Daniel Eliasson

After just a couple of days in South Africa, I got to experience a bit of local culture. House inhabitant Blom invited me and Stephanie to come along to the agricultural students’ potjiekos competition. Potjiekos is slowcooked meat and vegetable stew cooked in a small tri-legged cast-iron pot (potjie) placed over coals. Imagine a witch boiling something in her cauldron, except smaller, and tastier.

The little event was held outside the forestry building, some two minutes walking away from the house, and we arrived to find a group of people hanging around on a lawn, drinking wine, poking at potjies and playing the Afrikaans equivalent of schlager music. The good people sold us a bottle of quite decent red wine for R10, and once the potjies were done, we bought ourselves a plate each for another R10 p.c.

The food was good, but not remarkable. Stephanie assures me it wasn’t a very good rendition of potjiekos, but I still enjoyed it. Lamb shanks, potatoes and some other vegetables had gotten to stew together, and it was served over some rice. It was filling, and considering the price we paid for it, quite good value for the money. Not to mention the enjoyment of being able to sit outside in a warm night and enjoy some food and wine with my girlfriend.

Oh, speaking of local culture, for some reason, Stellenbosch students are labouring under the impression that shoes aren’t necessary parts of everyday life. In other words, filthy students are running around barefoot all over the place. I can’t quite make out why, since they must get their feet very dirty, and it can’t be all that comfortable either. Possibly they just can’t afford shoes or even plakkies, so I will make a proposal to SIDA: they’ll send me four million SEK, and I’ll buy shoes for the poor students of Stellenbosch.

Blog feature! Whenever I sprinkle in words that might be unknown to readers, I’ll add little explanations. Just hover your mousepointer over any word with a little dotted underline, and the browser should show you what it means.

After being picked up at the airport by Stephanie, a short drive to Stellenbosch was undertaken as the sun began to rise over South Africa. Except for the left-side driving, one of the strongest signs that I’m not in Europe anymore was a bakkie crammed full of black people, looking somewhat like a cattle transport.

Once I’d gotten a little settled in at the house, I ingratiated myself with the girls by giving them Milka chocolates, garnering one hug and one declaration of love from the process.

The rest of the day was spent in a trance-like state, due to not having gotten any decent sleep since 7:00 in Munich the morning before. Stephanie went off to the university for a while, and I got myself a cup of coffee, sat down next to the pool, and proceeded to stare blankly at a little bird for 20 minutes. I also entertained my new housemates by showing them my tube of Kalles kaviar. The packagin became quite popular, yet no one seemed too keen to actually taste the contents, after having it described to them.

I slept very well, and woke up quite refreshed. Stephanie took me to the mall in Somerset West, somewhere between here and Cape Town, I believe, and we got me a pair of shorts from an outdoor activities store. At the register was a jar full of silly camping utensils in coloured plastic; one end was a spoon, and the other a fork with a serrated edge. This wonderful piece of art was… Made in Sweden! So, dear readers from up north, when you stand there in the store and eye something with a Made in China stamp on it, know that there are actually things manufactured in Sweden too… they’re just sold in South Africa. Makes perfect sense, right?

We also got me a pre-paid phone card. The number is +27 71 752 98 80, if anyone should wish to contact me.

We had a brief walk around the Stellenbosch University campus, which has a lot of fancy old buildings, and a nice collection of oak and planes, as well as more exotic trees and plants, most of which I don’t know the names of. All in all, a nice university campus in a very scenic surrounding.

A few differences between South Africa and Sweden/Germany:

1. There’s a wall around the house, and a gate that can only be opened using a little remote. Incidentally, I haven’t gotten one yet, so at the moment I’m in house arrest, except for when Stephanie brings me out (on a leash).
2. Some 20 °C. The Africans think it’s cold today, but what do they know about cold?
3. The internet isn’t working too well. In fact, I’m writing this offline, and hoping to be able to post it later tonight.
4. Butternut squash costs R3,50/kg instead of ten times that.
5. “Scholar” refers to a schoolchild here. It looks funny with road signs warning you that scholars might cross the road unannounced.

Dear readers,

welcome to my new blog, which will chronicle my life and adventures in Africa. It hasn’t been christened yet, due to a lack of inspiration (the whisky ran out weeks ago), so for the time being, let it be known simply as Melissa.

As this is published, I am on a plane to South Africa, which might create a convincing illusion that I am breaking the ban on communications equipment usage on aforementioned vehicle. Fear not, dear reader, for it is only the magic of the scheduled blog post that is taking place. I am in fact writing this some 41 hours ahead of time.

The more eagle-eyed of you may notice that I’m writing in English. This is in keeping with a good old tradition of Europeans appeasing their guilt by meeting African demands; in other words, the girlfriend wished to be able to read what I write. Don’t worry, I’ll post in Swedish whenever I want to bad-mouth her.

Now, just because I write in English doesn’t mean that you need to. Here’s the official comments policy:

1. Comments may be made on any blog posts.
2. Comments may be related to the subject of the blog post they’re (ostensibly) commenting on.
3. Then again, they may not.
4. Comments may be made in any language that the commenter knows. (In other words, no German from you, Ida.)
5. If comments are left in a language I can understand, they might even get an answer.

Now that the administrative bits are taken care of, let’s get down to business.

Africa. I might actually have something reasonable to say about it once I’m down there; for now, suffice it to say that I’m very excited to finally be on my way, and don’t you agree that ostriches are cute?

Well, think again.