Integrating back into ‘normal’ society cont. in Jo’burg

My poor Dad. He had to deal with my over-excitement about EVERYTHING. I was excited about having a bed to sleep in (albeit a fold up one on rollers). I was excited about being able to shower daily. I was excited about being able to use an actual washing machine. I was excited about all types of food especially calamari and cold drinks especially milkshakes. I was excited about going to a shopping mall. I was excited about using the internet (despite it being for only 30 minutes a day free with a purchase from Mugg & Bean café). I was even excited about going to the doctor so I could do a full blood test as I was a little paranoid I might have sleeping sickness from the Tsetse fly plague – and when I found out the test would also show if I had any other diseases such as Bilharzia and Malaria – bonus! I was highly amused to see that the word for ‘specimen’ in Afrikaans is ‘monster’.

So after visiting the doctor, I had to take my ‘monster’ to the clinic to get it tested. Fortunately everything came back negative. But some of my Dad’s hair probably turned a little more grey just thinking about the fact I might have an actual ‘monster’ – particularly sleeping sickness, as you eventually go into a coma…

Anyway, I was now back in Jo’burg where I spent three years of my childhood. It’s also where we now know specimens are ‘monsters’. And where ‘How are you?’ is ‘Howzit?’, where everything good is ‘lekker’, where yes is ‘ja’, where no is ‘Ag nee man!’, where surprise can be expressed by saying ‘Jussus’, where a brother is a ‘bru’, where sneakers are ‘takkies’, where phone credit is ‘Airtime’, where a shop is a ‘winkel’, where BBQs are ‘braais’, where mandarins are ‘naartjies’, where textas are ‘kokis’, where medicine is ‘muti’, where a nursery is a ‘kwekery’, and where now is ‘now now’ and soon (or maybe never) is ‘just now’.

Even driving around is fun – it’s where traffic lights are ‘robots’, where vans are ‘bakkies’, where speed bumps are called ‘rumblehumps’ and where toll gates are ‘plazas’ (sounds more like a shopping centre to me, but what can you buy? Use of a highway?). It’s also where oversized trucks are labelled ‘ABNORMAL’, where Gauteng number plates say ‘GP’ (commonly referred to as ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’), and where the new eToll ads don’t tell you what date the tolling will commence nor what the charges are.

It’s also in a country where you can find some interesting and unusual names. Where girls can be called Comfort, Pretty, Beauty, Conception (or Conceptor as we found in Namibia), Princes (not Princess as I had initially thought), Blossom, Innocentia, and Cherry (with Ripe as a last name). And where boys can be called Gift, Innocent (male equivalent of Innocentia), Wusi, Jesus, Master (wouldn’t you like everyone calling you Master?), Rumble (with Hump as a last name – named accordingly as his mother gave birth as their car went over a speedbump [as mentioned otherwise known as rumblehump]), and Welcome (with Paraffin as a last name – named accordingly as his parents were given a bottle of paraffin as a gift after the birth; the welcome bit speaks for itself).

As I lived in Jo’burg so long ago and hadn’t really seen its sights, I tried to visit a few of them. The most interesting was the Apartheid Museum where you are allocated either a ‘Whites’ or a ‘Non-whites’ label on your entry ticket. Your ticket then directs which of the two entrances you go through into the museum. In our case it separated my Dad and I into different entrances – a really ingenious way to communicate the segregation Apartheid caused.

We drove around the city centre,

mostly in an attempt to find the museum in the first place, and then to visit the ‘Top of Africa’ in the Carlton Centre. It’s on Level 50, where you get a 360 degree view over the city.

We also went to Nelson Mandela Square

and neighbouring Sandton City for some retail therapy. Integration back into ‘normal’ society: complete. Well as complete as it can be for now!