say that I was in bed by 8:30pm on Sunday night!