A Few of My Favorite Things

While I'm endlessly glad that I bought a whole bunch of $5 DVDs on a Day-After-Thanksgiving Sale (gosh will I miss those sales for two seasons!), I am pretty excited about some things I've been able to find in South Africa that are truly South African.


1. DOOM!

So my two biggest worries coming to Peace Corps were (1) bugs and (2) hygiene. During training, Peace Corps gave us this stuff called Doom, basically like Raid, but cooler! This stuff smells better (honestly, they have like 'spring fresh' Doom) and it kills fast! I once shot a couple sprays at a mosquito and he fell down immediately. This is totally why I could never be Buddhist, I like killing bugs too much. Oh, and it can kill those 'flat spiders' - it takes lots more than two sprays, but it'll get 'em!

2. Simba Mexican Chili Chips

I'm not even a chip person, but I love these! I think it's because they have very little salt and mostly flavor. Simba brand has all these crazy flavors like Spare Ribs (seriously!), Tomato Sauce (basically ketchup), HSM Balls Chutney, Salt & Vinegar and I think something else meaty. Who would have ever thought to put meat flavor on chips?!

3. Zing Tropical Juice

Umm ... it's delicious. All my favorite fruits made into once juice for my enjoyment. So good.

4. The soapy, 7 de Laan

Soapys here are crazy! There are so many of them, tons of different languages and some crazy stuff happens. 7 de Laan is the Afrikaans soapy and I'm almost afraid to admit how much I like it. I kinda planned on not watching TV here, but my host family put a TV in my room and I got bored one evening ...

I'm not a soap opera person which is why I think I like this one. It's much less 'soapy' than the rest. No one is getting killed, there aren't any crazy accidents or drug addicts like other soapys have. It's more like a sitcom to me.

And it's all in Afrikaans (with a tiny bit of English) so I can understand this one better - oh, and it's subtitled, but I'm picking up a few words. Most other South African soapys have like 6 of the 11 official languages and it gets confusing, even with subtitles. Some of the other soapys stop subtitles when a character speaks English, but b/c of the accent, I sometimes miss that it's English.

Anyway, 7 de Laan, very good.

5. Black Cat natural Peanut Butter

It's just peanut butter. And it's not marred with all the crazy stuff they put in the peanut butter sold in America. This is just natural for natural's sake. I love it!

6. Tag Lines

So there are some pretty funny tag lines for stuff here. This picture is of Sasko bread's tagline: "Since forever." For whatever reason, it strikes me as so funny b/c there are so many products that are like, "Since 1972" "Since 1909" "Since 1890" - and I think that 1890 one is the Wheat Bix I eat for breakfast... This Sasko one just feels like a little kid who's like, "Oh yeah, your bread is from 1972, well ours is since, uh, well, since forever! ha!"

There's a supermarket called Spar and their tagline is "Good for You" and the lady on the commercial says it kind of condescending with undue inflection on the 'you', it's pretty funny. I tried to find a clip of it, but I couldn't. It's like, why not good for me and my family? Why not good for my wallet? Nope, just good for me. haha.

7. Law & Order: SVU

Yes, it's here! And I think they're the new ones! SVU is my favorite among the L&O series and I've pretty much seen every one ever made and the one last week was totally new to me - yay! I've also found 30 Rock (season 1 though...) and some crazy show I've never heard of - Work with Me. Anybody? It's got Nancy Travis, who was in So I Think I Married An Axe Murderer with Mike Myers from the 90s. It's also got that adorable guy from Can't Hardly Wait, the guy who's in love with Jennifer Love Hewitt. Anyway, it looks like it was a sitcom in the 90s but I totally don't remember this.

That's the short list and I'm sure I'll have more as I continue to live here.

Sala Sentle (stay well)

Casey