Tuesday, September 16, 2003

I'm finally here!!!

Here is where the soil is red and you are a skip and a few rands from diamonds and wineries. I'm staying at a guesthouse a block from work which is another block from the Canadian Embassy. I seem to settle in capitals in random parts of the world. First Ottawa, then Beijing and now Pretoria.

My supervisor drove me from the airport and when we stop by the intersection, I see a familiar scene. Teenaged boys walk out from the side of the road towards the stopped cars. However, they are not armed with squeegees. Instead, they have newspapers in hand. They are trying to sell drivers news! How innovative! They are quite entrepreneurial. Whistling for attention, some have cell phone gadgets and other trinkets for sale as well.

After witnessing the South African squeegee kids, I had my first cultural faux pas at the supermarket yesterday. (Yes, after a total of 26 hours on a plane I was still functional to go shopping for food!) I had my rooibos tea, my ryvita crackers, cream cheese and bananas at the checkout. The woman grabs the bananas and looks at me.

"You didn't weigh them," she says accusingly.
I look back at her. "Can't you weigh them?"
"There's a person by the fruits who weighs them for you. Won't you go get them weighed and come back?"
The other people in the queue stare at me and my obvious stupidity.
"No," I say quickly. "I'll get them another time."

Today, at the guesthouse, I met a South African from the Eastern Cape over breakfast. He's a civil engineer and has just relocated here. When he stands up to leave he sticks out his hand. I shake it. He then proceeds to do a thumb squeeze. You know- the meat on your hand by your thumb. It all seemed very b-boy ghetto to me. I ask him about this and he explains that most people shake hands like that here. I was being recruited into a secret society and I didn't even know it.

Later, I meet the security guard of my office and he shakes my hand with the thumb squeeze. I was all excited: Oh yeah, I know all this already. This is easy.