Meandering in the city
2009-05-12 10:39
David Moseley
It's a great pity that our cities (or specifically, our city centres) aren't built for casual strolling.
We have vast, blunt shopping malls, but they leave little to the imagination and offer little joy to the inquisitive ambler. You walk around in numb circles, praying for a swift and merciless end.
Meandering to and from work through the city centre is probably the highlight of my day, though. And depending on what time I leave in the mornings and the evenings the sights change quite dramatically.
Early mornings bring with them lucid and innocent streets that, by evening, are normally honking angrily with traffic or oppressive with belligerent beggar children.
The start of a shaded day down Long Street comes with backpacking tourists poking their heads out of dozy backpacker's, apparently checking for the all clear before sleepily walking to the nearest Spar for a breakfast roll.
Bar cleaners sweep out the debris and slosh from the night before, while an infinitely more polite kind of beggar, before the drug-addled street kids are roused, amiably asks for money for a cigarette.
You notice a fair amount walking the same route day after day. For example, it's clear that Africans (black and white) care little for dustbins. Unwrapping something and dropping the paper or plastic instantly to the ground all occurs in one flowing movement that seems second nature; like blinking or stepping out suddenly into the traffic firmly believing that the human body will win the duel against a speeding Volkswagen.
Looking for changes
After a while, the home-to-work-to-home path becomes ingrained so you start looking around for changes in scenery.
Construction sights slowly start to become buildings (while construction workers test the limits of safety, dangling over building edges to wave at their chums), certain bars and restaurants become more or less popular as the seasons change (though one dingy establishment, aptly named The Crypt, is a perennial favourite and not afraid to serve beer from sunrise to sunrise. The earliest beer I've seen slaking a thirst was at nine am, certainly a more abrasive start to the day than the traditional cornflakes).
For me, the slow stroll is an essential part of slowing life down; it's also an opportunity to feel more connected with the city I live in. You see the people and you talk to the people, you don't simply rush from A to B. And, naturally, it's the easiest way to score cheap drugs.
Walking home in the early evenings, I pass the same three stooges without fail. There's a moth-eaten car guard, an indifferent security guard and a young, well-dressed man. They look a disparate group, but they're always huddling together, seemingly conferring over the day's non-events.
They're always on hand to volunteer their wares with such wide grins and graceful congeniality that I half expect them to be selling Tupperware and not "the strongest chronic", "the smoothest Malawian" or "some coke that will make you buzz all night".
A comic moment
Last night there was a comic moment thrown in for good measure, c'est la vie on the side streets of Cape Town. The well-dressed gent, as always, listed what he had in stock as I walked past unhurriedly.
At the same time he boldly handed me a leaflet that read "Education Loans: provide for children's education." I looked up. "Loans or weed," I asked, "which is it?"
He just smiled a kind of bashful smile, as if to say "yeah. I know. Peddling narcotics and student loans isn't exactly what I had imagined either."
I'm not sure the authorised financial provider printing the pamphlets would see the funny side.
But at the man distributing their promises of "funding for education" clearly has a keen sense irony. And at least he's offering a choice.
Send your comments to David.
Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24.
- News24