Durban had experienced some serious monsoon weather on this particular week. Even thought the rain had stopped two days prior, we were still weaving around large puddles all over the roads - much like the standing water under the tree of this first image, which is what I had actually stopped to photograph before my attention was swept away by a man weaving baskets out of Bamboo. After sometime of pretending not to notice each other, I finally pluck up the courage to approach him and strike up a conversation.

He tells me his name is Conrade Zivengwa. He is 34 years old and is from Zimbabwe. At first our conversation stops and stalls often because Conrade struggles to understand my accent. His english was extremely good though, so I took that opportunity to ask as few questions as possible and rather him say what he feels like saying. This worked well and I found that it made him more comfortable as I was not interrupting him as much. 

He was very very softly spoken, so much so that I have to stand very close to him to hear him over the passing traffic. He tells me he lives in a location/shanty town in Marrion Hill, an industrial node on the outskirts of Durban. He sells his baskets around the more affluent Durban suburbs - Durban North, Hillcrest and Morningside.

Conrad tells me he is from a place called Masvingo in Zimbabwe. He used to work as a machinist at a packaging factory making flour and maize sacks. I founds this quite ironic because the machine that Conrade is talking about weaves plastic strips together in much the same fashion that Conrade is weaving bamboo to make baskets in front of me.

"The factory closed down many years ago and things in Zimababwe are always up and down! So I came here! When I came to South Africa in 2010 it was very difficult because there was no work. I met a man who taught me how to do this work (weaving bamboo) and at first I was not good but now I am much better."

Whilst we are talking, a man walks down the path towards us, stops to admire Conrades work. He asks him how much a basket is? "R200", is the response. The man nods his head in approval and walks off further complimenting the work out loud in isiZulu. Conrade looks up at me with a smirk as we make eye contact for the very first time. 

Life is tough where Conrade lives in Marrion Hill. Hi house is a shack that he build himself. During this particular week of heavy rains it was leaking badly. Conrad told me that there was mud everywhere and it was very difficult for one to even get out and go to the bathroom, which is outside.

But it's not all doom and gloom he tells me. The community is relatively mixed. Foreigners and locals live together, seemingly quite happily too. Even though the majority of Conrades friends are foreigners like himself. He says that the locals are very accepting of the foreigners - often asking them for assistance in fixing their electronic appliances etc.

Throughout our conversation Conrade continues to work on his baskets. Never breaks rhythm - only ever stopping to look up when he is battling to understand me. This is when I noticed for the first time in the 10mins we were chatting that he had a relatively fresh scar on the right hand side of his face, just below the jaw line. I puckered some courage to ask him about and he tells me that he'd been robbed a couple weeks ago on his way to catch his train. During the altercation with the two robbers, he was stabbed in the face with a broken bottle. He pauses for a moment to look up at me, chuckles under his breath and says, "But they only took R100. The rest was in my sock and they didn't get it, so its fine...IM FINE."