The reluctant medical tourist

I have the dubious distinction of having been x-rayed in four different countries now. The US any number of times, eastern Germany for my broken arm and to test for TB (negative), Nigeria for my spine (badly misdiagnosed by the radiologist), and now South Africa for my chest.

One of our hosts had the flu that was going around. Then JT got it and we stayed from church that Sunday. Then Princess got it. Then I got it, only I seemed to have it harder than the others. Frau Maska once joked that whatever injury or illness was going around, I always seemed to say, "Ooh, I'll have some of that!"

Next door to the local pharmacy is a doctor and dentist office open 7 days a week, no appointment needed. JT was mostly better by then and Princess had an earache too, so our host most graciously drove us down to the doctor. The doc found that the earache wasn't a formal ear infection yet, gave her some antibiotics anyway, and Princess has been steadily improving since. Cost to take uninsured Princess to the doctor: $25.

My problem was that I coughed so hard and so much every time she asked me to inhale, she couldn't listen to my chest to see if there was a problem. So I got sent off to the formerly-nun-run hospital for x-rays, with another ride from our B&B hosts.

Drought in southern Africa

The number one, defining experience of Nigeria was the power going out. Multiple times every day. When new in country, this was shocking and disturbing. You'd be talking with someone or working or doing anything, and then suddenly the power would go out. When would it come back? Would it ever come back? And then it came back as the generator turned on. Only to turn off again when we switched back to public power. By the time we'd been in country a while, the power going out was merely a comma in a conversation - you keep going with what you were doing. Sometimes we'd turn it into a running gag: "Welcome to Nigeria! Have a nice day!"

When we came back to the States, there was a power outage in the first week or so. We turned to each other and said, "Welcome to Nigeria! Have a nice day!"

In preparing to come to South Africa, we learned they had the occasional problem with their electricity supply too - nothing to Nigeria's scale of course, but for several weeks this year they had rolling blackouts. So we were prepared with our standby jokes.
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The power has stayed on just fine. Oh. Right, developed country and all that.

But there has been a drought in southern Africa and last night our hostess came to inform us that they were out of water. City had just shut it off and no one knew when it would come back on.



She talked as if she expected it back on this morning or maybe last night, but it was entirely possible it would last more than a day.

In Nigeria when we ran out of water, it was because there was a strike at the water bottling plant, so we were boiling tap water for over a week to make sure we had something to drink. After that we stored up two weeks of drinking water. Besides, our stake here has been talking up emergency preparedness.

So our first reaction was to start filling every bucket, mixing bowl, and container we could find while we still had water at the upper house. We started asking a lot of silly questions, like what to do about toilets -- if they won't flush for days on end, where does a body ... do what a body does? In Nigeria, people just defecate on the road as a normal thing, in Italy #1 is socially acceptably, and in Texas they're both illegal. I worry that our hostess did not appreciate any comparison to Nigeria: yes, I'm sure there are parts of South Africa that are not developed, but I like to think that around here we are not where they are.... Not that things are illegal, one wouldn't just ... ugh.

But she humoured us in filling a bunch of buckets while our tap water still flowed.

This morning the water is back on. We'll see for how long.\
UPDATE: We have been informed it's not the drought. They are fixing the water mains and had to shut water off to various parts of the city to do work.

A post from Joy

They had cardboard cutouts from the 50s for pictures
at the activity

I think my favorite thing here in South Africa so far is getting to know people in the ward. We attended an activity at church the week after we got here. It was really fun with lots of food and I got to know lots of people. They were all friendly and there was a great spirit about them all. They had put a lot of effort into decorations and the primary party was a welcoming birthday party.

I also enjoyed the ice cream (gelato) we had for Derrill's birthday. The first we tried was a Kinderegg flavor and the second I chose a mix of chocolate, Oreo cookie, and black forest cherry. (We needed more ice cream to go with Derrill's cake we got for Derrill's birthday.)

I have been enjoying SkipBo lately (Pleasant reminds of playing with Heather and Micah in Ithaca) and I have read a few Regency romance novels by Regina Scott who is as good a writer as Georgette Heyer. I hope she writes more. I could have done those things in the US, though.

Another thing I love about South Africa is the vegetation. Trees in some areas like a tropical paradise. Thick, spiny leaves and some cacti (our little girl seeks those out) with sack-like birds nests that hang from the trees. It is nice to have maids again and not many things with us to take care of.

What else is there to see at the Pretoria zoo?

Aside from animals and white people, that is

The waterfall just past the ticket counter

Now THAT is a useful sign you don't see everywhere!
Four blasts mean a dangerous animal has escaped.

Giant fountains that aren't turned on

Rocking cars and some ancient arcade games: about $0.15

John-Thomas did NOT like the ferris wheel

So Superstar took over the rest of his turn

Some animals we actually went to see

The macaw was a general favorite

When the kids said they wanted to see "kitties" this is what I had in mind:





















But this is what they wanted. A little kitty snuck into one of the enclosures. Happy kids.

Ohhhh, Grandma! What big teeth you have!

Sleepy koala

In which we are the attraction

Couple weeks ago we went to the National Zoological Gardens. One of the fun parts of the zoo was that you could rent a golf cart (for about as much as admission for the 5 of us) for three hours. Saved us a LOT of complaining.

As we were puttering around the exotic birds, some teenage students noticed us. They did a double-take. Then they ran over and asked if they could please take pictures with our baby, John-Thomas. For the next 10 minutes, one teen after another ran up to us to climb into and on top of us to take pictures and selfies with us and our golden haired children. We were just glad no one ran off with him (as happened in Abuja).

It eventually got to be a bit too much for my personal space and we politely shooed them away.

As it drew closer to noon, though, over a hundred pre-schoolers and early grade schoolers descended on the zoo. They were all in the same school uniform. For the most part we just moved around and among each other, no problem.

The snake pit was a little weird, though. Dozens of them would flow down to get to the BIG snakes, then scream loudly, about face, and RUN, encouraging us to do our best impression of salmon swimming upstream.

Then a gaggle of kids separated Princess off. They were in awe. They kept petting and stroking her hair. I could see Princess was not entirely comfortable with this attention, but she wasn't freaking out so I took a picture or two of my daughter, the zoo attraction. They noticed that I was watching them and gave her some breathing room.

Pretoria's alarm clock

The caw-caw sound that wakes us up isn't crows. It's hadeda ibis:

Pretoria reminds me of

The streets of Brooklyn, Pretoria

Pretoria reminds my kids of Santa Barbara and Texas: palm trees, jacarandas, decorative cacti, and homes with plenty of vegetation ... and brown grass.

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Pretoria reminds me of Los Angeles.

A funny thing happened on the way to the office hours

Some students needed to counsel with me about the class, so I walked in to the office even though I normally try to work from home Thursdays here. Since there are multiple routes I could take, I habitually randomize which pathway I take and happened to be on the main thoroughfare through the area about 10:30am when I was mugged.

It was a very polite mugging, really. Cost me all of a $1.50, no injuries, and I had really imagined a lot more stress and allyways involved in a mugging.

This fellow walked up alongside me and greeted me. That was only slightly unusual and I figured he would be asking for money - #1 reason strangers say hello to me. So I reached into my pocket to finger through my cards and random small papers to find the beggar money I keep there. Then he held up something long, wrapped up in a plastic bag, that he was holding like a knife. He said,

"I am not going to do any violence today. Please help me keep my commitment."

We kept on walking together while I tried to process what he said. To me he mumbled, but the word "violence" was very clear. He kept talking and demonstratively lifted the long object two or three times in a suggestive way. My fingers finally identified the R20 bill and I handed it to him.

He politely asked for just 10 more so he could get mumble-mumble.
I told him it was what I had on me.
He asked my name so he could go to church and pray for me.
I told him (part of it).

He asked God's blessing on me for helping him keep his commitment to do no violence and walked across the street again.

For the most part I have treated this as a curiosity. "Hunh. That's not normal." Did my student hours like normal, walked back, bought some socks on the way. Didn't even think to tell Joy about it until a few hours later.

As I type this up, though, I feel decidedly more antsy. I mean, that could have gone badly really easily. He didn't ask for the iPad I was reading from or the computer in my bag. He didn't ask me to turn out my pockets to see my credit cards or if I did have any other cash. Above all, he kept his commitment and I was happy to help. Would've done the same if he hadn't had a shopping bag. ... I may take my walk past the Saudi embassy a little more often, though. Friendly guards there. I wave to them when I pass and they wave back. Nice people, private security officers.

That never happened in Nigeria!

Stranger in a strange land: Food

I've actually had very few experiences where I felt like a stranger in a strange land. In Nigeria, everything seemed to scream out constantly that I wasn't in the US anymore. In Pretoria, though, it's not only clearly advanced/developed/first-world, but everyone speaks English to me. If it weren't for people driving on the left and the stores are a little different, I would forget I was in another country sometimes.

After ten days I have finally found our first glaring thing that will remind me multiple times a day that I'm not in the US:

There is no such thing as pure orange juice.

Every morning at breakfast the orange juice we ask for has tasted just a little off, and sometimes very much off, and sometimes downright nasty, and we couldn't figure out why. Being on the Naturally Slim program means that I don't drink water anymore (hardly). I mix my water with just a little OJ, making "H2Orange". It's delightful. It overpowers the taste of the local water wherever I am. It's delicious. Other program adherents call it the nectar of the gods. It's ... unworkable here.

We went to the store searching for orange juice, and we kind of found it. The label says in big, bright letters "100% orange juice", and then beneath it reads: "orange mixed with apple and grape juice" or "orange mixed with apple and other juices" (or "other fruit" as in this picture).

OTHER juices? What, pray tell, are these mysterious "other" juices? Yak urine? Chewing tobacco spit? There's something not quite right about that juice, this much I know.


In SAfr's defense, everything else has tasted very good. The pizza is different but enjoyable. The lamb at UP was glorious. The meat pies put Nigeria's to shame. They have Hob Nobs and real Nutella and bockwurst. Their butternut squash is amazingly good. The OJ? Not so much.