1. First impressions do indeed last. The flight over on South Africa Airways was like a rewind in time. I was surrounded by burly older white men and felt like I had landed in the middle of a rugby game or even a fraternity party. At some point during the flight there was a man standing next me with two beers in his hand and yelling in Afrikaans at his buddies sitting in my row and the four rows in front. It was (apart from maybe a Vegas flight) the rowdiest flight I have ever been in where people acted as if there were in a pub. As I would continue to learn, the culture of the whites in South Africa is quite unique. But my first dose of learning happened jumping into the rental car from the airport…
2. Driving on the wrong side. Although the highways have very good signage and it is fairly easy to get around, there are a few tricky parts: (1) street roads hardly ever have signage and when they do it is more confusing that anything else; (2) road names change more consistently than they stay the same. I got lost several times and even the maps don’t account for all the name changes. This was particularly true in Durban where there is a current attempt to change all the street names to people who were involved in the Freedom movement despite locals protesting the change (imagine having to re-learn all the streets you know). Oh…also a scary moment when I tried to take a wide left-hand turn only to see a bunch of oncoming cars – don’t worry, I quickly straightened back out and maybe I returned the rental with just a little dent on the hubcap. This whole left sided thing brought me to another idea…
3. Are Brits (and former British colonists) better with their left-hand? I drove standard (stick shift) cars throughout S Africa and you have to shift the gears with your left hand. (Also, when you pass people on the stairs you go towards your left as well) I don’t think I had ever quite involved my left-hand so much…and that got me wondering: “Are more Brits left-handed?” Yes, sometimes I do have weird thoughts.
4. Another weird thought is why would one put the light switch OUTSIDE the room? Everywhere I went the bathroom light switch was outside the bathroom. I never could quite understand or get used to it. C’mon, think about it: you are sharing the room and want to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Well, you have to open the door with the light on and shine light into the room. Or just think if you weren’t getting along with your roomie…uh, just strand him in the potty with no lights on. Again, I warned you what happens when I get too much free time.
5. Speaking of food (for thought at least), South Africans have amazing meat – and Capetown deserves to be up there as a foodie capital. I tried ostrich, eland, springbok, impala and wildebeest. And the surprise winner was wildebeest (no wonder all predators love to eat them!). But all food, from Italian to seafood to Asian-inspired cuisine was delicious. We never left food on our plate that’s for sure.
6. Now, despite this amazing food, I do have some complaints. First of all, why do they not offer lactose-free milk at ANY café, restaurant, diner, hotel, etc.? It was near impossible to find milk that wasn’t FULL CREAM and straight up impossible to find any substitute for lactose milk (no soy, almond, lactose-free, etc.). I mean are there really NO lactose-intolerant people in South Africa?? Second, and probably more taxing, was the level of service. Or lack thereof, I should say. I will highlight a couple of examples and then I’ll contemplate on my thoughts of why…
EXAMPLE 1: First night out at a trendy Cuban-themed restaurant, a waiter passed by me and spilled an entire plate of BBQ ribs on my shirt and arm. I shrugged it off, wiped it off despite the stickiness and smell of BBQ sauce all night, but of course expected at some point that a manager would pass by and apologize and offer a round of drinks or a free meal or something. But by the time the bill had arrived nothing had transpired so I asked for the manager. The manager apologized and then said that there was absolute nothing he could do – no discount, no specials, absolutely nothing. I was perplexed by this and therefore left a note with my bill explaining why I was not leaving a tip (at least I gave myself a 10% discount…). [at least the owner called me the next day to offer me dry cleaning, which of course I never carved out time to do]
EXAMPLE 2: Erika had booked us flights to Joberg (for our trip to Kruger) at night. The next morning we decided that it might make more sense to fly out the next day since the fare was dramatically less and we could drive during the daytime. So we called the airlines (Kulula) and explained that it had been less than 24 hours since we booked the flight and that we wanted to change it to the cheaper flight. The customer service representative however stated that we would have to pay a penalty to change the ticket (OK, that’s pretty common), but despite the new fare being so much cheaper she could not give us any credit towards the penalty and would not return any fare difference. So, to make a change to a cheaper fare and you would actually end up paying more money. Didn’t quite make sense to us.
EXAMPLE 3: The third, and nowhere near the final, example was negotiating a discount on a damaged bracelet. The wooden bracelet I wanted had a missing button so asked the cashier for a discount. She said 10% and when I countered with 50% off she said 20% was the max and she wasn’t even authorized to go over 10% by her manager. So I asked her to contact her manager then and see if they would be willing to do 30% and if so then I would buy it. In the meantime some other guy comes up and tells me that the max is 5%. I said, well that’s impossible because we had already negotiated 20% at a minimum. Fortunately while the rude guy was insisting on 5% max and no more, the woman cashier came back from her phone call and said that the manager would accept a 30% discount.
Now, again, these are just three examples. Perhaps we have been spoiled from the customer service culture in the US, but there seemed to be a common thread amongst service – and unfortunate as this might sound, it was always when dealing with Blacks. This is not racist at all, but rather a reflection of the unbelievable duration of Apartheid.
Apartheid was technically stopped in 1991 but by the time programs were actually rolled out we’re talking 1994. [This means that had I grown up there, I (a White by African definition because of my European ancestry) would have gone to a completely segregated school and lived in a completely White neighborhood. I probably would not have any Black friends and would probably feel pretty darn privileged (this goes back to the behaviour of the older white men on the plane).] So what has happened is that the majority of this current generation of Blacks is not educated or trained in proper customer service…they are taught to simply follow rules and not to make decisions. They take orders and cues from their white bosses but are not given the authority or power to create exceptions from the rules (i.e., accident on the restaurant floor or negotiating retail prices). It was absolutely mind-blowing to contemplate the duration of apartheid and how long it took the world to pressure the SA government to abolish it. The current quick fix of affirmative action has been mildly successful in terms of at least giving opportunities that were previously unavailable. And I am hopeful that within the next two generations or so this changes and Blacks can have a better access to education and living standards so they can compete on an even level. But there is definitely a ton of improvement required in the meantime.
7. Sorry for the big downer of the above point but I had to get it off my chest. To end this blog with a more positive spin and a funny story or two, I’ll focus on the amazing wildlife that I saw. One of my first encounters was with a bull elephant in heat. He literally had liquid dropping from his testicles (yeah, picture that). He sees our large safari vehicle and decides that he has to defend his territory. So he comes charging after the bus, lets out a huge roar and forces our driver to hightail it in reverse. Problem was that some 300m behind us was another car. Luckily the elephant stopped his charge just as we scared the bejesus out of the car behind us. It did make for a good video and it also scared the poop out of a German lady riding with us.
On another safari ride we were just scoping out the landscape and I felt like a bug had entered into my shirt (I was wearing a polo-style shirt with no buttons closed). Then sure enough I felt something crawling around my stomach. So I stood up and took a swipe under my shirt. Well, that released my sunglasses that were hanging from my shirt and sent them flying to the front of the safari van. The insect fell out and it turned out to be a dung beetle. Guess I wasn’t smelling my finest that day.
Final story to leave you with is that I was craving seeing a leopard. It was the only elusive animal of the Big 5 when I took a safari in East Africa and is reputed to be very shy and only come out at night. We saw one in the Serengeti but from very far away and up in a tree so I was hoping to catch one in South Africa. For this reason I went on two night safaris but no such luck spotting them. Turns out the day we are supposed to arrive in Kruger we totally miscalculated how many hours it would take to drive up the park (despite the posted speed limit of 50 KMH you stop so many times and drive much slower) and were dangerously close to not being allowed to check-in at the hotel. So, I was hightailing it in the pitch dark to make it on time when I spotted something walking along the side of the road. So I slammed the brakes and put the Microhonda (yes, we named every rental we had) in reverse…and sure enough it was a LEOPARD!! I didn’t have time to shoot any pics but I can tell you that I was so happy to finally see one in the wild.
OK…if you’ve made it this far then here’s my latest update: I arrived in Singapore on Tues AM and just departed for Malaysia (Kota Kinabalu). I come back to Singapore for one night next Monday and then it’s off to Bali, Indonesia. Don’t worry, I already have list of random musings for Singapore so stay tuned (I know…I’ll try to keep it shorter next time).
