If you live in South Africa, you’re very familiar with the term “load shedding.” If you’re not from South Africa, you probably have no idea what load shedding is. In a nutshell, load shedding occurs when Eskom, the government monopoly that provides the country with consistently intermittent power, decides to cut off electricity to various parts of the country on a rotating schedule to avoid a complete meltdown of the grid. Eskom tells us there are various reasons for load […]
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Maple and Marula- The Book
In case you haven’t pieced it together yet based on my wildly infrequent posts and the overall general shoddiness of the content, this blog isn’t my job. Blogging pays just a little bit less than my other side gig castrating cockroaches (SOMEBODY needs to control their population, and I don’t see YOU jumping to the plate, Judgey McJudgenson). Anyway, what I’m saying is this blog has grown organically (and not from any conscious effort on my part) because it seems […]
31 Things That Happen When You Move To South Africa
I woke up the other day and realised we moved to South Africa just over two years ago. Two. Years. In dog years, I’ve been in South Africa longer than the Spice Girls were a band. It’s been all kinds of crazy and all kinds of wonderful (but mostly all kinds of crazy). In what other place in the world could wild elephants, shark-filled oceans, Julius Malema, massive braais, and neverending jols exist? Some of those are great, while others are […]
Animal Interactions in South Africa
One of the most mind-blowing things about South Africa is its wildlife. Have you ever watched the National Geographic channel on TV? It’s like that, but with the added thrill of getting malaria (for real- if you go to Kruger Park, take malaria medication). There are kabillions (rough estimate- I’m not so good with numbers) of different animal species to see, but the Big 5 captivate most visitors. For those of you not familiar with the term, the Big 5 […]
8 Colossal Benefits of Expat Life
Last week I posted about 8 Ways Expat Life Sucks Worse Than Puppy Cancer, and I meant every word. But I also said I wouldn’t trade my expat experience for the world, and I meant that, too. So for the sake of balance, I thought I’d post about the benefits of expat life, cause there are many. 1) You’ll Get To See The World This one’s super obvious, but it still needs to be said. If you want to travel, but […]
8 Ways Expat Life Sucks Worse Than Puppy Cancer
Exactly one year ago today, we were waiting in the Vancouver airport for our flight to South Africa. Everything we owned was already stuffed into a container and floating across the ocean to meet us at a later date. We were exhausted, excited, and nervous. We had said all our goodbyes to friends and family and were about to embark on our new journey. Expat struggles were something we didn’t even think about. Fast forward one year later, and we pretty […]
The Person Who Does That…
I’m going to throw a quite common scenario at you. You’re at your office in North America, and you’re about to go on your yearly vacation to see all the severed whale wieners you can imagine. You set your “out of office” notification on your email, informing anybody who may try to contact you that you’ll be away, but there’s an alternate person who can help them out. Same with your voicemail. Now, your customers can still get what they […]
Canada Day in SA
I love life in South Africa. There are many times I’m sure I never want to move back home to Canada. Canada is polite. Everyone will say hello back to you when you greet them, and everyone will ask how you’re doing, but they don’t really care. We know better than to reply with anything other than a simple “fine,” “good,” or, if we’re feeling particularly boisterous that day and feel like taking the risk of alarming people, we say […]
Things I Love About South Africa (Part 1 of Many)
All right, South Africa. I’ve ripped on you pretty heavily in a few previous posts. But I mean, come on- you can’t possibly expect to wear tight short shorts as a guy and NOT have people make fun of you. Anyway, I didn’t move here because South Africa sucks. It doesn’t. This country is one of the most amazing places on earth, and I fell in love with it when I visited years and years ago. I was going to write […]
Brand New Site, Same Old Animal Pictures
So here’s the deal- when I first started blogging, I didn’t think anybody was really going to read the crap I puked out onto the internet. I blogged simply because I don’t like people. I got sick of answering questions from people back home, and instead of spending time actually talking to anybody, I could simply refer them to my blog and be done with it. I started it on a free website and didn’t give a turd about how […]