Warwick Avenue Case

WARWICK AVENUE, FIVE THIRTY, FRIDAY AFTERNOON…

It’s just an ordinary Friday afternoon where you just feel restrained and confined to your home. That day was another draining day, the heat was unbearable but as the sun setting over the skyline of the towering buildings in the hustle and bustle of Durban C.B.D. The idea of taking a cool walk down Warwick Avenue seemed so welcoming and appealing to me. To some people it might have seemed more stressful walking through the masses of people fighting to make a living in this concrete jungle I call home. But to me when I see everybody either trying to make their way home or trying to catch that taxi I somehow feel a sense of calm overwhelm me. Maybe it was because all this made me feel at home. I am a South African a true Durbanite.

Trade is the name of the game on the Warwick Avenue stretch. Warwick Avenue represents an important business hub within the city of

Durban. There are street vendors situated at nearly every corner, selling a variety of goods ranging from vegetables and fruits to beautiful beaded cultural Zulu and Indian attire. You could smell the alluring aromas of Ingila (braaied chicken liver kebabs) and braaied meilies in the air. Taxi horns go off here and there and it sounded like vuvuzelas at an intense World Cup soccer match at Moses Mabhida. A street vendor shouting, “five rand airtime MTN, Vodacom, Cell C”. These are some of the sounds and atmosphere of a truly Warwick experience

Warwick Avenue is a true reflection and example of South Africa’s rainbow nation. Walking along Warwick Avenue at around five thirty in the afternoon you could feel a sense of South African culture, and that you are in a truly African city. There is no other place in Durban where you could feel and experience South African culture better than here.

Whilst mellowing in these thoughts I’m quickly brought back to reality as a gunshot rings through the air, everybody left what they were doing and ran in the masses towards the sound. Only to discover that the police were in a scuffle with the morning market traders over the closure of the market. Immediately the sirens of an ambulance shrieked by, to attend to those that have been injured. The police commanded control of the area and all bystanders retreated to what they had been doing earlier.

I continued to walk on only to be stopped awhile later