8.2.10

A Cheat Post

No time yet to write a proper post so allow me to cheat once again.  This is a slightly cynical view of South Africa, yet very amusing.You know you are South African when…


1. You produce a R100 note instead of your driver’s licence when stopped by a traffic officer
2. You can do your monthly shopping on the pavement
3. You have to hire a security guard whenever you park your car
4. You can count the national soccer team's scores with no fingers
5. To get free electricity you have to pay a connection fee of R750
6. Hijacking cars is a profession
7. Defecating in a garden can win you R1-million
8. You can pay your tuition fees by holding up a sign at a traffic light
9. The petrol in your tank may be worth more than your car
10. More people vote in a local reality TV show than in a local election
11. People have the most wonderful names: Christmas, Goodwill, Pretty, Wednesday, Blessing, Brilliant, Gift, Precious, Innocence, Samsung and Airtime.
12. “Now now” can mean anything from a minute to a month!
13. You continue to wait after a traffic light has turned to green to make way for taxis travelling in the opposite direction.
14. Travelling at 120 km/h you’re the slowest vehicle on the highway
15. You’re genuinely and pleasantly surprised whenever you find your car parked where you left it.
16. A bullet train is being introduced but we can’t fix potholes
17. The last time you visited the coast you paid more in speeding fines and toll fees than you did for the entire holiday
18. You paint your cars registration on the roof
19. Half your mail is guaranteed to reach its destination
20. You have to take your own linen with you if you are admitted to a government hospital
21. You dial a toll free number and nobody answers
22. You have to prove that you don’t need a loan to get one
23. Prisoners go on strike.
24. You don’t stop at a red traffic light, in case somebody hijacks your car.
25. You consider it a good month if you only get mugged once.
26. Rwandan refugees start leaving the country because the crime rate is too high.
27. When 2 Afrikaans TV programs are separated by a Xhosa announcement of the following Afrikaans program, and a Pedi ad.
28. The employees DANCE in front of the building to show how unhappy they are.
29. The SABC advertises and shows highlights of the program you just finished viewing.
30. You get cold easily. Anything below 16 degrees Celsius is Arctic weather.
31. You call a bathing suit a “swimming costume”.
32. You stop at robots, not traffic lights.
33. You know what Rooibos Tea is, even if you’ve never had any.
34. You can sing your national anthem in four languages, and you have no idea what it means in any of them.
35. You know someone who knows someone who has met Nelson Mandela.
36. You go to “braais” (barbecues) regularly, where you eat boerewors (long meaty sausage-type thing) and swim, sometimes simultaneously.
37. You have a gear lock for your car.
38. You’ve never seen snow in real life.
39. You know that there’s nothing to do in the Free State.
40. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other South Africans because you know its true.

If any of the above does not make sense, please ask and I will be happy to explain.  I think some of them are universal but many of them are definitely unique to our country.

Source

7 comments:

Scoobyloves2004 said...

OMG!!!! How in the world do you survive??? LOL, no thank you. My friend Maggi from West Africa says the same thing. She actually has a guard outside her house every night. I could not imagine.

Gaelyn said...

I loved this. Learned some more about your country. Sounds rather similar to here in many ways. What kind(s) of meet are in the famous BBQ?
Great cheat post.

A human kind of human said...

Hi Arley, it is true what they say: "Living in Africa is not for cissies" (lol).

Gaelyn, a traditional "braai" would definitely include lamb chops and boerewors, with mieliepap (firm porridge made from fairly grainy corn flower) and tomatoe and onion sauce to accompany the meat. Lamb chops is, well, lamb chops and boerewors is a type of spicy beef sausage with coriander flavouring, however you do get many variations with different spices. To most Afrikaner men a balanced diet means a lamb chop in one hand and a Caste Lager in the other - not serious. You can also braai steaks or chicken, but the favourite is chops and wors (that is when you can afford lamb chops). Hope you will get a chance to experience a true SA braai while you are over here.

Argent said...

In Enland they're swimming costumes too. Many of the same things are happening here, car-jackings and whatnot - only we don't get the nice ather!

A human kind of human said...

The English I was taught at school is the "Queen's English" although I think we are well advanced in developing our own version of the English language. So "swimming costume" does not surprise me at all. We even spell like the English - lol. I am sure that you will find many of these things all over the world, it is just that it has all become rather prominent here in SA over the last decade or so. The one crime, but it is not mentioned in the post, that is genuinely scary and I believe unique to SA is the "farm murders". Since 1994 more than 3,000 people have been murdered on farms. To put it in perspective all I can say is that is already way beyond the number of people that were killed by the Apartheids Government for political reasons. Let me get off the soapbox. I might sometime write a post about this sometime, but not now.

Kirsty said...

Ha, some of these made me laugh. I try not to dwell too much on the crime though - the worst part is being scared and expecting things to happen to you.

Ah, and I miss braais! What I wouldn't give for a boerie roll and a Black Label! Whenever people ask me if I'm vegetarian, all I have to say is "no man, I'm South African..." !!

prashant said...

car-jackings and whatnot - only we don't get the nice ather!

Work from home India