Rachel sweats the small stuff

Rachel on Table Mountain

So all these blog entries have been talking about some pretty heavy stuff, I feel as though I should address some of the little everyday things that we have to adjust to being in South Africa.  These things are something that if you lived in South Africa you would never notice.  The things that in the US or in South Africa you take for granted.

One thing that I have noticed is the lack of work ethic.  Wait, no.  People here work hard; they just like taking their time and taking many breaks. Tea breaks.  How do I describe tea breaks? If you are just standing around not working, that is not okay.  But if you are standing around and not working with tea in your hand then that is perfectly acceptable. There are tea breaks where everyone just stops working at least 3 times a day at most places here. I sometimes don’t understand how they get anything done in this country. 

Sleeping breaks. The first couple of weeks that we were here, Harry, the house owner had people working on the outside of the house.  There were probably around 10 workers doing various tasks.  They arrived around 8 am; by 9 it was breakfast break.  At 10 they were back to work.  At 11 it was naptime. 12 back to work, 1 lunch and then a nap, 3 work, 4 o’clock home.  Naptime consists of the workers lying face down on the lawn.  Of course when we first arrived here in Cape Town, we were unaware of the lackadaisical schedule so after coming home from a long day we went outside and to our surprise we thought there were a bunch of dead Africans on our lawn. Enough said about breaks.

Red lights mean absolutely nothing in South Africa.  If there is a red light, that means go fasters so that you cannot get hit.  Which brings me to Cars getting the right of way.  It is difficult enough crossing the street with the cars driving on the opposite side of the road.  I have to look both ways fifteen times just to cross half of the road.  Then, once you begin to cross, people will honk at you if you are in their way and speed up just because you were RUDE enough to attempt to cross the street.  Rain or shine, cars will NOT stop to let you pass. You could stand at the side of the road for hours until there is a break in traffic and not one person will even slow down to allow you to cross.

Now once you cross the road, don’t bother asking for directions.  If you stop and ask a person for directions and they have no idea where it is that you are trying to get to, they will give you directions anyway.  “Sir, can you please tell me how to get to pick and pay?”  Reply: “uhh, ummm, uhh okay, you are going to want to go straight down there, make a left, a right and then another left.”  Meanwhile it is in the complete opposite direction and you are headed who knows where.  This is a similar effect, as when you ask someone to hang out and they reply yes even though, they know and you know that they cannot hang out. But anyway, your best bet is hopping on a minibus taxi.  I can’t even begin to talk about those, that’s a blog within it’s self.  Similarly, there was a man the other day sleeping or at least I hope he was sleeping on the street.  He could just as easily have been dead, as I looked at him with concern.  The street sweepers did not even wake him and just swept around him and a little bit of him and then walked away. 

Bare feet is a completely normal and acceptable thing around here whether in the grocery store, or walking around town.  I told someone that in America, most stores would not let you in if you weren’t wearing shoes and a shirt.  The surprised look on the South African’s face surprised me a bit.  She had asked “but why?”  I told her I wasn’t actually 100 percent sure; it was mostly because of sanitary reasons.  She responded “but what ever is at the bottom of you feet is the same thing that is on the bottom of your shoes.”  Touché South Africa Touché. 

Customer is always wrong! Simple as that, if you go to the store and you aren’t satisfied it is your own fault.  If you go to a restaurant and they bring you the wrong order, the waiters roll their eyes at you and it’s too damn bad.  Don’t forget to weigh your own produce and sticker it with a price before getting to the register, because that is not a happy sight!

Sweeping is another interesting South African task.  People whose jobs it is to sweep/mop, no matter where you are will mop and sweep right over your feet.  Your fault if you are in their way.  We went out to a club a few weeks ago.  As I was dancing a man literally was sweeping my feet away! The broom was on my feet and in America, this is not okay!

Toilets.  Oh South African toilets, where do I start? Well first of all I cannot get used to the fact that when you ask someone where the “bathroom” or “ladies room” is, they will get slightly confused.  Here in South Africa they straight up call them toilets.  No getting around things here. Just like when I interacting with the Afrikaaners at work, they tell you how it is.  If you are fat they will tell you.  If you are ugly they will tell you.  Anyway, back to the toilets.  Once I arrive at toilets it is always some sort of adventure.  The toilet handle is guaranteed to be somewhere and something different in every bathroom you go.  So after you are done doing your business, you are sitting in the bathroom OOPS excuse me toilet stall for a good thirty seconds before figuring out if there is a string you have to pull, an actual handle (which most must be jiggled a certain way before it will flush), a button that needs to be pressed (which are annoyingly placed behind the cover so you have to put that down before flushing the toilet), or some other makeshift handle that they can come up with.  This makes it difficult for the germaphobes in America like me who don’t like to touch toilet handles and try to use their foot instead of their hands to flush the toilet (if you are wondering how I am dealing with that by the way, I have now just become a dirtier person in general).  So, once you have figured out how to flush the toilet, comes the next task, this is a tough one.  You would think that here in South Africa, the toilets would just flush in the opposite direction, NOPE!  When you flush the toilets here water splashes in every direction, most times, creating an extremely terrifying backsplash; so the goal is to flush the toilet and run and shut the door as fast as you possibly can before you get sprayed with dirty toilet water. 

I tell you, the adventures that you go on here are things you could never encounter in the US!

These are only a few things that we experience here everyday.  I have lists full of things like this.  Strange at first but then hilarious when you look back. I love South Africa.