Happenings

Starting to get annoyed with the services that are available here in Pretoria. In a city of 2.3M people you'd expect a lot more stuff to be around. As mentioned public transport is non-existent and private transport (ie. taxis) are hardly around either.

Anyway, I've been looking at buying another small point and shoot camera with a 5x optical zoom and prices are £100 more than amazon.co.uk. Proper DSLR prices for body and lens are painfully expensive compared to London (and London isn't even the cheapest place for camera equipment).

Failing this I'm looking into hiring a DSLR and lens but there's none around here, they're all in Joburg!

Now internet access. If I want 3G internet via USB modem I can't data enable my PAYG phone SIM card. I need to be on contract (with only specific networks) or buy a custom SIM from the internet provider. Price of SIM is R149 compared to R10 for a normal SIM card. To get the SIM however, you need to provide certified copies of ID (passport) and proof of address. This is according to new legislation that came in last year (RICA), purportedly to curb mobile crime. The company drops off your SIM card and picks up your certified copies to take back to headquarters. To get something certified you need to go to a notary, usually at a solicitor's office. It all gets too difficult.

You could go to a retail shop and show original documents and get it all done but they charge you ridiculous amounts compared to London. A 3G USB modem is between R600 - R2000!! £60 to £200!!! I just baulk from paying it on principle - never paid that much for internet equipment in my life and not going to start in a country with inferior download speeds for only 6 months!

On a more positive note it was good to have Bruce around for the last week. We had a long weekend as Monday was Human Rights Day. A lady from work lent us her car so we drove around Pretoria and went to the Wonder Caves. I had gone past this place on my previous tour but we didn't have time to do everything and so had decided to go to the Sterkfontein Caves instead of the Wonder Caves. Having now seen the Wonder Caves I think its a better sight as far as caves go than the Sterkfontein Caves. Still, I've seen a lot of caves and Sardinia and others are much more impressive. Yet, for £6 you can't really complain.

On one of our travels we came across this Afrikaans Country Western karaoke place, complete with cowboy hats and all! We only stopped late in the afternoon as we needed some food and under the canopy of a tree was a guy singing Rhinestone Cowboy! I think people would have been there specifically for it! There were some songs in Afrikaans as well; all good clean fun I guess but quite unexpected!

We went to eat at a lot of nice places too including the Carnivore Restaurant in Muldersdrift. Much, much better than the same Carnivore in Nairobi, Kenya. It wasn't very busy at the lunchtime but it is able to accommodate 500 people. Whereas the Nairobi one only had Ostrich meatballs as the exotic meat, Muldersdrift had Crocodile, Eland, Kodu, Impala and Zebra! And I had them all!! In fact I didn't have any normal meat as I started to fill very quickly and wanted to try these meats I hadn't had before. I think my favourite was Impala. Then on the Monday we went to The Hillside Tavern and I had Springbok which was delicious. Good service, good food, good ambience; proper restaurant stuff at the Hillside! Carnivore was really good value as well, about £18 for all you can eat meat! Unfortunately Pasha and Cynthia's were both closed so we couldn't go there. We did drive to both those restaurants as they are close to each other but had to settle for a Chinese restaurant that open. Our manager also took us out to Jimmy's Killer Prawns and we had a great feast there! Didn't get sick from any food either which was brilliant! And in case some of you were wondering, tap water is safe to drink in South Africa.

New starts

The accommodation I am in is quite comfortable and pleasant but there are a few caveats to be stated. It's a (mainly) student block so it gets noisy. Its quite expensive for what it is and I am probably paying 3 times what I should from my gumtree.co.za research. It is fully furnished and it gets cleaned and linen changed every week but still its almost London prices when it should not be. I'm looking to move out after my month here is finished. My main criteria is that I need to be within walking distance to work as there is basically no public transport.

I've been doing a bit of reading on travel and local websites and even those who've been here for 2.5 years can't make head or tail of the buses (forget trains there aren't any). Its not that there are no buses, as I see them (and people waiting for them), but I think those who write are referring to its reliability and predictability. There aren't many taxi's either and the ones available are said to be expensive although I haven't tried them out yet. They do have these "Ubuntu" cars. Basically private minivans that go around a particular route. I think they'd be good to go on for a laugh but they just sit there waiting for enough people to fill the van before they go so they can hardly be considered timely transport. I think they're about ZAR6 (50p) a ride.

I am doing a lot of walking, let that be said! 20 mins to the Uni every morning. On the upside my transport costs are currently running at £0!

So yeah, its kinda hard to settle into a place where you feel you don't have much mobility. Even moving from the Guesthouse to house nbr 2 a lady from work drove me from one place to the next with my suitcase. They're very car oriented here and they do have a bit of congestion during peak hours but they don't last that long. I imagine Joburg would be much worse though. There are quite a few airport transfer services so I don't think that would be a problem.

It can be hard to find places that you need here as the smaller shops and things aren't listed on the internet. I mean, compare London where every piece of print advertising has the website printed. And every service has a presence on the web. And google hasn't gotten here with streetview yet either. Most have an email address but you don't want to email them, you just want to find out what they offer and the price!

The other thing is that I don't go out at night. Well not by myself and right now I'm here by myself. It is a dangerous place at night alone or in twos as the streets are not well lit. So yeah, I'm kinda bored in the evenings coming from London where I had things on 5 days out of 7. I'm watching a lot of National Geographic (the King Cobra is the largest venomous snake in the world and its favourite food is the rat snake) and catching up on my reading of Calvin's Institutes. I'm quite OK with it now although initially the shock of having not much to do caught me by surprise. But then again, it was like this when I first got to London and when I worked in Bristol. Most other places I've worked at though had a lot of expats or out of town people so you'd hang and go out with them. Anyway, it reminds me that we are foreigners and aliens in this world which is not our permanent home (1 Peter 2:11). OK, not really, I just made that up then! ;) Yes, I'll say it, I miss you guys!!

Food and drink are on the cheap side but not spectacularly cheap (except for Nando's which is about half the London price!). A two piece KFC meal with Coke is about £3.50. A burger from a place called Steers is about £2. Haven't tried McD's yet. Wine is sooo cheap! You can get a bottle of RSA red for £3.

The people here are very friendly and helpful and I don't think I get treated differently by blacks or whites. Oh, and I've seen more Asian people around since the first few days but they're definitely a small minority. A lady at work gives me a lift home half the time even though its 2 blocks from the Uni. Most of my walking time is through the Uni itself from one end to the other. She's currently looking on the intranet for other places for me to rent. It's good getting to know more people at work at least and hearing their thoughts on their country.

Oh, and work, the reason why I'm here. Work was (and will probably continue to be) very challenging as I haven't done the technical stuff for 2 years. Quite a learning curve coming back up to speed and some ambitious and non-straightforward customisations to the software. Getting good experience into RSA is a bit hard I guess as no-one wants to come here because they think its dangerous. I will admit I am not the "Indian programmer" who lives to program but I'm being seen as the reference point when the client team gets stuck! And it is a project with deadlines and go-live dates to meet. Bit stressed with work the first two weeks. A lot of people are away this week attending a PeopleSoft conference in Texas.

Got a trip to the "Cradle of humankind" this Sunday. It's an area where a lot of fossils have been found. There are also a couple of caves and a lion park. Will let you know about it. Got really excited about a trip to Victoria Falls as I found that one of the 3 cheap budget airlines here (yes, they're safe to fly) goes to Livingstone, Zambia. A backpackers there (and hotels too I suppose) will pick you up from the airport. There are a great number of things to do besides seeing the Falls but I want to do whitewater rafting on the Zambezi River and an elephant back safari ride. So got everything connected from Pretoria to Victoria Falls and back! However, I might delay it to July as they don't do the rafting during high water (too dangerous). Kruger National Park is on the itinerary for Easter break. Gotta visit the coast; Durban and Cape Town too. And if you didn't see my post on facebook I'll be back in London in May for a week! Hope to see you all then!