 Here's me, testing my new sunglasses in the harsh brightness and endless sky of the Namib desert. |
| Here's me, testing my new sunglasses in the harsh brightness and endless sky of the Namib desert. |
The People
Africa has many different cultural groups, but basically they can be broken
down into blacks and whites. The whites are decended from former Europeans
and have a very quaint accent which at times is so thick it almost sounds
like they're speaking another language! The blacks are descended from Africans,
and while many of them speak English, most of them speak African to each
other, which is about the strangest language I've ever heard! It made me
think of what Star Trek would be like if they didn't have the universal
translator. Boy, do I wish I had had one of those there, because I got the
feeling a lot of the time that people were talking about me behind my back.
Overall, though, the people are pretty friendly, although one thing that
annoyed me was that whenever I would go into or a restaurant or a store,
people would look at me like I was crazy whenever I asked a question about
something.
The Land
It's very, very dry in Africa. If you've ever been to Arizona, you'll have
an idea of what I'm talking about. The toilets, which I was told are designed
to save water, are incredible. They flush with this amazingly powerful force
which lasts only seconds but usually does the trick, unless you get sick
on take-aways like I did, then you have to flush three or four times, which
can be rather annoying!!! The showers are also designed to save water, and
usually it takes forever to rinse out the shampoo and wash off all the soap
because the water pressure just isn't that great. One thing I didn't like
was the shower curtains. Wherever we went, the curtains, which were made
out of cloth, were about as thin as could be, and without fail I would step
out of the shower into a pool of water on the floor which had seeped through
the curtain.
Cultural Amenities
There is a lot to do in Africa, whether it's listening to concerts, watching
plays or African dancers, or just flipping through the channels on tv. I
didn't really do much of the first two things, but I did watch a lot of tv,
and I was intrigued at the differences. South Africa has several channels
to choose from, and while it's nothing at all like my cable box at home (no
Lifetime, Mom!), it's still pretty entertaining. I watched two infomercials
there, one for the "Twista", a type of food processor, and the other for
non-stick cookware, both of which featured South African consumer reporter
Isabel Jones. The funny thing was that her guest who explained the products
was from the US! You know how all those infomercials they show in the States
have some British guy explaining the product? It was totally the opposite
in Africa! I joked with my friend that it was like how they say water in
the southern hemisphere spins the other way as it goes down the drain (which
was something I meant to check out but I forgot about it until I was in the
plane coming home.) I also liked their game shows, one of which featured
a group of people grabbing colored billiard balls out of a sack, then spinning
them around and releasing them in a maze, and if a yellow ball came in first,
they won R10,000. The commercials were pretty good, too.
The Cuisine
I like to think I know a lot about food. After all, I've been the restaurant
critic for the Hall Monitor for some time now. But WOW did this place
through me for a loop! Here's an example: I went to the Spur Steakhouse in
Windhoek. All I wanted was a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke. They had a
cheeseburger on the menu, but no fries (what's up with that?!), so
I ordered potato chips instead. Well, the waitress brings out the burger
and it's smothered in cheese sauce! It was all over the place, and I ended
up having to eat it with a fork because it was too messy to pick up. Then
what's next to it but a bunch of french fries! I just figured the waitress
had made a mistake about that, but the burger defied explaination. It looked
like the sort of burger they'd serve in a French restaurant, if that makes
any sense. And for something so messy, you'd think they'd give you pleny
of napkins, but the napkins looked like they'd gone into the bathroom and
torn off a few sheet of toilet paper and folded them up, and when I asked
for more she looked at me like I mentioned earlier, like I was crazy. Another
thing, no matter where I went, whenever I ordered a soda, they would bring
it out in the kind of glass they use in Chinese restaurants that hold about
6 ounces. It doesn't help if you ask for a can of something, either, because
they'll just bring out this tiny little half-size can. For someplace so dry,
you'd think they would have larger sized drinks!
Flora and Fauna
Africa is well known for its wildlife. Unfortunately,
I didn't get to see anything really great, like a lion or anything,
but I did see a lot of other animals. On Table Mountain they have these animals
called rock dassies,
which look like giant hamsters. They're really cute at first, but I went
and bought a snack and sat down outside to eat it, and all of the sudden
there were about ten of them staring at me like they wanted me to give them
something. They kept moving closer when I wasn't looking, and finally I had
to go inside just to get them to stop staring at me. It was pretty creepy.
And when I was in the Namib desert, there were about ten million flies buzzing
around me the whole time. I kept thinking, "Where do they come from?" I was
in the middle of nowhere, yet somehow these flies managed to come out of
wherever it is they were and track me down. All I could figure out was that
maybe in the city there are so many more people to buzz around, so they kind
of spread out. Anyway, it was really annoying!
-Lonnie |
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