My Wonderful Paradoxical Girl

The reason I am focusing on my beautiful girl in these past couple of posts is that she and I have had a wonderful 5 days on our own. Bill, as mentioned in a previous post, fled to Kenya when the power went out, and Alexander is on the Pridwin Grade 6 School tour to Mpumalanga.

Quince has bought herself two books in the past week - both of which I made her use her own allowance for as they went against my feminist and atheistic morals (I once had a great discussion with a Christian colleague about how an atheist could have morals when not guided by a religion- another story).

The first book is a big-ol' Barbie fairytale book. Just as awful as it sounds. Skinny, white, long-blond haired girl fairies marrying princes, evil stepmothers and sisters and other predictably bad messages.

The second was from the Catholic book sale at her school - One Minute Devotions for Girls - I think she was bit seduced by the pretty pink cover and pocket size. Full on little lessons about loving God (fine), trusting God (okay, fine) and chasing away the devil (not fine). She reads them to me in the car. I can barely stand it but who am I to thwart my darling's attempts to figure out how she wants to engage with religion. I personally prefer her worshiping of the Greek Gods. Just two days ago, she asked me if I wanted some blessed water- which I agreed to since it had been blessed by Athena - her favorite Greek God. (this was right before she began meditating - see photo in post below)

Given her recent bombardment of messages about a girl's happiness coming through marrying princes (Barbie Book, Ella Enchanted, and the school play, Cinderella, all in the space of 5 days) I thought a conversation about what really makes one happy was in order. Her response, a job which pays well, finding a husband (like Daddy - she said - sweet) and having kids.

First, I tackled the job which pays well part - you know, more important that you find work you love, blah, blah, blah. "Quince, what kind of job do you think you would love?" "I think I would like being a secretary and filling in forms." I reminded myself there is nothing wrong with being a secretary but not what I imagined for my girl who is a star at math, has always up until yesterday said she wanted to be a vet, and is one of the most creative people I know. "Hmmm," I said, "What about being the boss?" "I don't want to be the boss - then I'd have to share all my money. If I am a secretary I get to keep all my salary.'' Quick correction on the error in that thinking and then in for the crux of the matter. "Quince, what do you think a boy would want to be - the secretary or the boss?" "The boss." Jesus help me. I know the next logical step was to explore her thinking around that a bit, but I was too shocked at how at 8 1/2 she has already been indoctrinated with such gendered thinking about work. I'll have to come back to this one with her.

I then, very incompetently, attempted to tackle the husband and kids part. Nothing wrong with husband and kids mind you - and yes, they can be a great source of happiness. But I got a little worried when she referred to her future husband as her prince -- maybe I am just too jaded in my middle age and should leave her to her fantasies. Thoughts?

Quince Being Quince- A Photo Collage

Winter Pictures

Frost on the Ground.

Tanya came over the other night to watch a movie with me. Check out the level of bundle-up-edness. Hoodie, down long winter coat, two blankets, space heater right next to her. Please note, we are not outside at a drive-in movie. We are in our family room. Do you believe me now how f***n' cold it is.

Trees in winter - just like Boston!

Quince's Friday Uniform

Now that it is winter, the St. Teresa's girls get to wear their golf shirts, track suits and white takkies (sneakers) every day to school. As a girl, I so would have preferred that to the summer blue dress uniform -- but go figure, Quince is not me. She is a dress/skirt girl through and through.

She gets her desire on Fridays. Fridays they go to Mass and wear a white blouse, tie, dark blue dress, blazer, long socks (or tights which Quince hates because they itch - every girl and woman out there knows what she is talking about), black shoes. Hair must be pulled back or up in a navy blue elastic.

Glorious, Horrible Jozi Winter

I am at this very moment at 1:30 in the afternoon sitting outside in our outdoor living area stripped down to my bra and underwear (TMI?) soaking in the sun like a lizard. (photo to be posted soon).

I wish, like a lizard, I was actually able to retain the glorious warmth, but by 5:30pm, I kid you not, I will be pulling on long underwear to get through the evening. Houses are not heated here and it drops down to near freezing every night - we have seen frost in the fields in the morning.

Our house in particular retains the cold because it is all tile - fantastic in the summer as you can imagine. During the days I open up doors and window with hopes that the warmth from outside will push out some of the cold air out -wishful thinking, I'm sure. Even in the heat of the day - like now when I am down to nothing in our backyard, I will need to pull on a fleece if I go inside.

Just like when 21 December rolls around in Boston, I am celebrating reaching 21 June here as it means a slow climb back to longer days. We are now getting up in pitch blackness to get kids to school. Between the darkness outside and the cold inside it is almost impossible to roust the kids out of bed. Like Boston too, though, 21 June/21 Dec does not mean a slow climb back to warmth. We apparently have to get through July and part of August till we return to warmer days.

I need to organize my life so I spend June-August in the States and the rest of the year here.

Johnny Clegg in Concert

From Wikipedia: Jonathan "Johnny" Clegg (born 7 June 1953) is a musician from South Africa, who has recorded and performed with his bands Juluka and Savuka. Sometimes called Le Zoulou Blanc ("The White Zulu"), he is an important figure in South African popular music history, with songs that mix Zulu with English lyrics, and African with various Western European (such as Celtic) music styles.
Last weekend, Alexander, Tanya, Alexander's friend, Wesley, and I went to see legendary Johnny Clegg in concert at the Lyric Theatre. We were dead center, 4th row. We invited Wesley because he is a huge JC fan - and as hoped that infected Alexander. Fantastic concert, great to be out and about in Jozi with my boy and best friend in SA, happy.

Cash or Credit or Bank Transfer

I took this photo of this KFC sign because it illustrates a common situation here - that relatively regularly stores cannot establish a connection in order to run a credit card transaction. I guess KFC must experience this regularly enough that they had a sign printed for these occasions that they could post as needed.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Macro (think Price Club) with about 20 check out lines and a line of about 40 people (I am not exaggerating) waiting patiently . The only credit card machine working in the entire store was the one in the office. So, they rang those of us with credit cards up at a till, then sent us into the office one by one with the amount written on a slip of paper to have our credit card put through. Given the circumstances, they managed this process fairly efficiently.

Yesterday I went to buy beds and sat while they tried for 20 minutes to get a line to run my credit card. Finally, they gave up and suggested I come back later in the day. About 3:00pm Sisco from Dial-a-Bed called and said don't bother, come tomorrow, lines still down. Fortunately Dial a Bed is 5 minutes from our house so I was able to quickly get over today to finish up the transaction. Whew.

A very common way to pay for things here is through bank transfers - even from regular person to regular person. For example, say I borrowed R500 from Tanya. I could get her banking details and transfer money from my account directly into hers. I guess you can do the same thing in the States - just we don't do it commonly.

Service Delivery

We just had municipal elections here (a blog post about that soon) and a very very very big issue is Service Delivery. I knew what this meant - at least in the abstract. Except for an inconvenience here and there, we had been blessedly free of any first-hand experiences.

On Friday evening at about 9:00pm, we noticed that some of our downstairs lights and oven were not working. First thing Saturday morning, we called our landlord, Stuart, so we could get an electrician in to do a quick fix and be back in business. Long story short, electrician says it is not the house but rather a counsel problem - in other words, it is the source of electricity- City Power. Yikes - only we didn't know at the time to think Yikes.

Stuart calls the City of Johannesburg and leaves a message. Naively we thought okay someone will get on. No power Saturday night - eat out. Sunday morning, thank goodness friend brings over croissants. (did I mention that Bill decided he couldn't live without an oven and left Saturday night for almost 3 weeks to Kenya.) Sunday lunch, over at a friends. Sunday dinner, heat up leftovers in microwave.

Monday morning, no power. I wait hopefully for the landlord to make things happen. Monday evening a colleague of Bill's stops off to drop off some things. When I mention the problem, she says "Oh you must call Mhairi" (another colleague) who it seems is, unfortunately for her, an expert. Sure enough she is. Poor thing has the number for City Power memorized. She says call, call, call. In fact, have as many people as you can call for you, and first person to get through reports the problem and must must must get a reference number. Because you will be calling back to follow up.

Okay - one thing you need to know to begin to understand part of why this is so damn inconvenient is that phone service is ridiculously expensive here. We are on pre-pay for our cell phones and each minute you are burning through rand. Using a landline would have been cheaper but wouldn't you know our landline is inexplicably out - again - for about the 5th time since we got it in January. (so yes, we have experienced incredibly poor service delivery with our phone service - goes out, we report it, no idea when it will be fixed.)

So what does wonderful Mhairi offer to do - she calls City Power for us, stays on hold till she gets someone, gets a reference number and reports back to me that the problem will be attended to in 1-4 hours. Yay!! I am so relieved. We go out to dinner, assured that we are on the way to full power again. Mhairi had recommended I call back in about an hour just to check so I do when we get home. About 2o minutes on hold - just under $5. They say by 11:00pm someone should be there to fix it. I go to bed.

3:20am our gate buzzer rings. Yay - it is City Power to fix the problem. I walk out in pj's and slippers to chat with them. They assure me they are on it. I go to sleep confident that I will wake up to a working stove.

Ha. No such luck. I call City Power Call Center - surprisingly and delightfully get through in about 5 minutes. Oh they say, the problem is fixed. I assure them it is not, and they give me a new reference number and tell me that someone will be here in 1-4 hours to fix it.

I squeeze into my day buying some airtime because I am burning through it with these calls.

I come home in the afternoon disappointed to find it still is not fixed. I call - 45 minutes later of listening to this horrible music over and over, I give up. Woolies roast chicken, picknpay precooked rice, and salad for dinner. I check my phone airtime balance - I had had R300 rand after I recharged, am now down to R100! We go to bed.

1:20am - Security company, CSS Tactical, calls - they report our alarm system is no longer sending a signal to the control center. Sure enough the alarm panel is dead. They send the heavily armed, body armored security guys to check all around our property. Fortunately, all clear. But a little nerve-wracking to be in the house with no working alarm system for the rest of the night. I sleep fitfully. (have I done that post yet on security here?).

5:30am, our electric fence alarm goes off. As soon as I turn it off that panel too goes dead. Great. CSS Tactical guys come again to check around - only this time they can't get in the electric gate because that too has lost power. Double Great. The only good thing is that it is almost morning so I won't lie awake hearing bad guys jumping over our non working electric fence and breaking into our non-alarmed house.

I call City Power at 6:00am - and am told, unbelievably, that the problem has been reported as fixed at midnight. I am furious and frustrated and so ask to speak to a supervisor and beg beg beg them not to put me on hold because if I hear that music again I am going to lose it. In fact, I lose it anyway and cry and they put me through to a supervisor and I cry to the supervisor,Jabu, as I explain that I now have no security, can 't get out of my gate, have two small children (ok - that was a little white lie) and that he must promise me that the problem will be fixed today. He does. I make him promise again and he does - I am sure he was desperate to get off the phone with this hysterical woman. He says he needs to check with the Technical Department and will get back to me.

As the minutes tick by I lose hope, but then my phone rings and it is my new best friend, Jabu. He says the technician is leaving the depot now and my house will be his first stop - he will be at my house not later than 10am. Since it is now only 7am, I am a little suspicious that I am really first on the list. I comment that the depot must be very far away. He says he is allowing for traffic. I let it go.

I make the decision to come straight home after dropping kids at school and not go the once-a-term Pridwin mums' coffee so I can be there when this guy comes. Too bad because I like these coffee mornings but much more important to be there when the technician arrives.

Meanwhile, Stuart is also working an angle. He knows a City Power technician who sometimes does some side work for him. They are to meet at our house at 9:00. I worry vaguely what will happen if Stuart's get a little business on the side guy is there working on the line when his on-duty colleague shows up. Oh optimistic, silly me. 8:00 comes and goes. 9:00 comes and goes. 10:00 Stuart comes - his guy is still sleeping, having worked the night shift. Stuart is not optimistic that his guy will come at all.

Furious that I trusted Jabu, I call City Power, and ask to speak with him. Finally, after more minutes of the terrible music and draining my airtime, Jabu comes on the line. "Ma'am - you should have lights now. They fixed the problem." Fantastic, only when I flick the light switch, nothing. "No, Jabu, still out." He promises to get back to me in 5 minutes.

I now know City Power uses a factoring system when it comes to time. I don't panic when 30 minutes goes by. Meanwhile, I must go to my doctor's appointment. I am 5 minutes from the Dr's office when David from City Power calls. The technician is at my gate!!!!! As I make an illegal U-turn I plead with David to have the technician wait for me. He says he will wait for 10 minutes. I drive like a maniac while calling the doctors office to cancel my appointment. Not the safest thing I know but maybe you can understand my level of desperation to talk face-to-face with a technician.

Hallelujah!! Jomo is there waiting for me!! He assures me they can fix the problem. Guy goes up in one of those bucket things, tightens some wires, does some other mysterious things. 20 minutes later, Jomo says your gate is now working. Sure enough it is, and when I go in the alarm goes off - Hallelujah again!!!! Lights work, stove works. All fixed. Why I ask Jomo did these other guys not fix it when they came out. He shrugs - he can't explain it.

On the advice of Stuart, I got Jomo's cell number. Why? Because I am going to bypass City Power Call Center next time and go directly to Jomo. Understood that if he can sort it out, there will be something in it for him. Rather give him the money than spend it in airtime for fruitless calls to the Call Center. Is this just good common sense or the slippery slope of corruption?