And by “they,” I mean “we.” I’ve got to admit, we’ve been having a tough time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. I mean, of course we put up a bomb-ass tree, decked the crap out of the halls, and donned our gayest apparel. But because our friends and family are oceans away, we’ve missed out on the usual holiday parties, dinner planning, and general seasonal mirth that accompanies December back home. Also, the events that usually lead up to […]
December, 2016
100% of the Traffic Police Here are Corrupt…
…at least according to the 1 interaction I’ve had. So I guess to make broad statements based on such a limited sample size is unfair. According to most accounts, both online and from local South Africans, the number is no higher than 98.7%. I’ll get into the traffic here in an upcoming post, but that’s a topic all on its own. Picture a high-school play. All the actors are terrible and the play itself seems to have been created when […]
It’s a Christmas Miracle!
As it usually does, the universe acted in a funny way yesterday. I posted a rather lengthy blog about the trials and tribulations of getting the internet hooked up at our house. And, about an hour later, Telkom was at our door, unannounced (they were supposed to call before they came). I know for a fact that this had nothing to do with my blog post, as it had just been published and had virtually no readers (although 700 people […]
Waiting For Telkom (AKA, South Africa’s National Pastime)
I’ll never complain about slow internet again. OK, I probably will, because most of it is horrifically slow here, and you don’t know how hard life can be until you’ve waited a good 5 seconds to load the perfect cat meme to send as a witty response to a friend’s text (or SMS as they call them here, because in the spirit of doing ALL things inefficiently in South Africa, they’ve decided to tack on an extra two syllables. Just […]
What Have We Done???
I had a great life in Canada. I was comfortable. My career was on the right path. We were close to family and friends. Then, I was talking to one of our senior VPs one day, and he brought up the possibility of me taking a position with the company in South Africa. One catch though- he couldn’t guarantee me a job when I moved back. The sensible thing to do would have been to say, “I really appreciate the […]