If you can’t take the Heat…

For the last two days I have more or less been sweating non-stop. Not profusely mind you – but definitely perspiring lightly, “glowing” if you will. Just to give you an idea of how hot it is, this morning at 9am it was 89 with 74% humidity.

People have been telling me about this weather since I arrived, “just wait until February” they all said. Then the beginning of the month came and went and I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. It was just as hot as PA in July or August, but not really worse. Apparently the weather has been unseasonably COOL so far this summer.

Things wouldn’t be so bad except for the air conditioning situation in this country – it sucks. Only the very well-off have air conditioning at home and central air is almost unheard of unless you’re in a newly constructed building in a wealthy part of town. The majority of buildings that I spend my time in are old and weren’t built with any sort of duct system originally since it doesn’t get cold enough here in the winter to necessitate central heating. Most office A/C comes from these weird looking long skinny units stuck at the top of one wall just below the ceiling. Window units are few and far between which surprises me because it seems like there would be a decent market for them here.

The FLG of course is not air conditioned, although I am lucky enough to have a ceiling fan which might as well not even be there sometimes. When it is really hot and there is no breeze it barely makes a dent in the heat!

At home this time of year I am usually complaining about the cold, which in the course of 26 years I’ve become quite good at doing – and I’m discovering this is a talent that is easily transferable to my present situation. Everyone here complains about the heat and you can start a conversation with anyone by saying, “Boy it’s hot today” or the equivalent in Zulu, “Uyashisha kakulu namhlange” – this being one of the few Zulu phrases I’ve learned in the past 6 months since I get to use it like everyday.
I think at this point if I had to choose, I would pick the heat over the cold. I really don’t miss walking outside and feeling like my face is going to freeze off. Which is how Moorma describes the weather in the burgh this week. Plus my skin isn’t dry and itchy and I don’t have to worry about falling on the ice or scraping off my car!

But let’s see how I feel after a few more weeks of sweating.

“Beware of the Zebras as they may Kick”

So I finally saw my first large African wildlife the other week. I thought I would be locked in a hotel compound for the duration of the 10 day training session I had to go to outside Jo-burg, since this is standard for any sleepover event organized by the you-know-what. This was pretty much the case, except this time our compound hotel was located nextdoor to another compound hotel that also doubled as a small-time safari park. There werent any big cats or other dangerous animals so we were allowed to walk thorugh.

I saw zebras, antelopes (springbok), and was about 12 feet away from a giraffe which was pretty cool. The only other time I’ve seen a real-live giraffe was at the circus at The Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg – a building which incidentally always smells like the cirucs no matter what other events happen to be taking place. The Harrisburg Farm Show building is also the largest agricultural complex in North America, if not the world, making it my hometown’s claim to fame. I guess whoever came up with the idea to build a place big enough to hold a circus inside didn’t realize that the smell of elephants would linger.

But anyway back to giraffes – the one I saw at the Farm Show circus that day long ago was a very unhappy camper. Whether his mood was a reflection of the fact that he was in a gigantic iron cage or because he suddenly found himself in the largest agricultural complex in the world in Harrisburg, PA, I don’t know, but I definitely remember feeling sorry for him.

The giraffe at the South Africa safari park was in much better spirits, although he did seem to be very used to people and not all that “wild”. But I guess I would prefer running into a tame giraffe instead of one that would trample me – which this one could have done easily. I’m glad giraffes are nice.

There was also a herd of zebras at this place. Zebras really look more like striped ponies than like striped horses since they’re kind of short and chubby. I’ve decided that my favorite thing about the zebra is its mohawk mane. I can’t think of any other animals out there that have naturally occuring mohawks, with the exception of a bird or two maybe…Brad I think you should do a search and find me some pictures of animals with mohawks that I can post on my blog since I know you have nothing better to do with your time.

Ants, Roaches, Termites, Mosquitoes and Spiders

These are the only “Big Five” that you will see without a doubt on a visit to South Africa.

Ants are everywhere. They’re on the floor of my room, they’re in every bathroom and latrine I’ve ever used in SA, sometimes they’re in my bed, they’re on my desk at work, they’re dead and floating in the tea kettle that is half full of water, they’re in Joan’s refrigerator, there’s a whole colony living in the plant I keep in my office, I’ve probably even eaten a few of them without knowing it. It’s a losing battle trying to kill them because there will just be more, many, many more. Exterminator? HA! South African ants will laugh in his face. Much easier to ignore/accept constant presence of insects – better ants than roaches!

Cockaroaches love it here in Durban because it is hot and wet, so you don’t have to have food lying around or be particularly slovenly to find one in your room. Last night I awoke to the feeling of something crawling on me. I reacted instinctively with the typical full body “get the hell off me bug” spasm, and managed to fling whatever it was onto the wall behind my bed. In my sleeping mind I tried to convince myself that was had just been crawling over my sleeping body was the cute little gecko with a half a tail that wanders in every once in a while through a window and then back out again. But no, of course I look up to see a big-ass freakin cockaroach skittering around. I squashed him as quickly as possible with the paperback copy of Bill Bryson’s “Notes from a Small Island” which lay nearby. Afterwards I briefly considered writing Mr. Bryson to inform him of how I had used his book. I think he may be one writer who would actually appreciate that kind of news. When I went to throw away the dead roach carcass the next morning it was covered in ants.

Termites are smaller than I thought and have wings which I did not realize. When I first got here I used to see all these tiny clear wings lying around all over the place and imagined they were shed by miniature fairies or something similarly warm and fuzzy. Needless to say once I became aware that they actually feel off of termites, their gross factor increased by 100%. Considering how many wings I find at work and at home it’s amazing that any wooden structure I come in contact with on a daily basis is still standing. They also chew through books.

Thank god mosquitoes don’t like me. I never get many bites from them, which is not to say that they leave me alone completely, but it could be worse. Heather, another volunteer in Durban, has to sleep with a mask over her eyes because they bite her closed eyelids during the night. At least the skeeters here don’t carry malaria like their cousins up in Kruger Park and Mozambique. Annoyance vs. Health Hazard – I think I’ll take number one please! Alison knows a Canadian guy who got malaria in Mozambique while taking malaria prevention medication. Take that Canada! Where’s your flag now?

I don’t see many spiders in Durban but they are quite common up in the dryer provinces. There was at least one semi-massive spider per week in my room at my homestay in Limpopo during training. For some reason spiders have always freaked me out more than any other insects so I really don’t miss them. We do have our share of little spiders down here but they tend to say out of sight. I guess you can say that for spiders, they’re smarter than cockaroaches.

 

The FLG

The FLG is where I live. It is officially called “FLG Lodge and Residential Hotel”. This means that it is a compound of several houses from which rooms are rented out. Each room has its own bathroom which is cleaned daily by the FLG staff. Fresh towels are brought in on Tuesdays and Fridays. There is a dining room on the compound where residents who pay for meals are served breakfast, lunch and dinner by waiters wearing faded black and green uniforms and little beret-like hats. Everyone sits at four person tables with assigned seats.

When I first was introduced to the FLG I found it quite charming. All the buildings are colonial-style painted cream and dark green with big white trimmed widows and there are little gardens and palm trees on the premises. A spacious wooden deck is attached to the communal lounge where tea is served twice daily. The staff is friendly and always greets you coming and going. My room even has a view of the ocean – its sort of a thin band on the horizon – but it is definitely visible.

The longer I’ve been here, however, the less charming the FLG becomes. When my boss Debbie brought me here the first time she referred to the place as “the old folks’ home”. Debbie is known for her colorful descriptions of things so I thought maybe she was exaggerating a little bit – she wasn’t. I am probably the youngest resident here by at least 20 years. There is one other guy my age here, but he kind of looks like of a blond version of Gomer Pyle, so not really looking to make friends with him! The majority of the residents at the FLG are elderly – like have had hips or knees replaced and rely on walkers or canes to get around. Most everybody living here moves pretty slowly so once in a while I feel like I’ve just stepped into “Night of the Living Dead”, especially when there is a big group them out, like around dinner time.

Di and her Amazing Performing Dachshunds

I spent Christmas of 2005 with fellow volunteer Alison at her site in Bhekezulu which is outside the town of Estcourt. There’s not much to do in BZ, so one day Alison arranged for us to go swimming at the home her new friend Di, who lives in Estcourt. Di picked us up in town just before lunch and on the car ride to her place, Alison and I detailed our activities of the night before, which were limited to baking rice crispy treats and polishing off almost an entire bottle of Smirnoff vodka. By her own admission Di had been (in her younger days) a partier “of note”. Even though I’ve just met her, have no doubt that this is true.

Di lives in a modest ranch-style house with a pool around back. The interior décor includes several goat skin carpets and her 80 year old mother who clucks and scolds as Di attempts to teach us swear words in Afrikaans. Shortly after we arrive Di summons her pack of dogs by letting out a prolonged high-pitched call of, “Small boooyyyssss!!!!”. Two chubby dachshunds appear along with a rottweiler-looking creature named Bernard, who unfortunately for him and anyone else in the near vicinity, has an insuppressible talent for attracting flies.

Lunch is served by the pool which looks like it hasn’t been netted since the end of apartheid. Di brings out roast chicken, greek salad and buttered rolls (this was very much appreciated considering we had basically invited ourselves over) which she serves in her bathing suit, matching sarong and cowboy hat. Bathing suits, by the way, are referred to as “swimming costumes” or “cossies” in South Africa.

After lunch we swim for a while until Di asks if we would like to see her dogs do their “one miserable trick”. Of course we agree. The dogs have already been hovering around the pool for sometime (or in Bernard’s case drinking out of it) so there is no need to summon them with the call of “Small Booooyyssss!!!!” which Di does about 5 times. This serves to get them all riled up (except for Bernard who’s deaf, Di communicates with him using her own made up form of mock sign language and by talking very loudly) to do their trick.

We watch a little bit puzzled as Di picks figs off the tree in her yard and tosses about 10 of them into the pool. When the figs hit the water one of the dachshunds – only one of them actually performs since the other one is afraid to swim – begins to bark excitedly and run back and forth in front of the pool. When Di feels that enough figs have been transferred from tree to pool, she dives in with a flourish and is immediately followed by her pudgy little dog. On Di’s command the dog swims around until it finds a fig, which is a feat in and of itself considering how much other debris is floating around in the pool. When the dog gets one it holds it in its mouth and swims back to Di, who is now completely submerged underwater save her back, onto which the dog climbs. Di then swims underwater with the dog riding on her back (its head is still above water) until she reaches the steps of the pool, where the dog climbs off and obediently deposits the fig from its mouth to the concrete deck. Repeat.

Needless to say Alison and I are delighted by Di and her dogs since this is the most entertaining thing we’ve seen in days. And swimming dogs are just the tip of the iceberg – she is also rumored to be quite the dinner party guest.

A Man Named Linda

Linda is a South African guy about my age whom AFSA has contracted in the past to facilitate some of our training workshops. He is also possibly the slowest and most irritating individual I have ever met.

When I say Linda is slow I don’t mean intellectually – he’s actually a reasonably smart individual. Nor do I mean that he’s slow in the sense that, “this is Africa and we do everything slow down here”. No. I recently learned that in Zulu the word linda means “wait”. This then is the perfect name for this guy because all you ever seem to do is wait for him; to arrive, to finish a thought or sentence, to blink! He moves so slowly that he actually mildly frustrates other Africans – which is impressive.

When I say that Linda irritates me I don’t mean that he tells the odd off-color joke, cleans his ears with his keys or whistles incessantly. Part of the irritation that is Linda stems from, and is exacerbated by, the slowness factor but it doesn’t end there.

Linda has a “crush” on me, or at least pretends to have one for the sole purpose of annoying the hell out of me. When I first met Linda he would constantly make comments about us getting married, tell me how we were destined to be together, or ask me not to cry when he left work for the day. Pretty much every comment he made to me was along these lines. At first I was a little disturbed until I realized that he was just joking, but by then it was too late – he had already discovered how much he got on my nerves with all that stupid crap, and he just began to do it more.

Linda is a close talker, which I believe is due to the fact that his speech is barely audible. His English pronunciation is less than stellar, so this coupled with the voice volume issue makes him pretty hard to understand at times, forcing me to forever ask him to repeat things he has said. And nine times out of ten, what I would be struggling so hard to hear and understand, would be one of his stupid lines that I didn’t want to hear in the first place! At one point I was working with Linda quite a bit and he was irritating me so much that my boss Nozuko (not even at my request) told him that he was no longer allowed to talk to me.

So the time I found myself in an inescapable walled-in Polokwane compound hotel eating dinner in a hot fly-infested tent set up in the middle of a parking lot listening to “Endless Love” on the sound system while sitting next to LINDA was one of the least enjoyable moments thus far in my South Africa experience. Incidentally we were eating dinner in a tent because the hotel’s regular dining hall was “struck by lightning” and burned to the ground a few weeks earlier.

Now don’t get me wrong, Linda is not a bad guy. He’s completely harmless and funny in a way because he’s so odd. After four months of exposure I just kind of laugh at him, sometimes when he hasn’t even said or done anything particularly funny. I think he actually finds this annoying so I try to do it as often as possible. Leanne also discovered that Linda becomes very uncomfortable (or at least very confused) when one insinuates that he likes to wear dresses. Alison describes him as being like a mosquito that keeps buzzing in your ear – small in the overall scheme of things – but you can’t help but swat at the damn thing! Alison and Leanne came to one of our workshops last month. When Linda was facilitating he called on Alison, by name, for the answer to every single question until normally polite Alison exploded, “I don’t know the answer, stop calling on me!!!” Such is Linda.

Hadedas

Hadedas (hah-dee-dahs) for those not familiar with South Africa ornithology are birds, members of the ibis family to be exact. In the past I’ve associated ibises with two things; ancient Egypt and the Scarlet Ibis sandwich at Issac’s in Harrisburg, which is my favorite thing on the menu there. But it is because of their link in my mind to ancient Egypt that I’ve always thought of the ibis to be a somewhat dignified bird. There is nothing, however, dignified about the Hadeda.

They are gray in color and about the size of a large chicken, but kind of shaped more like a bowling pin. Their walk is similar to a penguin’s waddle, except that the upper half of this bird is sort of hunched over giving it an old and decrepit look when it moves around. The defining physical characteristic of a Hadeda though, is its long, skinny, hooked and pointy beak which it uses for sucking worms and other insects out of the mud. Yum!

Just when you think one of Durban’s most common birds couldn’t get anymore charming, you hear the sound it makes. It would be like the noise that might emanate from the imaginary offspring of a Canadian goose and a seagull, but at about 100 times the volume of the normal bird squawk. Hadedas are almost never alone because most of the time when they are squawking, they are communicating with another Hadeda. There are at least two of them that live on my street. Sometimes they sit together in one of the trees outside my window and squawk at each other but only, of course, at 5am when I’m hungover. It is virtually impossible to sleep through any noise generated by one – let alone two – Hadedas directly outside your window, and there have been many mornings when I’ve wished for nothing more in the world than a big, fat, heavy brick to hurl. I’m not a violent person, but it would be so satisfying to hit one, just once, with a brick.