This week, we’ve been learning our way to/from the Embassy and just settling into the new environment. This is one of the most interesting aspects of this career, always learning new cultures and new ways of doing things. While they do speak English down here – it’s going to take a while to figure this place out! For example, the following is a legitimate sentence down here: “You can find some Monkey Gland Sauce at the market, just past the third robot. It will work well on the braa.”

Translation: You can get some sweet and sour steak sauce at the market just past the 3rd traffic light. It works well on the BBQ grill. Yes, a robot is a traffic light. In the supermarkets they even call those packaged sweet bell peppers (the one with a red, yellow and green one) a robot.

The security guy just came over to the house, and walked me through the alarm system. There are outside perimeter motion sensors, glass breakage, door, gate, grill alarms etc… The house is a virtual Fort Knox. The wires on the walls are not barbed, but they are high voltage! High walls cover 3 sides of the home, and then surround the 3 other diplomatic homes in the compound! I hear there are many other similar compounds being built to eventually move all US personnel into them.

I went to bed last night, and used the dishwasher for the first time. Woke up this morning to an inch of water all over the utility room, and out into the kitchen! I called the Embassy’s plumber, and he discovered that the drain pipe outside was crushed when they built the sidewalk. They’ll be digging that up tomorrow.

I couldn’t sleep last night – jet lag sucks! I think I finally fell asleep at 3:30 and woke up at 6:30. I’m dragg’n now (11:30) but I know I must stay awake to help adjust. I finally identified the large bird that wakes me up in the morning – it’s the Hadeda Ibis. Not too attractive, and very noisy!

This afternoon I ventured out to a nearby grocery store shopping for a few odds and ends, and it’s always a little hard at first to compensate for the exchange rate difference. It is 7 South African Rand to 1 US dollar so you simply divide the prices by 7 to get the US price. Even though I am paying in Rands, it’s wise to know if something is cheap or not, especially when you see the sticker price of a 12oz bottle of Cola for 4.20. I was able to find everything I needed with no problems.. lots of European and American foods.

I’ll head downtown this weekend and start to explore Pretoria, and check out the malls. I hear they are quite nice. We’re also shopping for a car this week. I want something I can use to go on off-road safaris with. I hear South Africa has hundreds of excellent 4×4 trails and wild safaris would be a weekend option with the right vehicle.