Time Warp 2 Years, Eish! London 7 July 2012

Saturday, 7 July 2012

My flat overlooks Greyville Racecourse, Durban city skyline, South Africa, and today is the Durban July Horse Race Day, an event that host 55 000 guests at minimum R200 (we are at about R13 buying one Pound) a ticket, that’s worth more than 20 loaves of bread here…
Since about 10 this morning folks have been arriving via foot, bus, car, taxis and helicopters. This morning was a continuous flow of helicopters flying in (just to irritate me with the pollution and noise). The number of cars and people are really insane, as people from all over South Africa have arrived for the event. Yesterday, the freeway into Durban from Johannesburg clocked over 1000 cars an hour going through the toll booths. All flights into the city were fully booked too, along with all the hotels in the area. All for a few hours of horses running around an oval…
I have chosen not to go to the afternoon, under the guise of having to write my Honours assignment, and obviously my really tight cash flow. Instead, I went and spoilt myself by buying a R270 bottle of cointreau (orange flavoured liquor, please don’t tell the people I turned down about that, thanks, but I’ve been saving since my birthday in February), and spending my Clicks (South African Boots Store) vouchers on cleaner for my bite plate and tissue oil to work on my stretch marks (as my Mom is at the races I could borrow her car, because I’m still waiting to organise a new one after my car accident). Meanwhile, the rest of the ‘wealthy’ part of the city are drinking copious amounts of alcohol.
(I know people will think I’m a party-pooper, but I did think about the thousands of litres of alcohol being consumed and my mind wondered whether or not any unwanted children/abortions would result from all the partying…)
Whilst observing people walking under my top story window (in elegant, crazy and everyday outfits) it was interesting to note that today hosted the largest number of men I’ve ever witnessed urinating against walls. Men in fancy suits unzipping and relieving themselves, as they thought ‘no one was watching’; which brought the debate I’ve been having with myself about the definition of ‘class’ to the fore. (Ok, I know it’s low, but I loved that pun ;) They have lots of cash, but are they classy?
When the security guard told the one guy off, the language that he degraded the guy with afterwards with his mates was disgusting.

So outside my window I have polite, hardworking security guards and car guards doing their jobs, and already drunkly arrogant, dirty mouthed ‘gentlemen’… and who does society define as ‘classy’?

I was at Honours lectures yesterday with teachers who dedicate their lives to changing others and helping others. People who pay out of their pockets without question, to improve others’ life. Then I move on to hostess a rugby box that very same evening where someone will flippantly say: ‘just charge the R140 a head for the food for all these 8 people to the company.’ Where I have a lady who complains, without fail, every single rugby game, be it about the food, the bar, the box, while she chatters about surface area stuff in her impeccably manicured and make-upped appearance, alongside her husband who runs three companies and is virtually a chain smoker… another man who is shorter and louder than any human being I have ever encountered in my life, who continually brings up issues that the box had a few years ago (when I was not a hostess), where his blatant underlying nasty comments are ‘covered over’ with some sweeping comment like: ‘but it’s ok now.’ Or ‘we sorted it out’. Or ‘we get on now’… no one is allowed to be louder than him and all his hand gestures make him appear like he is trying to make himself bigger than his little size by expanding the area his hand movements take up. Of course, he knows everyone in the box and comes to check our reservations and ticket list so he can find out who has arrived and who hasn’t, like it’s actually any of his business at all. Then there are the genuinely friendly and caring people too, those who love that you remember them and those who share their stories with you, mostly the ladies as the men are too busy being hungry, getting beer and watching the 30 men on the field running around after the funny shaped ball.

That was me yesterday, and today I find myself a Rapunzel in her tower looking down on all the souls moving around in the streets below. Very very rich and very very poor. Very rude, and unbelievably kind, merry and bothered, walking slowly and late, walking in the right direction and the wrong direction. Stone cold sober and very tipsy, loud and soft spoken, dressed to impressed, dressed to blend and dressed to simply keep warm, or be in uniform for the job. Police and partiers, workers and revelers, all in the same streets at the same time.

How do we all turn out so differently? What are all the stories for all these dozens of people I’ve encountered in a mere 24 hours? Are they aware of their stories and how they became who they are? Have they ever questioned things like I do? Or are they simply coasting along until their lives are done?

It’s been roughly 3 years since I was at Ascot Races, UK, and the Hong Kong Happy Valley Races; 4 years since I attended a Durban July, SA; and 7 years since I went to the Gold Cup in Dubai. Dubai, I was rather well off, SA, I was doing well, UK, I wasn’t doing too badly, Hong Kong things were tough; now, ends are meeting… I’ve moved through 4 phases of wealth, through 4 different spaces and I know I’ve always been where I’m supposed to be, but how come each racing space saw such a very different me? As I’ve been through them all, what does the future hold, what am I / the Universe going to choose next? What has taken away my inclination to walk down my stairs, walk across the road and join the revelers and partiers in their fun and games… next year, maybe I’ll join them all again next year… the sound of 55 000 people cheering on those horses is invigorating!

I can only imagine what my ‘social set’ would be thinking if they read this… can’t believe I’ve managed to spend over 5 hours at my window and haven’t read a single Honours reading… again…it only took 4 hours before I saw people walking back to their cars in the gale force winds… all that effort for a few hours… people, we are strange creatures indeed…