Journal of This Southern Africa Adventure
December, 1999
02 December
We are continually told that if we do not have reservations for a holiday vacation, that it is probably too late. Therefore, we have not made any plans. Our last resort is to go to the mountains and do some hiking and camping. We had thought about going to Cape Town but later heard that that is what everybody does, and that it was fully booked months ago. There are lots of festivities planned in Cape Town for Christmas and New Years.
That also reminds me that summer is almost here. It hasn't gotten very hot yet but the promised rain has arrived. It is cloudy most late afternoons but the rains are quick and very localized.
The Million Dollar Golf tournament is this weekend at Sun City, a gambling resort near Pilanesberg. It has all of the top golfers in the world there. The local favorites are, of course, Ernie Els, a South African, and Nick Price from Zimbabwe. Ernie Els has never won and Nick Price is a three time champion of the tournament.
02 December
The only TV worth watching is the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic channel. The last couple of days there were two very interesting shows. The first was about the French and Indian War centering on the strategic importance of Fort William Henry, Fort Edward, and Fort Ann. All of these are within 10 miles of my birthplace, Glens Falls, New York. The next show was about Niagara Falls, which BTW is only 12,000 years old. Also, the gorge beyond the falls runs for 7 miles. So it took 12000 years for the falls to move 7 miles back. In another 35,000 years the falls will collapse. It was very informative. It all goes to show you that sometimes you can learn more about something from looking at it from the outside. In this case I was learning about New York State history from South Africa.
06 December
It is clear that the holiday season is here in South Africa. Although there was no Thanksgiving, and no "Black Friday", there are plenty of Holiday parties. The parties began a couple of weeks ago. The South Africans celebrate the holidays at work early because most people take the last two to three weeks off at the end of the year. Several people are even taking longer than that. So far there has been four work related parties sponsored by Telkom. One was on a Friday afternoon, another was during a short break at work (where we all picked a name out of a hat and gave a small R20 max gift), another was a braai on a Sunday at Bronkhorstspruit, a local dam (reservoir), and the next was a dinner cruise on a Monday evening at another local dam.
The Bronkhorstspruit event featured a potjiekos cooking contest. A potjiekos (pronounced poy-kee) is cooking with a cast iron pot.
One can make any kind of dish but it is typically some kind of stew such as oxtail, served over rice. The Sunday afternoon braai featured a potjiekos cooking contest. There were four contestants in the contest consisting of an Indian team who entered the contest with a thick mutton curry,
two South African teams entered with a chicken stew and a oxtail stew, and the American team who entered the contest with a down-home Texas chili. The Indian and American teams knew that they had an uphill battle. They were clearly underdogs being that they were the visiting teams. The American team, however, came to the contest with something extra, that is, marketing know-how and great service. Brian Thomas, the American team's chef came early in the day to grab the best cooking spot. Brian also taped colorful signs showing both the American and South African flags.
The other members of the team brought some good old rock and role featuring some Texas born singers (such as Janis Joplin). A constant repertoire of American nostalgic music was played. In the end it was a close race. (Personally, I liked the mutton curry the best because it was good and I like curry better than chili). However, the American chili was voted # 1 by the lone judge Drik Liebrandt, with the Indian curry #2. I really think that Drik was either voting for it because the chili was very unusual to him or he was being kind to the foreign teams knowing that we are all sacrificing a lot to be in South Africa during this time of year.
I must say that the vast majority of South Africans of all races are great people. They are extremely friendly, generous, and love to have a good time. At this same braai we decided to do some management team bonding. Drik, Marius, Jenny, and myself all got on a worm (a long tube) pulled by a motor boat. I have never seen a tube like this pulling four people at once. We were very bad, falling and crashing quite often. As the South Africans would say: "It was great fun. Good stuff!" Another interesting term is lakker, which is Afrikaans for "superb, very nice." When asked how terrible our management skills must be if we cannot show our teams how to do it right, we replied that our teams do great by learning from our mistakes. Great fun!
The boat cruise on Monday evening was ok but rather expensive for South African standards. Several people complained about the cost of R80 ($14) with a cash bar ($2 a glass for boxed wined). The meal and the cruise were fair, the people were great. On the cruise we were invited to a sheep roast on New Years Eve, to a river trip down the Blyde River Canyon, and to use someone's house for a week or two in Durban. As I said, these are very generous people.
07 December
Ernie Els wins the Million Dollar Golf tournament for the first time. South Africans are proud again. The South African cricket team is also doing well having beaten the English team in only 4 days. A normal match goes 5 days. And some people think that baseball is long and boring....
09 December
I am surprised at how many American products are here in South Africa but I am even more amazed that some of them are not the same as the US equivalent. Hellmann's Mayonnaise and Glad Wrap are a couple that come to mind. Hellmann's Real Mayo is anything but real. It tastes more like Kraft or Miracle Whip. Glad Wrap is anything but glad. The package is the same as that in the US. It has the same serrated edge for cutting the wrap. However, the plastic wrap is not the same. The serrated edge does not cut the wrap. The wrap must be stretched to cut it. You are then left with a mess of plastic that takes a minute to unwrap before you can use it. The strange thing is that the competing products are the same. I guess the American companies are just trying to stay barely ahead of the competition no matter how low they go. What a shame.
10 December
Christmas is just around the corner, but the shopping areas have not expanded their hours. The stores still close around 6:00 PM on weekdays and between 2:00-4:00 on weekends. This is not due to the lack of shoppers. South Africans, like Americans, love to shop. In fact, they also love to roam the corridors of the malls even after they are closed. I have been told that many shops close early because they employ several black workers, who because of apartheid remnants, must travel a great distance between work and home. However, I have also heard from a co-worker who is Zulu that many black Africans will not leave their village because of close family ties and want to continue to travel two hours two and from work each day.
This is all quite hard to understand. It seems that the economy here needs a boost and it could be done, in part, by increasing the number of jobs. The way to do it is to increase the shopping hours and therefore the number of workers needed. More people would have more money to spend on more goods.
The poor South Africans do finds interesting ways to obtain money. There is a large group of people who are parking attendants. They position themselves on busy city streets or in the parking lots of shopping areas. They wave a red flag and tell you where a good parking spot can be found and watch over your car when you leave. When your return, you are expected to pay them a tip (or donation) of 1-2 rands. These parking attendants position themselves within each aisle of a parking lots, and at about 10 car intervals on a busy city street. For an extra 10 rand they will also wash your car.
There are other people who sell items at busy intersections. The typical items (arranged in order of most frequently found) include newspapers, fruit, trash bags, flowers, clothes hangers, cola, juice, and stuffed animals. I have no idea why they sell these particular items and not others.
In certain areas of the city, there are road side vendors. These people sell arts and crafts, furniture, rugs, and lots of other items. They set up in specific areas on weekends and usually stay open from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
Back to "African Journal"
This page was last updated on .