A Box of Delights

by Doug Roland

After 6 months living in Pietermaritzburg, the bloom is off the rose. Things have become familiar -we don't need the Garmin to go to the grocery store, find a nearby church, or go to a park. Cricket (the sport) drones on for weeks at a time sucking up a lot of TV air time. While at first we were met regularly with wonderful surprises, charming customs and practices, such are now routine. It's common after living in one place for awhile. Locals tell us that we've been to more places in the country than they have. Back home, we can say the same thing about Florida. People live habitually - it's comfortable, predictable and safe. It would be easy for us to slip into that so we have to find new, more subtle things that amuse and delight. We refuse to go there. We are dedicated to staying out of the box. Here are a few samples of recent finds:

a free local "newspaper" is stuffed into our mailbox each week. It includes TV listings for the next week, except Thursday - always Thursday.

Similarly, there is a website for the local mall, including movies times at its multiplex. But the dates are always at least a week old.

Tomato stakes (you know, keeping the vines off the ground) are named "stoppers".

Ham from the leg of the pig is called "gammon". Tastes the same, though.

Chocolate chips, the kind you make cookies with, are rare and found only in thimble size containers. This in a continent with some of the world's best cocoa.

There is a little restaurant north of here called the "Sticky Fig". (It's just down the road from the "Pickle Pot.") One of its specialties is a fig sandwich. It's great.

We would pronounce 8:30 as eight-thirty. Here, it's hah-pahst eight.

There is a common road sign on the limited access highways that reads "Average Speed Prosecution". What the h___ does that mean?

In the US, we approach a very large truck with a small truck behind it with a broad sign that says: WIDE LOAD. Here, it's ABNORMAL.

Many locals don't know where they are. They can give you great directions but usually without street or road names. Instead, you are directed by landmarks (FNB Bank; soccer stadium; Pic N' Pay; the old jail; etc.) Never mind asking for an address for the GPS. But they do know how to get there. And now, for the most part, so do we.

Yesterday was trash pick-up day. It must be a big job. There was the truck driver and maybe a passenger, accompanied by four assistants hanging on to the back. When the truck slows, all four jump off running through the street, hollering loudly at each other, presumably in a sort of coordinated pickup of 3 black garbage bags. The neighborhood dogs, seeing four guys in blue work uniforms running through the street, went into a frenzy, waking those who have chosen Friday to sleep in. From a municipal service standpoint, the efficiency is doubtful, but it's good theater.

Finally, a preview of coming attractions. It's time for our car to go in for "routine" service. Typically, that means, oil, filter, checking fluids. Since we had not been to this dealer before, we were required to come in, show i.d., and fill out forms (Oh to have the concession on forms in this country.) I asked about how long the service would take. "Most of the day", they replied. We have a broken tail light and also need a second key. This means parts. If they know you need a part, you must first pay for it; the dealer orders it and will call you when it's in. You pick it up at one counter on the day of service and take it to the another counter. It is not without reason that I doubt the Tuesday date will hold. How many other parts doesn't the dealer stock? Will they run an MRI on the car and find a need for more parts? "Sorry, you'll have to reschedule until the part(s) comes in." Here's what I'm thinking: the car's warranty will run out in about 500 kilometers. If we are delayed another couple of weeks . . . . well, you get the idea. This could take a while. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, we will continue to seek meaning in the odd corners and serendipitous turns of our journey.

WHATEVER

by Cheri Roland

New Year's Eve is an excellent excuse to have a party, even in South Africa. Doug and I received an invitation from our neighbors two doors down, Alison and Ian whom we had met thru our walking club. It's hard to meet people here outside of the seminary, so we were eager to get the opportunity to connect with our new surroundings.

This neighborhood is mostly white working class with medium sized concrete block and stucco forgettable rectangular homes surrounded by inventive high walls and gates all topped with various uncomfortable deterrents and hung with brightly colored signage cheerfully proclaiming "Armed Response" from a myriad of security companies. Vegetation is surprisingly Florida-like, but these plants are prickly and on steroids. I can feel them growing. Many flowering trees are currently softening the otherwise thorny succulents that line the path, threatening to impale unwary pedestrians. Zoning here allows extra buildings behind houses, so most sport a variety of opportunities for income-producing lodgers, and many yards park an assortment of vehicles. Virtually every home here has at least two attack dogs that enthusiastically charge the gates with every passerby. And this street is a traffic thoroughfare - for runners and walkers (a surprisingly large numbers of fitness-conscious PMB-ites regularly traverse these big hills), folks walking their dogs, really causing pandemonium, and the regular constant to and fro of domestic and day labor workers in their layers of brightly colored dress, caps or turbans on their heads, ladies often waddling under huge sacks balanced on top, all loaded down with any number of bags and sacks and umbrellas. Five houses away at the top of the hill is a taxi stop (no regular public busses here; a taxi is a crammed 13 or so passenger van), so folks are always waiting, resting awhile on the meter high cement road signs if they are lucky. Down the hill and bordering our valley across the street is the N-3 highway going west to Johannesburg and east to Durbin. In between is our "One Hundred Acre Wood" which certainly would have added to Pooh's and Eyore's adventures. It is a long stand of Australian eucalyptus harboring the extremely noisy African ibis, cousin to our silent, well behaved white ground-peckers. But these are huge dark glossy monsters that insist on emitting ear splitting squawks whenever they move, preferably in concert, and begin this unfortunate group activity at four AM, rain or shine (and it is shining at four AM, believe me). Adding to this auditory insult is the busy train track running about 1/2 kilometer away, curving around across the top of the ridge, so that its effect can echo across hill and vale. (We have taken to sleeping in ear plugs.) Directly behind us is the seminary. The asymmetrical tower cross fills the sky to the left. All we need is a gate cut through our back wall, and we could trot right into the Christ the Servant Chapel. And along its edge, now a strip of grass, will be our production garden. And that is my project for this new year.

The New Year's Eve party did not disappoint. Allison had their back garden (yard) decked out in a beach theme, and rain, drenching at times, just added to the wet and wild flavor. They had invited about forty revelers to help cheer in 2011, albeit about seven hours before we Rolands could honestly celebrate. Most guests brought major food - "Bring a plate of snacks" - trays and trays of heavy hors d'oeuvres but they scarped up my paltry ham and cream cheese pinwheels nonetheless. Somehow Doug and I managed to stay awake for the big 2011 countdown, drink some champagne and dance around with sparklers.

Interesting people with all sorts of odd experiences and thought provoking theories were circulating. Of course, being American in this small town is still a drawing card, so we were quite popular among the over thirty crowd. We finally caught up with our next door neighbors whom Doug had briefly spoken with shortly after we moved in. Vivian teaches math to 8-12th graders and is on the committee that writes the national competency exams; Garth teaches several musical instruments and has a piano gig two nights a week at a nearby hotel restaurant singing and playing requests. (I must follow up to see if I could get keyboard time somewhere.)

At one point I was chatting with Quintis, an Afrikaaner thirty-something dad. True to form, as soon as he found out we'd been here for five months, the first question invariably was, "How do you like it?" And we answered, as always, "Oh it's great!", although I must admit I'm not as adamant with that reply as I was at first. (I mentioned to Doug the other day that the excitement of newness and wonder has faded.) Quintis was more interested in our real assessments of life here than many others have been, and continued to question me. I found myself verbalizing impressions and experiences that had been swimming around in the deep recesses for some time. Man, this guy was asking for it! But New Year's Eve is often accompanied by a lack of good judgement.

I started a litany that could have really hurt his feelings, but he surprised me by voicing agreement. In fact, he eloquently summed up the state of affairs with, "If you are OK with mediocrity, this is a great place to live". In my short time here, this WHATEVER attitude seems to pervade all levels of life, pressing down with a weight that is palpable. He concurred that here eventually one just must shrug and give in, or end up being visited at Town Hill Mental Hospital.

After a couple of drinks of New Year's Eve cheer, my examples of startling circumstances struck me as more and more funny. Maybe tops on my list were problems with "the Municipality". Power and water outages happen out of the blue, and last for at least eight hours after being reported to the Municipality; the last time this happened, the worker explained that we had been notified the day before that the power would go off- right! We live in the middle of the block; the two houses next to us and immediately across the street are on a different grid than the rest of the long street. No one knows why. Where there are sidewalks, the sewer access six foot deep holes are often uncovered for months, with no safety provisions in place. Now that it's summer, the grass along the roads has grown by leaps and bounds, now up to my armpits, and has yet to be mowed. In other areas we've seen abandoned mowers surrounded by a small islands of futile attempts. Trash pick-up is another mystery, and even the locals just shake their heads. Schedules? What schedules? Today I learned that the municipality workers expect "Christmas boxes", meanwhile slacking off during working hours in order to demand overtime. Postal service is another nebulous concept, and we are clueless in this department. Our mail has ended up at four different locations, and we always have to pay varying amounts to retrieve it. Only junk mail get delivered to our gate. Major highways seem to be in fairly good repair, but the rest of the roads are happy to inform the travelers that there will be potholes for the next 30 km; for fun I've clocked it, and the next pothole sign always occurs with a 10 km overlap, just as so not to disappoint. I guess there are no plans to actually repair the road…, just make more signs. Recently, we decided to go to the driver's license place to see if we really needed to have SA drivers' licenses. When we mentioned this to others, we usually got a "Good luck with that" response.

TV viewing is entertaining. We are trying to stay on the cheap, so our options are limited. There are three SABC stations, one for Afrikaans, one for Zulu, and one for English. All three use the same news stories, the same video clips, the same weather graphics. If we were clever, we could probably pick up some foreign words. We have been reduced to watching re-runs of reality shows from years ago; Survivor - Gabon is currently our big thrill during the week. I'm sure the news is slanted. A surprising story caught my attention the other day, and I made Doug listen the next time it came on. A man had been arrested for driving 235km/hr, in the 120km/hr zone. He told the judge he was on his way to his sick mother and was sorry. So the judge "let him off because he pleaded guilty". So I guess this means that if you admit guilt accompanied by the most overworked excuse known, you incur no penalty. SWEET.

We've noticed the glut of employed official workers, especially in "security" capacities. Their are usually two or three uniformed people standing at the entrance to a building, two or three standing just inside, two or three at the next turn, and to what end? It makes me nervous, as if they are expecting an armed insurrection. Over-employment seems to be the norm here. It's a shame that efficiency has proportionately decreased as the numbers of employed has increased.

Looking back on my conversation with Quintis, I'm smiling. We are in a foreign country, after all, and we are no longer visitors. How disappointing it would be if life here turned out to be the same as at home! Half the fun is finding these differences - and celebrating them! So I lift my glass to South Africa and 2011. May we continue to respect this country's culture and all her peculiarities as we concentrate on making God's love a reality WHATEVER, WHEREVER.

SIlent Night. Holy Night

by Doug Roland

Here in South Africa, the last two weeks of the year are frequently called the "Festive Season". For us, it has seemed empty. The carol services we attended barely mentioned Advent. At no time did I feel a sense of wonder. Decorations are the exception rather than the rule. "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Christmas" greetings were rare. We organized a covered dish staff Christmas party at the house. There is an unfamiliar reluctance to cook among a number of people we know. And like the younger generation back home, RSVP has fallen into disuse.

It's really not anyone's fault. It's what can happen if you risk hoping that local custom will mirror the seasonal celebrations you've grown up with. Our lack of interest in the season this year arises out of our displacement in a faraway land. The theology has not changed - only the landscape. We know the story but there is no emotion attached. Being away and separated from family and friends is a new experience, one hard to plan for. We discovered quickly that we cannot replicate what we know and remember Christmas to be. Admitting that to ourselves has helped. We just ain't in Kansas anymore. All this has caused us to look more deeply into the our traditional response to the Christmas story now placed in the context of this country.

More than any other time of the year, Christmas is a family affair. Our feelings about and responses to Christmas were planted when we were young children. Families - relation, extended and church, all had traditions. We looked forward to them and the joyous opportunities to share ourselves and our new toys with others. I remember the first BB gun, a very special book I still have, indoor trees with lights, the dog sniffing and looking for his present, and the smell of turkey baking. Later, relatives or close friends we had not seen for a long time knocked on the door. There was the year that Nat spent studying in England and came home for Christmas break. The day he we went to a birthday party for his Great-Aunt Clara, who became the namesake for his first child 12 years later. Family is at the core of out relationship to this holiday.

Then there are the traditions - the Christmas Eve services with candles and carols; the reading of the Night Before Christmas; waking up at 5am; who plays Santa?; who goes first?; playing outside with our new stuff after Christmas dinner.

All that was missing this year. It would have been easy to miss the whole point and slide apathetically through the season. Instead, the story was re-told in an unexpected way.

Several of you have asked what did we do this season? Well, we didn't mope around.

We went to three carol services - all different. One at the seminary, one at a local church in the tent overflow, and one in a tiny Anglican church in a village named Himeville. (We were there to house/dog-sit for a retired couple who were spending Christmas with family 2 hours away.) While each service was nice, there's still no place like home.

Himeville rests in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains, perhaps the most dramatic mountains in the country. Christmas Eve arrived on a rare cloudless day. We had a driver (who was also a bird expert) take us up 30 miles of rocky, steep road known as Sani Pass to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. The four-wheeler bounced and churned its way up switchback roads clutter with rocks, the occasional broken-down vehicle, and luggage unloaded to reduce the weight of an overloaded van. At the top, our passports were stamped at Lesotho passport control, operated by one man in a tiny building. It sat just across the road from the highest pub in Africa, in a geographic sense.

Lesotho is a sparse, but beautiful land and one of the poorest countries in the world. We drove inland about 10 kilometers. A cold summer wind swept across the broad, green and rocky landscape dotted with stone huts, sheep and a few horses. The huts are for the shepherds who on that day were wrapped in heavy wool blankets tending to their flocks. The shepherds are mostly teenagers unable to find any other employment. For six months of the year, they live alone in the huts, sheltered from the cold nights of summer. The sheep were herded to grazing areas and small ponds. One herd met us on the road down the hill headed for the market. Each shepherd is responsible for every sheep in the flock. He must protect them from predators and count them regularly. It is lonely work.

Christmas Day opened cloudy and wet and stayed that way. Nonetheless, we hiked for several hours near a river. Along the way we met Germans and French which only proves that hikers everywhere are a little nuts. We were completely soaked and sacrificed at least one pair of boots. Later, we were invited by neighbors (still in Himeville) to come over for afternoon tea. There were about 9 of us altogether. The tea resembled red wine somehow. These folks were British, if not in citizenship, then in heritage. We joined them in a team game of Trivial Pursuit, United Kingdom edition. I did manage to answer a couple of questions. I knew that James Arness and Peter Graves were brothers. My team almost didn't believe me. (We won.) This was quite a privilege their Christmas afternoon and it had that feel of a family tradition.

So while this Christmas has been very different for us, Luke's story did not change. He begins with shepherds tending their flocks at night. This year, for us, the shepherds and their sheep were in the high plains of a tiny and poor mountain kingdom. It was our own special Christmas pageant and a stark reminder that, without all the lights, parties, games and food, a child was born, and none of us have been the same. Somehow, I think that spending our Christmas Eve in the mountains of Lesotho was not a coincidence.