A New Appreciation for Mickey D’s

Just when I thought fast food couldnt be any grosser…

South African fast food is about 10x more disgusting than the fast food we have in the US. Even McDonalds is worse because the buns are stale! There also is not the variety of selection here (surprise).

I think the majority of the problem though stems from the S. African obsession for what they refer to as “sauces”. Sauces are actually alot more like what Americans would think of as salad dressings – and they slather them on everything here! Nothing is safe – beef, chicken, potatoes – it doesnt matter! If it doesnt have sauce on top of it, there is sauce inside.

Although there are a plethora of sauces, none of them are particularly appetizing and most come in unidentifiable flavors. So at least 8 times out of ten when you think you are just ordering a plain hamburger you wind-up getting a grade negative E slab of patty drenched in mystery-flavor salad dressing!

Some of the offenders:

I think most of the pent up hostility that I’m venting now towards SA fast food is a result of an almost 1 month straight work trip I went on in April where I was forced to eat fast food nearly everyday. It was either that or starve. I knew things had deteriorated when I was excited to go to McDonalds for dinner one night in PMB. It wasnt just for the food though (which gave me some consolation) the thing that they have at McDonalds that I was most excited about is the FOUNTAIN SOFT DRINK (insert angeliclike choir sound effect here). These are virutally unheard of at every restaurant – sit down or otherwise – in SA, where drinks are always served in cans or bottles. Which as any cola connoissieur knows dont hold a candle to something from the fountain. As I reached across the car to receive my medium fountain coke that evening, it may as well have been a Happy Meal.

Mandisi’s Lebola

Mandisi is my colleague who has recently become engaged to be married. Lebola is both a traditonal ceremony and also a kind of dowry that the future groom’s family gives or “pays” to the family of the bride. This particular couple is educated and modern, however, its still common for young black South Africans to observe traditions such as Lebola. I dont think this is done simply to please their parents and families but because they find these rituals important as well. Although Mandisi and her fiance are Zulus the practice is observed in most black cultures in SA.

I was invited to the ceremony which took place at the end of March at Mandisi’s family home at Hlabisa, which is a village in northern Kwa-Zulu Natal. You have to drive through a wild game park to get there.

We arrived in the early afternoon and sat around in the yard for a few hours eating snacks while we waited for Thulani (the groom) and his family to show-up. It was tense for a while since he was late – and if the groom doesnt come to pay Lebola its almost like standing someone up at the altar. Inside the house all the female members of Mandisi’s family are busy cooking a traditional African meal. All the men are sitting outside in the yard doing nothing.

Finally a caravan of cars and pick-up trucks stopped in front of the house. The vehicles carried all the Lebola gifts as well as the 20-some family members accompanying Thulani.

OMG!

So I submitted this abstract on traditional healers to the International AIDS conference – and it actually got accepted for a poster presentation! I’m so excited! I dont know if I’ll actually be able to go or not though since its really expensive and I dont think my organization will pay. But there’s a scholarship program that I also applied for so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!