In Which I Have Had Enough

I can deal with a lot of unpleasant things; lack of cheese, lack of Splenda, mosquitos that carry the plague.  I can even deal with snakes.

The biggest crocodile I've ever seen at Kalimba Reptile Park.

I hate reptiles in general.  But I can deal with them.

But there is one place where I draw a line in the sand and make my stand:  regional coding on DVDs.

Maybe they aren't interested in hearing it, but movie studios - you are jerks.  Total jerks.  I am American, and have lived most of my life in one place or another in the US.  Thus I have built up quite a DVD collection.  I *own* these movies.

And yet, I find myself unable to watch them now.  Because of your stupid coding.

Even more unfathomable, you have coded South Africa differently from the rest of the continent.  Just WHERE do you think movies ship here from?  I realize that the ROW (rest of world) probably ranks somewhere around the price of broccoli in winter on your importance list, but since I live here it's pretty darn important to me.

The most stupid idea ever.  Other than The Smurfs movie.

Movie studios, you are deliberately trying to cheat me out of my Harry Potter collection, and keep me from watching the season of Fringe that my husband picked up while he was back home.  I am most certainly *NOT* going to pay the ridiculous mark-up for DVDs I already own so that they are region-coded for here.

In fact, I'll venture to say that your execs who have to travel frequently probably get special unlocked DVDs to watch wherever they happen to be.

Well, I spent good money on your, often substandard  (The Smurfs?  REALLY?  Even my 9-year-old couldn't sit through that!), product, and I expect to be able to use it.

And unless you can get with the 21st Century program and understand that there is a very good chance that the people buying your product don't spend their entire lives in a 50 mile radius of where they were born, I am going to put on my black eyepatch and cheer for the pirates to win.

Okay, I've already broken out the pompoms.

Not that I would break the law myself, mind you.  And I believe that people should be paid fairly for what they produce.  But your actions make the pirates seem rather... Robin Hood, don't they?  Let me answer that for you, since you seem too shortsighted to do so on your own:  YES, they seem like Robin Hood.

And for every frustrated moment where I can't watch something I paid money I worked hard to earn, I wish upon you tears of frustration and anger.  I wish upon you Montezuma's Revenge and all those wonderful gastrointestinal delights that go along with visiting Africa.  I wish upon you warts and painful bloating.  I wish you fleas and roaches and bedbugs in your personal bedroom.  

Also, I hope you discover that you are lactose intolerant while taking a week long gourmet vacation to a cheese maker and winery after ingesting two pounds of goat cheese with chives.

Does that sound harsh?  Too bad.  Let justice be done though the heavens fall!

And Sic Semper Tyrannis.   Assholes.

On the Road, Which is Sometimes Off the Road

We have one of these:

 We were told, "You can't simply use this as a town car!" by a horrified Zambian.

The thing is like driving a bus, no joke.  It's enormous, and quite often larger than the actual street lanes.  The turn radius is ridiculous, which leads to a fairly frequent comedy of errors that looks like that scene from the Austin Powers movie where he's got to back up a little, turn forward a little, back up a little, turn forward a little, ad infinitum.

Of course, problems aside, these are all over the place here.  I think they are probably second in population to Toyota Corollas (I have seen corollas bottomed out and stuck on the unregulated speed bumps here.  It's funny because it isn't my car).  So as ridiculous as I feel driving this, I'm usually on the road with several others at the same time.

Other issues that have arisen with my husband's vehicle choice (I requested a Hilux, just to make that clear) include shifting difficulty on par with the old tractor I used to drive while at my grandfather's farm.  Did I mention that my husband bought a manual transmission?  Right.  He did.

Normally this would not be an issue at all.  Thanks to aforementioned grandfather and my own father's dislike of automatic vehicles for most of my years of existence, I'm quite adept at a manual.

ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD.  Which means with me driving in the left hand side of the car, which feels like the right side of the car to me, unlike the right side of the car which feels wrong.

Nevertheless, I have figured it out and today was my baptism by fire - the run to school all by myself.  Well, myself and the kids.  So it wasn't really by myself, but it was by myself because there wasn't another certified driver present.  Ahem.

We left about five minutes early, as I wanted to leave time for accidental stall outs when mistaking fourth for second (which happens embarrassingly often to me when turning a corner).  Luckily, although the traffic here is ridiculous, it is also slow.  If you get out of third gear, you're asking for trouble.  The propensity of the Airtel and MTN cell-minutes sellers to jump in front of cars with complete disregard for their own safety can not be underestimated!  Navigating the pedestrians is more fraught with risk than worrying about other cars, really.

This picture was taken while we were moving.  A moving vehicle does not stop pedestrians. 

In any case, I made it down the road toward the school without much incident and dropped the kids off.  They were fifteen minutes early, but I shooed them out of the car with admonitions to study their flashcards (another aside - no index cards available here, so I have to cut my own.  As a dedicated believer in all things flashcard, I consider it a small price to pay to drill the kids in French and chemistry terms) and set off on my merry way, feeling quite proud and accomplished that it had all gone so well.

I should have paid more attention in CCD growing up, because I forgot my Proverbs and my pride and haughtiness was just begging for destruction (note to catechismal scribes - can we have that made into a responsorial for mass?  I know it's not from Psalms, but I need frequent reminders).

About halfway back home I encountered the bane of my developing world driving experience... the minibus.  I love watching these guys when I'm not on the road - they are very colorful, as is the teeming horde of humanity crammed within.  But when I am driving, the ridiculous risks they take as a matter of course incite a bubbling cauldron of rage within me.

Waiting for victims

And so it was this morning when a minibus came barreling down the road in the wrong lane, at the the ridiculous equivalent speed of about 30 miles per hour.  THIRTY miles per hour?  PSHAW!  That is unheard of here!  Just yesterday I thought I was hauling butt down Independence Ave at a whopping 40 KPH - in US terms, about 25 MPH.

It felt like I was flying, no joke.

After a few crucial seconds where my mind played this trick on me, "Is he on the wrong side of the road or am I?", I realized I was about to die and steered the truck toward the shoulder of the road.  Which, of course, was teeming with people walking to work.

Those that walk in Africa are well acquainted with such problems, and for the most part they effortlessly moved themselves aside and out of the way.  One poor man was a little too close, and he resorted to diving, a la Tom Daley.

After removing himself from the area of concern, he jumped up, straightened his trousers, and joined me in shaking a fist and shouting at the retreating minibus driver.   That is the accepted behavior here, by the way.  I haven't noticed road rage like what I encounter (okay, what I perpetuate) driving in Los Angeles, but it is encouraged that you inform people when they are acting like idiots and endangering others.  If it is truly an accident or something a person can't figure out (like when I mistake fourth and second), people are very understanding and calm about it.  And this is the ONE place I've ever been where you just can't travel too slow - no one bats an eye at slow vehicles, even if they go around them when they have the chance.

But people here will not stint to tell you, in a very parental way, when you are screwing up.  I have to say it is one of the most culturally endearing characteristics of living here.  Anyone older than I am is parental toward me and grandparently toward my children.  Anyone younger assumes I am going to boss them around.

And if you know someone, they are your family and are entitled to such familial privileges as telling you off when necessary.  This privilege is also reversed, and I can point out idiocy as well.

Anyway, the diving Zambian and I shared a moment of synchronous rage and then went our separate ways; I being thrilled that he understood I was not the problem in this instance.

I made it the rest of the way home easily (knock on wood for the future), and will repeat the whole thing (hopefully minus the idiot minibus driver) this afternoon when I pick the kids up and stop at the store to see if they have garlic in today, as yesterday they were out.

I Don't Want To Know!

I grew up on an island, and I truly thought I was ready for the adjustment that drives so many who come to Africa downright bonkers.  I mean, on an island the pace of life is slow, things are very laid back.  Things get done at a more leisurely pace.

I thought I could handle it.  I thought so wrong.  And since my boxing equipment has not yet been delivered (it was supposed to be here a month ago and will not be here for another 5 weeks - but probably even longer), I have nothing to hit to make myself feel better.

Let's use another example - say, for instance, our internet installation.  It was supposed to be done one day, but they couldn't get to it that day so it was scheduled for the next day at 9 am.  At around 3:30 the installers showed up.  They could not finish that same day, so they were to come back the next day at 9 am.  I think 9 am is code for 3:30 pm, because that's about when they got here again.  Yet again they could not finish, and yet again they were to get here at 9 am.  They actually got here at noon the next day.  But it was time for lunch.

You see where I'm going here, right?  Maddening.  I am learning to adjust to this different sort of thinking in regards to time.  I just think of everything as a surprise.  The water delivery guy is here before 2 pm on an 8 am appointment?  What a wonderful surprise!  Oh happy day!  

But I do have internet now, so I can post again, and I can post pictures!  I had been burning through my 3G data plan on my iPad like crystal meth in a trailer park, so it's nice to be able to post without worrying about that.

I spoke to our doctor friend again last night.  It's always such a mixed bag to hear him talk about his work.  On the one hand, you cannot help but have such pride in someone like that - he works without days off and figures out how to fix problems in situations that would have many Western doctors, who rely so heavily on machines and technology, throwing up their hands in frustration and despair.  Here, doctors are innovators out of necessity - they absolutely have to be.

I read this article earlier about the plight of doctors here, and the choices they make (whether to go or stay).  I think the title is stupid, but that's the copy editor's fault.  The information in the article is illuminating.

I wanted to tell Desai what it would be like to practice in his old hospital, so I observed Makasa and a colleague fix a man’s broken leg. In the operating theater, there was a dirty-looking scalpel blade on the floor. The assisting staff ambled in late, causing the operation to start 30 minutes behind schedule. The air-conditioner was broken. A nurse took two personal cellphone calls in the operating room. When it came time for the surgeon to drill holes in the patient’s bones, a nurse produced a case containing a Bosch power drill. By way of sterilization, she wrapped it in a green cloth, binding it tight with a strip of muslin.

The cell phone calls during surgery was what got me.

I can understand the frustration of doctors here, as well.  Last night we heard a story about a pregnant woman who presented with a bleeding issue.  It is now standard to HIV test anyone who comes in, and when it came time to give her the results of her test she refused to hear.  "I don't want to know!" she said over and over again, very insistent that no one tell her.

She was HIV positive.  

Being a doctor here is not a safe job - not with the HIV infection rate here.  And it's not a mentally safe job, either.  So often, instead of healing you are watching people die.  That is not what doctors train for - to watch people die.  It is the antithesis of what they do.  

And to stay here, to continue to practice here, they must have a calling to make a difference.  A doctor here will not get rich.  As the NYT article states - $24,000 a year is not rolling in dough.  The doctor stays out of a sense of obligation to the greater good.   

 I'm thinking the greater good would be better served if nurses didn't take cell phone calls during surgery, however.  I'm just not sure how you convince people of that.