A Return to Paradise and its People - Durban

SHOEMAKERS Craft skills in South Africa were
severely damaged under the restriction of apartheid.
As the new South Africa blooms, craftspeople are
returning to the streets, their skills often informed
by the trickle of people from countries further north.
Shoemakers are a prime example of this, and you
can get shoes fixed while-you-wait all over Durban.
The price is low, the quality is high, and a muchloved
pair of shoes gets to walk once again.
34
MARKETS Many Durbanites buy much of their food from the various
markets in and around Durban. Fish markets, meat markets and fresh
produce markets line the commuter route out of Durban where a
significant number of the city’s residents buy their evening’s provisions
on the way home. On the periphery of the markets, smaller traders sell
all manner of wares from audio cassettes to belts, headache tablets to
loose cigarettes. While the markets are the cheapest source of basic
foodstuffs for working class consumers, middle class Durbanites generally
do their shopping at supermarkets in malls, or at stores near their
homes. Additionally, many pay a substantial premium for organically
grown vegetables produced by small-scale farmers, available at morning
markets and fleamarkets. Increasingly, many of the city’s fleamarkets
also sell a variety of fresh produce and manufactured foodstuffs.
The Markets of Warwick City Guide The Warwick Junction area is one of Durban’s most important commercial
and transit hubs, particularly for the city’s working class, many of whom straddle the urban/rural divide. In Warwick
you’ll find an extraordinary array of human activity which caters to the hundreds of thousands of people who move
through the area each day. Cars roar by overhead on newly built freeways while herbalists sell traditional medicine
on an abandoned fly-over now linked by a footbridge to the activities below. Follow that bridge and you’ll find yourself
in a vibrant, polyphonic world that is home to a mass of commercial and cultural activities, including various markets
which sell everything from blue jeans and farm-fresh produce to religious goods and cooked animal heads. The
eThekwini Municipality has produced a series of City Guide area maps, including one which explores the various
markets of Warwick. Pick up a copy of the Markets of Warwick City Guide at Tourist Junction in the centre of Durban.