Durbania, Oh Durbania...

By Travis Lyle a.k.a DJ Hedmekanik
I live in a small seaside village where everybody knows your name, and everybody knows your business. It's a helluva thing.
There's a lot of gossip in this town, as there is in any village. Who this one slept with, why that one is leaving this one for the other one, who's getting a R15 000 rack at Parklands, how much that one spent on the new house. The scandal of you-know-who's drunken philandering, the tragedy of how X's going to grow old as a spinster, how many simpering girls have fallen pregnant from the latest wandering swordsman, how little Johnny's getting on at school and how he's just like his Dad - he's already sticking his hand down girl's pants and riding roughshod over the little kids' sandcastles.
Little savages are made by big ones, dontcha know? And where I come from, there are a lot of savages.
It's my new favourite word. No, it doesn't have any of the 'traditional' South African connotations that some may think. I just like the word because it's rather apt when used to describe the arrogant breed of new money that romps around this town. Hell, any old town nowadays has got them - they're the ones with all the money but no class. You can see them at all the 'right' restaurants & clubs, where they get drunk and behave like...well, like savages. They hang at the latest coffee shops, where they have 'business meetings' and call each other 'mah bwoy'.
They're in clothing, sportswear, property and internet companies, all the booming industries. They wear pink shirts, white flats and drive flash cars, usually convertible. Their wives and girlfriends have expensive tits and look like WAG's (there are a lot of similarities in that vein). They're crass, uncouth, clueless and live in a bubble of delusion that is reinforced by wads of cold cash. They behave, look and live as though they're in Miami or St Tropez. Nothing in their demeanour suggests that they're in Africa. For that matter, they probably couldn't tell you the names of three ministers in our government.

I live in a small seaside village on the east coast of Africa.
According the 2001 census, it has a population of 3.2 million.
 

2 comments so far.

  1. Claud October 18, 2007 at 1:06 PM
    I have also noticed that they refer to eachother as "BOY-TJEH" / pronounced "BOY-Cheh" a derivative of Boytjie,. another term best left buried with its forefathers but also now bastardised/mangled and abused by the nouveau-riche.
  2. Travis Lyle a.k.a DJ Hedmekanik October 18, 2007 at 1:13 PM
    We call 'em wopsacs. Just wish they'd stop breeding. Soon enough this town will be filled with even more bolshy twats who think the world is their oyster. Sad thing is, because they've got the money, it generally is.
    Tsk, tsk, Durbania.

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