You'll Trade my iPod for a What?

I told you before that it's hard to get items at the grocery stores. The shelves are lined with food but it's mostly the same food. Like they have regular shelves of stuff like we do -- rows and rows of vegetable oil say -- but all of it is the 500 ml bottle of Sunlight Oil. You don't have many choices. And it took me a while to find milk that tasted like milk. Most of the milk is "long life" milk which tastes like it's had one life too many. They are used to it but I can't stomach it. I finally found one that was "normal" and was so thrilled that I could eat cereal again. Funny how you get happy about the small things when the items we take for granted are taken away. 

Most stores take U.S. dollars at the check out in addition to South African Rands but they don't have U.S. coins so all of the transactions that end in an odd amount that would require change are balanced out with gum or candy. It's so funny. You buy something for .60 and they wait for you to pick out the candy that totals .40 and then give you your receipt. All the registers have .05, .10 and .15 cent items sitting there for that reason.

David is on a 30-day leave. Yesterday, we left after breakfast to walk into town, me with my iPhone on and him with my iPod on. We listen to the same song by cueing it up and pushing play at the same time. This is actually a bit dangerous, walking with music on, because the roads are narrow and the cars drive fast. And of course I tend to forget that they drive on the OTHER side of the road here so when I think I'm moving out of the way, I'm actually moving right in line to be run over.

So yesterday, we're walking along, and a truck slows down --someone David knows -- and we run to jump in the back so he can take us the rest of the way into town. After we do our errands, we buy chicken for our picnic then walk to the Zambezi River to sit along the banks and watch the water gush along toward the Falls. 

While we are sitting there, several huge elephants are across the river eating tree leaves along the bank. Sometimes being here seems surreal, especially when I encounter animals in places where I wouldn't think of seeing them. (Like outside of a zoo!) And there are always warthogs and baboons scampering everywhere, and when you see them you are reminded quite keenly that you are, indeed, in Africa.

Later, a guy comes along and says something to David in Ndebele and David motions him downstream. David says not to look because the guy is going to bathe. Sure enough, he strips off his clothes and washes (with no soap). I couldn't help but peek a couple of times. David says that since the water gets shut off because people can't pay their water bills that they have to bathe in the river. 

That's life here. Every day you see women carrying large sticks and branches on their heads because they have gone to gather firewood to build a fire to cook, etc. because they don't have electricity either. I am always amazed at these women. They gather firewood, get water, clean the house every day, cook, wash clothes (by hand with a bar of soap in a bucket of water! no appliances), take care of the children, and put up with their husbands going out with other women because that is the culture here. 

David and I go back into town and I meet one of David's good friends, Sole. David had let Sole listen to my iPod the other day, and he was going on about how much he loved it and wanted one so bad. He asked me if I would bring him back one next time I came. I asked him how was he going to pay for it. He said he would give me a cow. 

I said, "did you say a cow?" He said, "Yes. I have lots of them and it's what I use to pay for things." I just busted out laughing, the idea seemed so absurd. I said, "What would I do with a cow?" He said I could skin it and make a rug and then use the meat for food. And he was dead serious. Sorry, Sole. I don't think I'll be trading an iPod for a cow anytime soon....but stay tuned. You never know what will happen next in Africa.