Random Photos of April 29th

Another aloe, I love aloes so I am likely to post quite a few pictures of aloes.

South African recycling "program" . Some entrepreneurial people go and pick through the garbage in the rich neighborhoods and go and sale the recyclables. Nice people keep their recyclables and food that is still good separate in their garbage for easier picking.... and also less messing picking.

You actually mostly see guys with those home made trolleys picking up the recyclables, instead of with large garbage bags as above.

Random street I was walking along.

Beaded Animals - Part 3

Colourful beaded giraffes (sorry I chopped the heads off the larger ones)

Instead of going trophy hunting you can get the beaded heads. I particularly like the trophy-like heads.

You can even get the Rhino without making them even more endangered than they are.

An a protea, obviously not an animal so the title of the post is not quite right. Proteas are very South African though some do occur in Australia.
If you can stand a all "lesson" on proteas you can go to the post I have just about them. On the plus side that post has lots of pictures of different proteas.

Three Random Women of Jo'burg

I don't like taking pictures of people without asking them. I asked this woman because I liked her outfit, particularly the scarf, she said yes and continued with her phone call.

I don't want you to think that all woman wear very "African" outfits, because this is not the case, especially not here in Johannesburg which is a very trending city. Here is a young stylish woman.

I surprised myself and just asked her right  out if I could take her picture because I thought she looked great and she laughed and said thank you and let me take this photo.

This is the thing with taking photos of people, some people do take it as a compliment. I am usually not very lucky, maybe because usually I feel awkward about asking. Somehow today I was fine with it and I asked tree times and got three positive answers.

The third one is this woman beading at her stand.

The Languages of South Africa

South Africa has eleven official languages. Yes, eleven!

In alphabetical order they are: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele (isiNdebele), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa sometimes referred to as Sepedi), Sotho (Sesotho), Swazi (Siswati), Tsonga (Xitsonga), Tswana (Setswana), Venda (Tshivenda), Xhosa (isiXhosa) and Zulu (isiZulu).
I wrote them in alphabetical order in English, with their name in their own language in brackets)

I imagine that not all official documents are published in all the languages. But I can tell you that coins appear in all of them. I know because one day, quite a while back when I was new to South Africa, I was looking at all my coins and even before knowing how many official languages there was I came up with eleven.

What I find interesting is that Zulu speakers in South Africa are like English speakers in the rest of the world: they seldom speak another traditional African language. But most, if not all, speakers of other traditional African language speak Zulu. In fact it is the language they speak among themselves when they are not all from the same background.
Most black African speak at least 3 languages, usually English (or Afrikaan in small communities where people do not speak English), Zulu and their mother tongue. I found that this is usually the minimum, most speak 5 or 7 languages.

This is what the South African website explains about them:
According to the 2011 census, isiZulu is the mother tongue of 22.7% of South Africa's population, followed by isiXhosa at 16%, Afrikaans at 13.5%, English at 9.6%, Setswana at 8% and Sesotho at 7.6%.
isiZulu, isiXhosa, siSwati, and isiNdebele are collectively referred to as the Nguni languages, and have many similarities in syntax and grammar. The Sotho languages – Setswana, Sesotho sa Leboa, and Sesotho – also have much in common.
Many of South Africa's linguistic groups share a common ancestry. But as groupings and clans broke up in search of autonomy and greener pastures for their livestock, variations of the common languages evolved.

The more Things Change, The More They Are The Same

I would love to say that the all situation in South Africa is getting better, that violence against foreigners has stopped but this isn't the case, far from it.
Now the army has been sent to try to help in areas where violence doesn't seem to getting any better. Unfortunately this involves some parts of Johannesburg. And in addition violence against South Africans has started in other African countries in retaliation.

Where ever you go these days it is of course very much the subject of conversation but otherwise I have to say that in the areas where I am there is no evidence of anything happening . The one thing for me right now is that I want to go downtown Jo'burg to buy some African fabric but this is exactly where some of all this is taking place so I am waiting.

I want to be very clear: this is not violence against tourists. This is violence against foreign nationals, typically from other African countries, who work here or have businesses here and are perceived as stealing jobs.

Honestly South Africa always feels like it is at the edge of something. There is always that feeling that one incident one day will topple it over. Two weeks ago it was a statue on the university campus in Pretoria. There is always something.

Fruits and Vegetables

Apart from the wonderful climate one of my favourite thing in Johannesburg is the amount of beautiful fresh food you can buy. I should point out that in small villages here, as in most places, there isn't much available.
Also right now as the change is very good for me (roughly 10 rands to the Canadian dollar right now) the fresh produces are particularly affordable. Here are some examples.

Guavas: I love guavas. As far as I know they are never available in Canada. I always get Mexican guavas when ever I go south enough in the States. Mexican guavas are smaller and yellow in the inside. Also I think that African guavas are more flavourful, at least from my point of view. The pile of guava below cost roughly $2.

Avocados: Of course we get avocados in Canada and sometimes even priced reasonably. Right now there are three kinds of avocados available at the market. I bought the smallest one because for one person it does make life easier. They have very small stones so are actually quite fleshy. I can easily eat 2 of those on toast for breakfast. The pile below also cost about $2.

Passion fruits, called granadillas here: This is the small half of what I bought a few days ago. I know they look all wrinkled up and possibly rotten but they are not. They are delicious. This pile would cost about $1.5.

Random Photos April 21st

Birds of paradise must be easy to grow here because they are quite common, still I like them.

In Melville, an neighborhood of Jo'burg, they are in the process of building a shopping mall out of industrial shipment containers. A neat idea but I wonder how it will fare in cold and super hot days.

An outdoor barber, at a fairly busy intersection, shaving the head of his client.

Zoo lake: the lake, the boats to rent, a nice bench to enjoy the gorgeous day and a broken lamp.

Beaded Animals part 2

Christmas Tree Ornaments and Tin Mugs

On Sunday morning in Rosebank ( a neighborhood of Jo'burg) there is The Roof Top Market where there is a lot of local crafts and stuff available. I went there today (sorry no photos) and bought a few things.

Some Christmas tree ornaments (I love Christmas tree ornaments):
Some African angel, I should add that they are particularly inspired from the Ndebele women.

 Maybe a little big for my tree as I like small ornaments, but there was only one size.

The smaller figurines below are meant to be key chains but I thought that once the ring is removed they would make nice ornaments.

You can see they are way smaller.

Things I had bought many times before but somehow gave all away are those hand painted enameled tin mugs. I quite like them and I was please to see that the merchant was still at the market. He actually recognized me and we had a pleasant chat.

They never used to have animals, but this time they had a few.

Mostly they have scenes of village life.

In a way I get the sense that this could be one of my last trips to South Africa so I am making sure that I get what I want, things that I have bought before and given away, or things that I have admired but never bought.

Beaded Animals - Part 1 (possibly many parts to follow, who knows?)

As per request, a close up of the beaded animals:
Those are just the ones I have acquired so far. I love beaded animals and I tend to acquire a few. They come in any size you want if you are willing to order them and wait. The one I have are small because they are one of the typical size of what you can get pretty much anywhere, also they have to come with me. But the goat in my friend's garden is life size.

One guinea fowl and two rhinos. (If you click on the photos you can see them better)

Close up of the white rhino.

The stand I photographed for my previous post had many more but I didn't buy any from that guy. I bought from him the frame of a antelope (a springbok)  head to hang on the wall as they are before they get beaded. I thought it was great just the way it was.

As you can see from the size of my hand, the antelope head is much bigger than the beaded animals I bought.
Honestly those guys are so gifted in the way they can bend wire into a perfect 3-D representation of pretty much anything they want.

Random Photos of my First Week in Jo'burg

Some random plants growing in the garden of the friend's house I am house-sitting right now.

An aloe

Blooming hibiscus

Pomegranate

In northern Canada there is a lot of beading but not surprisingly it is totally different from the beading in South Africa.
Also from my friend's garden a gorgeous beaded goat

A local guy and his beaded animal stand

Another typical thing about Jo'burg, and other cities of South Africa is the wall, gates, electric fences you get. You often cannot see houses, or at least not their ground floor. Here are just some random examples, all  you see is walls and doors or gates.

Very common birds here,  hadidas, a kind of ibis.

Two Not-So-Nice Things Happening in South Africa

There is a bit of a "thing" going on in South Africa right now. I don't know if it has hit international news.
The short version of it (my version) is as follow: As economic times are not great and jobs are even harder than usual to get yet another wave of they locally call "xenophobia" is hitting South Africa. This translate in frustrated poor South Africans attacking workers and business holders who are not South African because they are perceived as stealing their jobs and their opportunities. There was a riot in Durban a few days ago and they became violent as non-South African started to defend themselves.
One of the particularly weird thing happening right now is that apparently there is a wave of texts and messages on social medias warning (or is it threatening) that this Wednesday in Johannesburg they will start killing foreigners. I am pretty sure that they mean foreigners who they perceive as stealing their jobs, but nobody really knows what they mean and how it will go.
Things are apparently so bad that Malawi is saying that it will repatriate its nationals.

The other thing happening here, and this too is not new, is "Load shedding". South Africa cannot produce enough electrical power for its needs so its power company (Eskom, a state owned company) cuts the power to various areas at various times so less electricity is being used. About eight years ago load shedding was quite common and then it stopped. I haven't been in South Africa in nearly two years and now they are back. There is a schedule to warm people but it changes all the time and anyway means nothing really as it is not followed. This is not a temporary problem.
 And just try to imagine what it is like to try to run a business (shop or restaurant) when you have no power. Or what it is like to drive around Jo'burg when traffic lights (called "robots" here) are not working.

Gorgeous Weather as Expected

That is the one thing about Jo'burg: the weather is always gorgeous.

This is where I am staying right now. Then I will house-sit for a friend, then I am moving to another place etc etc.

One Small Piece of Good News

My bag actually arrived yesterday, so 24 hours after me.
I was so impressed. I have to admit that getting my bag does make life a lot easier.

I'm There

Alright, I am in South Africa but unfortunately my bag isn't!
I am still hopeful that it may catch up to me in the next few days but just the same I can't help but wish I hadn't packed my favourite pair of pants etc.

It is not a train wreck, I never pack anything I cannot be totally without in my checked in luggage.

As expected my cell phone number had expired so I have a new phone number. So far for some reason I haven't been able to call Canada with my new cell phone number. Right now it is 3:00am here so I have to wait but tomorrow I will make sure that international calls are not blocked.

The Wisdom of Poo Bear

I like this one.