I once lived in Pietermaritzburg. I arrived there tired, tired of Johannesburg, tired of the noise, the urgency, the performance of becoming. I had no plan whatsoever, only a quiet need to breathe again. It remains the best decision of my life.
What I found was not spectacle. It was sincerity. An arts scene that did not reach for polish or permission. People making do with what they had and somehow creating everything they needed.
A poetry session at a local tavern where words were exchanged like currency. A rap battle unfolding outside the library, verses bouncing off concrete and passing bodies. A makeshift pop-up thrift store squeezed next to a gogo selling vegetables at the market art and survival sharing the same pavement. I fell in love instantly, not with the idea of the place but with its honesty.
