Durban surfing World Cup wave
Luke Phillips
It may be winter in South Africa, with Arctic temperatures swirling
around Johannesburg for evening World Cup games, but the Indian Ocean
city of Durban is thriving in its sub-tropical climate.
“The warmest place to be,” boast the posters promoting the 2010 World
Cup of Durban, host to seven matches including a semi-final.
Well, they weren’t lying, and bar a couple of monsoon-like downpours,
it is winter in name only.
Surfers ride the waves, football and cricket games dot the wide sandy
beach, and others merely content themselves with a gentle stroll in
temperatures that can surpass 25 degrees C (77F) in the day.
Sunday saw thousands of people, dressed in shorts, congregating on
Marine Parade, recently renamed O.R.Tambo Drive after the late ANC
activist.
On offer were beach volleyball, cricket and football, rock climbing
and abseiling, a skate park and indigenous games, while Indian dancers
and troupes of gumboot dancers performed for passing crowds.
“It’s great for us to be doing this every day in front of so many
people,” said gumboot maestro Isaac, a Zulu from the impoverished
Kwa-Mashu township north of Durban.
His Wellington boots embellished with bells, Isaac’s troupe go
through an intricate set of choreographed moves that involve stamping
the ground and lots of clapping in a dance that originates from the
communication methods used by South African gold miners under ground.
Just behind the gumboot dancers, South Korean football fan Lee
Chang-Su scored two goals in an impromptu beach football match with his
friends against a makeshift side made up of locals and England fans
wearing the red shirt of 1966.
“We’ve travelled around following the South Korean team. We’ve been
cold, but not anymore,” he beamed. “We’re staying for our country’s game
against Nigeria on Tuesday and leave on Thursday.
“I scored two great goals and now we must go and cool off.”
The official FIFA Fan Fest is located at South Beach, which prior to
the World Cup was a no-go zone as darkness fell because of security
concerns.
But a major revamp of the beachfront, including the addition of 2.6
kilometres of walkway, has seen it tidied up, although police presence
remains incredibly high, especially at night.
The challenge will be to keep it as safe as it is now, said a white
local resident who only wanted to be identified as Yvonne.
“Firstly, what has happened here makes me proud to be a South
African,” she said. “Before, everything shut down at 5.30pm and no one
went out. “It’s still a little hairy in the streets behind the parade,
but at least people are seeing what it could and should be like if
everyone behaves themselves.
DURBAN, South Africa, Monday AFP |