My time here has taught me some useful lessons, as I'm living alone with no transport I have often found myself racing the sunset home on my little bike at the end of the day without having gone to the grocery store for some necessities. Being a bit stingy I refuse to call a taxi and pay him a ridiculous amount of money to take me to a place I can walk to myself in 15mins tops if only it were safe outside at night! As it is I have a friend who's been mugged twice on the road outside where I live making walking alone at night as a young female stupid to say the least!! I figured I would document my findings in case anyone finds them useful for future reference. If you ever find yourself in a situation where your milk smells slightly sour, it will make your bran flakes taste a little funny but if you mix them with muesli you can attribute the "funny" taste to the new combination of muesli and bran flakes hence allowing you to finish over half of your breakfast before deciding it's actually the milk and you don't want to eat anymore! This will allow ample strength to bike to work and make it to lunch. It may be noted that your milk at this point is perfectly acceptable to drink in tea, you use so little and if you add a little extra sugar you won't even notice! Your sour milk the next day will now be unfit for cereal but it will not make your tea taste terribly horrible as long as you avoid the last 2 sips as they will contain some grainy substance that is a little suspicious and feels really odd in your mouth if you're not expecting it. The next day however, I would NOT attempt your sour milk in your tea. Even if you're an enthusiastic tea drinker like myself who requires tea for daily survival, you will spit out the first sip!! Trust me!! Unfortunately I was desperate as there was a tea and milk shortage at work and I could barely stand the deprivation!!
Moving on, if you run out of toothpaste and you've already removed the top and folded your tube up to a nearly unrecognizable contorted object there is still hope!! Even if you've used your left over airplane toothpaste, as long as you have scissors available you can cut up your toothpaste tube (starting at whichever end you choose) and avoid being self conscious all day around your coworkers!
Never accept a taxi ride before you've checked to make sure you haven't forgotten your wallet at home and always keep spare talk time available for your phone. That way when he asks you to send him talk time by text you don't have to borrow money from someone and find a person selling talk time because your talk time has run out without you knowing it! Trust me he will not accept your banana and granadilla as a peace offering! And it always pays to make friends with your local coworkers because they will take you to have Nshima (sadza) and village chicken when you have no lunch, no money, and no talk time! A tip on eating village chicken, make sure you have a tooth pick available and just go at it, fingers, teeth and all!! I looked like an idiot trying to pull it apart flinging chicken juice everywhere for 10mins before my friend just told me to use my mouth!
Well those are some of my tips for survival in Southern Africa and life in general!
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