Do They Know It's Christmas?

And by "they," I mean "we." I've got to admit, we've been having a tough time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. I mean, of course we put up a bomb-ass tree, decked the crap out of the halls, and donned our gayest apparel. But because our friends and family are oceans away, we've missed out on the usual holiday parties, dinner planning, and general seasonal mirth that accompanies December back home. Also, the events that usually lead up to Christmas serve to prepare me for the holiday season. And they're all different this year:

• Halloween (South Africa doesn't celebrate Halloween. Well, not really, anyway. Dressing up in a mask and knocking on strangers' doors is a good way to get shot).
•  Remembrance Day (the public holidays here are obviously different from those in Canada)
• Leaves falling (We're just coming into summer, so all the trees are aggressively leafy right now)
• Being able to see your breath (Rather than see my breath in the cold, crisp, air, I've made the rather disconcerting discovery that my man-breasts are now large enough to produce underboob sweat (note to self- lay off the koeksisters)).
• Boogers freezing in your nose (nope, but apparently the summer allergies from which I thought I escaped back home followed me to South Africa)
• Christmas 

The sequence is all off. Also, remember how I told you that South Africa FEELS familiar to start with, but not really? If not, you can read about it here. Christmas is the same thing. It kinda looks like home, but with some key differences.

Here are some Christmas observations from an outsider's first December in South Africa:

1. I'm not entirely sick of Christmas music yet. In fact, I've barely heard any at all. This might be because singing about sleigh bells, snowmen, and Frosty the Snowman really have no relevance here. Whatever the reason, while I HATED Christmas music back home, I actually kind of miss it. 
2. Santa Claus here isn't the Santa we know. It makes sense that the costumes are flimsier- the temperature has been in the mid-30s the last little while here. Combine all that Santa sweat with the thousands of litres of kid urine I'm sure soaks into the suit, and by the end of the season, Santa would smell like a glorious combination of skunk colon, despair, and a bag full of whatever the collective internet would smell like if we could sniff it. But other than that, they still don't give a crap. The beards are fake 9 times out of ten, and not fake like your best friend Becky who tells you your jeans don't make you look fat in such a convincing way that you don't find out until later that she posted a picture on Instagram of your behind rammed into denim juxtaposed with a chubby cat in overalls.

   

   Source

   My Google Image search for "fatass cat in jeans" didn't disappoint. 

   No. I mean FAKE fake. Like "you can see the chin strap and smell last night's bad decisions" fake. And Santa isn't even the main event. Seriously. There aren't any lineups at all. What the kids DO love are the Christmas fairies. What do fairies have to do with Santa? Yep, nothing. It doesn't have to make sense. This is South Africa. NOTHING makes sense here. But these fairies will face paint the crap out of your kid who's terrified of creepy Santa, so there's that.

   

   This is as close as she'd get to Santa. I don't blame her.

3. Christmas lights. Or lack thereof. In our security complex (there will be a blog about security in the near future), there's one house that decorated the outside.One. We kind of get a pass this year because we're so new, but I did tell the neighbours who decorated that it's ON next year. It's not just our complex, either. You have to look hard to see Christmas lights anywhere. Probably because except in very few areas, they'd be stolen before you put the ladder away.
4. The whole country shuts down. I'm not even kidding. From about Dec 10 to Jan 15, what little work that usually goes on comes to a screeching halt. And I don't think the concept of having somebody to cover for people who are on vacation has caught on here. Everybody seems to have ONE job, and if the person who's responsible for that job happens not to be there, you're out of luck. (again, there will be a future post about this).
5. Where are the Christmas movies? We pay a ridiculous amount for DSTV here, the equivalent of cable back home. It's great. We get a boatload of channels that play only repeats. But we can watch LOTS of repeats. You'd think that with more than 100 channels, we could find MAYBE one Christmas movie during the month of December. But nope. Thankfully we finally got our internet at home connected, so at least we can find some on Netflix.
6. The heat. Holy Moses, the heat. I associate Christmas with snow, hot chocolate, and thousands of drivers who are caught off guard by the weather, despite the fact winter arrives literally every year. In Pretoria today, it's going to be 33 degrees. For some of you, that sounds nice, but I'm finding it super hard to get into the Christmas spirit when I'm sweating like a leper in a tilt-a-whirl.

There are a ton of other things I can talk about, but these were the ones that really stuck out. We still don't know many people here yet, and we don't have any family here, so we're going super low key this year. We'll do a small dinner, then probably just jump in the pool.

Do you feel sorry for us yet?

But to be honest, that's all we need. And it will be nice to just relax. One thing about feeling isolated is that it really brings you closer together as a family. So you can have your snow, your Christmas carols, and your North American efficiency- we've got each other. 

100% of the Traffic Police Here are Corrupt...

...at least according to the 1 interaction I've had. So I guess to make broad statements based on such a limited sample size is unfair. According to most accounts, both online and from local South Africans, the number is no higher than 98.7%.

I'll get into the traffic here in an upcoming post, but that's a topic all on its own. Picture a high-school play. All the actors are terrible and the play itself seems to have been created when a writer ingested a shockingly awful script and then farted out the partially digested remains, leaving the putrid stench of a new play clinging to the stage, the props, and the mortified audience, which is mostly comprised of long-suffering extended relatives of the evening's "stars." And there's a scene where the characters are in a car. And the driver of that car not only never once so much as glances at the road, but also moves the steering wheel maniacally back and forth, as if doing so wouldn't cause the immediate demise of his/her passengers and anyone else unfortunate enough to be on the road. THAT is what the drivers are like in South Africa. But like I said, that's another post entirely.

So I was driving along aimlessly, lost, as usual, because addresses are an abstract concept in South Africa and seem to be constructed solely to mess with people (for example, my address is 105 X Crescent. But it's stand 286. And 286 is the number on the house. But the ADDRESS is 105. Why? Because screw you, logic, that's why).

I turned a corner, and BOOM. Traffic stop. These things are everywhere. There will be 5-20 traffic cops fearlessly running onto the road or highway, playing Frogger with oncoming vehicles to randomly pull people over. In this particular case, I KNEW I was doing nothing wrong. I wasn't speeding. I had my seatbelt on. Both hands were firmly on the steering wheel, safely away from my phone, which I wasn't using for anything.

I pulled over, confident this would be a brief encounter. But what I didn't count on was South Africa's ability to make time screech to a halt. The officer asked to see my license, which I confidently produced. While it's a Canadian driver's license, the law here clearly states that foreign licenses are valid as long as they haven't expired and are written in English. Mine was both, so no problem.

The officer took one look and said, "I'm afraid you have a problem. This licence is no good here." I replied that yes, it was, and I'd be happy to direct him to the appropriate material to prove it. In reply, he told me he would have no choice but to slap me with a hefty fine. I knew he was either mistaken or bluffing, so I asked him to please write me the ticket and let me be on my way. He just stared at me for about 10 seconds, as if the conversation wasn't over, but then he disappeared behind me, only to reappear several minutes later and say "I'm sorry to tell you that not having a South African license is much more serious than I thought. I'm going to need to take you to jail." As much as the idea of being locked away in a foreign jail packed with muggers, murderers and worse wasn't appealing, I KNEW there was no way he could do that. So I turned off my engine and said, "OK, let's go to the police station."

Avi holding a South African traffic cop. 

He didn't like this at all, and I was really starting to suspect that this wasn't just a case of him not knowing the law. He told me to wait in my vehicle and walked away again, leaving me wondering how this was going to play out. Was I going to mysteriously "disappear," leaving my wife a widow and my children fatherless? If that was the case, would my life insurance policy be enough to provide for my family? What would Vicki's new husband be like? While he might be very handsome and wealthy, I quickly determined that he would have a crippling case of sleep flatulence. Not so perfect NOW, are you, replacement husband? Mercifully, before my mind could entirely descend down the rabbit hole, the cop came back and informed me he wouldn't have to take me to jail after all, but the ticket really was quite expensive. Didn't I have anything for him?

There it was. Tired of waiting for me to offer a bribe, he finally dropped a not so subtle hint. I always keep a cooler bag filled with drinks with me because shockingly enough, it gets bloody hot here, and when I assured the officer I had no money for him, he asked if I at least had a cold drink for him. Because he'd already wasted about 45 minutes of my time, I wasn't inclined to give him ANYTHING, but also because it was clear he had no qualms about wasting even more of my day, I caved. I passed him a Sprite Zero, which he happily took and then said "How about 50 bucks (they refer to the currency here, the Rand, as bucks. Right now, one Canadian dollar is worth about 10 rand) for lunch?"

We were clearly done here, so I just shook my head at him, put my car in gear, and drove away. And he made no move to stop me. I admit I felt a little dirty offering a bribe, albeit in the form of a paltry Sprite Zero, but I definitely see why many of my friends here simply offer R100 right away, just so they can continue with their day.

However, I think I'll just make sure I keep my cooler bag well stocked.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

As it usually does, the universe acted in a funny way yesterday. I posted a rather lengthy blog about the trials and tribulations of getting the internet hooked up at our house. And, about an hour later, Telkom was at our door, unannounced (they were supposed to call before they came). I know for a fact that this had nothing to do with my blog post, as it had just been published and had virtually no readers (although 700 people visited the page in the first 12 hours of the blog going live, so thanks for that! Feel free to subscribe (a handy box is at the top right-hand side of the page) and/or share).

This is what navigating Telkom's customer service feels like.

After going through all the same processes we had already done a thousand times, the tech called Afrihost, the data provider, and proceeded to go through the same procedures AGAIN. Anyway, it turns out that this whole mess was a communication issue, which doesn't surprise me, because South Africans tend to talk a lot, but avoid actual communication as if will give them ass cancer or something. Apparently, Afrihost had been trying to connect the wrong line number and said it had been changed on Dec 15. We certainly didn't change it. Telkom may have. Or it may have never been changed at all. People tend to just say things here. You never know the entire truth, and trying to get to the bottom of anything is about as futile as a cat trying to bury a turd on a marble floor. I'm just going to accept this little Christmas miracle and enjoy having the internet at my house.

Waiting For Telkom (AKA, South Africa's National Pastime)

I'll never complain about slow internet again. OK, I probably will, because most of it is horrifically slow here, and you don't know how hard life can be until you've waited a good 5 seconds to load the perfect cat meme to send as a witty response to a friend's text (or SMS as they call them here, because in the spirit of doing ALL things inefficiently in South Africa, they've decided to tack on an extra two syllables. Just because they can).

Anyway, I'd just be happy to have internet at my house. Any internet. I'd gladly pay whatever it takes, or trade one of my children, or watch a room full of elderly Russian men slurp borscht for hours on end at excruciating volumes, if only I could get internet at home.

Here's the deal. While internet is becoming more and more readily available, and while fibre is gradually being rolled out across the country, most people still rely on DSL connections here, which is fine. However, while there are many DATA providers, only one company can provide the line. And that company is government run (read- impossibly inept). Just the mention of Telkom here makes people's nether regions pucker up, but we're at their mercy. The data providers can give us data ONLY through a Telkom line, which means Telkom is responsible to ensure their line actually works.

Almost 2 months ago, we called Telkom and said "We'd like to give you money. And in exchange, can you do the sole thing you exist for, and provide us a line." This shouldn't be too hard, as it's literally the only thing they do. It's not like I called them to ask where the crap I can find regular, non-flavored tortilla chips here so I can make a decent plate of nachos, which I'm desperately craving right now and which seem to be entirely unavailable here. Anyway, they proceeded to give us non-stop entertainment for almost two months (and counting) now.

The first installer came within a week. All good. But then we needed an electrician to install a wire for Telkom. Why we can't get Telkom to do that, I have no idea. So we hired an electrician. Telkom came back and said the electrician didn't do his job right, which, because this is South Africa, of course he didn't. So we called him back. Then waited for Telkom again. Several days later, Telkom assured us the line was installed and working. Great!

Our first order of business was to change our service to Afrihost, because we wanted nothing to do with Telkom after hearing numerous horror stories about their abysmal service. The thing is, though, they still control the line. The data company simply takes over- you pay the data company, and the data company pays Telkom for the line rental. So there's no escaping. And to further de-hance their customer service, Telkom immediately cuts off your line and puts you in a "holding pool" if you want to go through another company. The wait is typically 20 business days, so you're looking at a month with no internet, Because most people don't want to be cut off from Netflix, cat pictures, and eelslap.com for an entire month, they choose simply to stay with Telkom. To make this clear, Telkom has resorted to cutting customers off from the ONLY way they can access the internet if the customers don't want to use Telkom, who is renowned for their "couldn't give a crap" service. We decided to wait them out.

After we got the notification our line had migrated to Afrihost (in a record 27 days!), we were off to the races! And by that I mean we didn't even make it to the racetrack. After several calls to Afrihost, we determined there must be something wrong with the line that Telkom had assured us was working. After another 4 calls to Telkom, they insisted the router we had bought was defective. I told them it wasn't, but they claimed that was the only possible problem. So we packed up the kids, drove 20 minutes to the nearest Telkom store and waited for someone to test the router. Luckily, it was the end of the day, and there was nobody in line. So we only had to wait 25 minutes for one of the 3 employees standing around doing nothing to acknowledge our existence. After a quick test, they confirmed the router was fine. Now the only possible explanation is there's a problem with the Telkom line, which I had been trying to tell them all along!

Meme Crunch

Actual image of me waiting for Telkom

Vicki decided to try her luck now, and she was told that a technician would come the following day. She called in the morning, just to make sure, because by now we had figured out that anything Telkom says has as much value as a Donald Trump fart in California, and was reassured that yes, the technician would come that day. At 4pm, she called AGAIN and was guaranteed someone would come before 6pm. 6pm came and went, and no Telkom. At least we expected it this time. When I called the next morning, the agent told me that while a fault was logged, there was no technician assigned to the account, so there was no way any technician would EVER have been on the way. In other words, the agents twice told Vicki that someone was coming simply so they could get off the phone and not have to do any work. Sounds about right.

At this point, the agent put me through to a manager, who assured me she would escalate the issue and get a technician out as soon as possible. When I asked when that would be, her only reply was "This is a very busy time of year." So now we wait.

While this whole process may seem insane to my friends back home in Canada, we've come to expect this sort of thing. Telkom was voted the best communications company in South Africa by South Africans, who make a national pastime of complaining about Telkom, if that tells you anything. I've gone past the point of being amused. And also past the point of being frustrated. Now I'm back to being amused. You can't hurry South Africa. And to be honest, sometimes it's refreshing to not be able to do anything because your hands are tied by red tape and incompetence. It gives me more time to appreciate the beauty of the country and enjoy the other things (apart from customer service) that South Africa has to offer. But I'll write more about those things in future entries.

As soon as I get internet.

What Have We Done???

I had a great life in Canada. I was comfortable. My career was on the right path. We were close to family and friends. Then, I was talking to one of our senior VPs one day, and he brought up the possibility of me taking a position with the company in South Africa. One catch though- he couldn't guarantee me a job when I moved back. The sensible thing to do would have been to say, "I really appreciate the consideration, but I like where my career is heading here, my wife is doing very well in her career, and our 2 young kids love living close to family in Vancouver, which is consistently rated one of the best cities to live in worldwide. So moving to a country that's known for its insane crime rates and widespread corruption isn't really in the cards for me right now."

So anyway, we live in South Africa now.

Literally everything here will kill the hell out of you

South Africa is like that guy you meet at a party who seems KIND of familiar. You're sure you know him from somewhere, but can't quite place where. He acts similar to the rest of your friends and doesn't seem very unusual to start with. But something seems a little off with him. And while you're trying to place how you know him, he takes off his pants and starts juggling swordfish (which he procured from who knows where) whilst barking into a kazoo. And then you think, "Ok, I THOUGHT maybe I knew him, but ya- I've never met this guy in my life."

While South Africa can feel like home sometimes-you can get all the food you like, it has all the amenities you're used to, etc- you quickly realize that NOTHING here is like home. You want to run a simple errand and have budgeted an hour, which would be overkill in Canada? Nope. It's going to take you all day. You want to get internet and figure you'll just make a phone call and make it happen? Nope. You'll make several phone calls. And then several more. And you still won't have internet. Just want to buy some appliances? Hahaha. Prepare to spend all day. And more.

But even with the frustrations of trying to get simple things done, it's already worth it. Want to see wild lions? Easy. Elephants? Hard to miss. Want great food? It's everywhere. And the people here are some of the most friendly (if usually hilariously and unintentionally unhelpful) people you'll ever spend time with.

So it's best to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Because as I've discovered, nothing happens quickly here. So you might as well appreciate the scenery.