Deep Thoughts

My apologies that the font sizes in the email version of this post were wacky. I have fixed that now. Enjoy the post!

As we kick off 2016 I thought it might be interesting to share a different perspective. You've read post after post describing my experiences and thoughts about living in South Africa, but what about Mr. Deep? What does he think about life in South Africa? What does he enjoy, what could he do without and what really annoys him about his wife? OK, that last question really doesn't have much to do with life in South Africa, but it might be interesting to find out anyway. Or, it might not be that interesting.

Before I get to our Q&A with Mr. Deep, I thought I'd share the reason that I call this blog My Thoughts From the Deep End. First, because when you are a kid, going in the deep end of the pool is a very big deal. Obviously you can't touch the bottom and you have to rely on your swimming skills to stay alive. That is how I felt about moving to South Africa. Very excited but totally outside my comfort zone. I wasn't sure if I'd be a strong enough swimmer to survive. Luckily, so far so good. 

Second, on my visa I am listed as a "dependent spouse" which means Mr. Deep is my only reason for being here. As a dependent spouse I can't have my own bank account, my own cell phone account or my own any account and I can't get a job. It means South Africa tolerates my being here because they figure if they ask my husband to leave me back in the U.S. he might not come here and work. 

As part of the visa application process, Mr. Deep had to sign a letter of undertaking saying he'd take care of me, his dependent, and see to all of my needs for the entire time that we are here. It's like when you agree to let your friend bring his dodgy girlfriend to your party. You say, "OK, you can bring her but you're responsible for making sure she doesn't go off the rails and if she does, you're sending her home ASAP"  So I'm deep-end-ent on Mr. Deep and if I act out, he needs to send me packing to the U.S.A. Thus, the deep end.

An interview with Mr. Deep.
Interviewer: Mr. Deep, you've been living in South Africa for over ten months now. Tell me, what are some of the things that you enjoy most about life here?  

Mr. Deep: Most of the time the weather. Despite the recent heat wave we've been having, the weather is usually beautiful.  I enjoy being able to see wild animals in their natural habitat pretty much any time I want.  I like the fact that we can live in such a nice house for way cheaper than something comparable would go for back home.  I also love that beer and food are pretty cheap.  I enjoy that we do things that most of the people I work with don't or would not do, like go to beer/music festivals, go on Soweto bar crawls, go to the CBD (Ed - Central Business District) to see an indie movie. Or take my Jeep out for a proper off-road beating. 

Interviewer: Why do you think most people don't or won't go to the types of places that you mention? 

Mr. Deep:  Some have kids/families, so beer fests and bar crawls would clearly not be the first choice for something to do. Some would just not think of going to CBD/Soweto in general. I would guess it is just a cultural thing that we as expats do not have a hang-up with?

Interviewer: And of the flip side, what are some things about living here that you find difficult or that you don't enjoy? 

Mr. Deep: The traffic really sucks.  Not all of the time, but during the morning commute, a 15 minute trip usually takes 40 minutes.  I don't enjoy running into cops looking for payoffs.  Also, seeing all the poverty constantly.  While I am not quite as overt in my altruism as the interviewer is, I do make it a point to pay the parking guards which many of my colleagues do not do. The load shedding is a pain in the ass and I also don't enjoy losing water for weeks at a time. The air quality also leaves a lot to be desired sometimes.  

Interviewer: If someone you knew was thinking of moving to Joburg, South Africa, what advice would you give to him or her? 

Mr. Deep:  Have an open mind.  It is tough to put yourself in anyone's shoes here as you are not from here.  I try not to have opinions on certain things here,  if you know what I mean.   Also, don't believe everything you hear on the crime - just be careful. But car-jamming is real.  You should manually double check your car is locked after you click the remote.  Third, just accept that the taxis will drive where they want and cut you off.  No sense getting mad about it.  Unless you have a Jeep and don't mind scratching it.  Then you will always win the game of "chicken." 

Interviewer: Yes, I know what you mean about having opinions. I once a read a quote that said, "don't judge a book by the chapter you walked in on." So I also keep my opinions to myself because I feel like I am a guest in this country and I know I don't have all of the information and the history. And I agree the taxis are very reckless. You need to be very careful and assume any taxi you see is going to somehow break a traffic law within the next 15 seconds.

Interviewer: You go to work every day. How are you finding your job here? 

Mr. Deep: A nice change from what I was doing, more hands on.  Although my last role really helped me learn much about one of the company's main businesses and the project turned out to be something really important for management.   Now, I am learning a new business and gaining good experience in "non-accounting-related" financial management.  We have set up a lot of processes from scratch and I enjoy the entrepreneurial atmosphere. We have a small team that I am one of the leaders of and I feel like more than just a "mid-level cog at McCann." Your fans of Mad Men should get that reference. 

Interviewer: Since you brought it up, did you like the Mad Men series finale? 

Mr. Deep: Nice way to end the show.  I liked it. 

Interviewer:  What do you miss about living in the U.S.A.?  

Mr. Deep: Surprisingly not too much.  Proximity to a few people that I care about and wish I could visit more. Friends that did not live close by are still just as close thanks to that interweb thing.  I do miss having places to walk or run.  This place is not very pedestrian friendly.  I do miss my sports and not being able to watch my teams, although this was a great year to not have to watch them, especially the Giants.  Ugh.  

Interviewer: Does it bother you that your wife is not working? Do you wonder what it is exactly that she does all day? 

Mr. Deep: No it does not. She deserves the break.  And the interviewer well knows that I have no right to complain even if it did, given my two-year sabbatical a while back.  I don't really wonder what she does all day because she blogs about it, texts me during the day and generally keeps me informed. 

Interviewer: Does it bother you when you meet new people, introduce yourself as Stephen and then your wife constantly refers to you as Steve possibly confusing your new friends as to what you want to be called?  

Mr. Deep: Not really.  I think the stigma of the "Don't be a Steve" campaign has disappeared but I still like to call myself Stephen now.  I will also answer to Steve.  Just not Steven.  Not sure how this works, but some people in the office address me as Steven in an e-mail, when the proper spelling is RIGHT THERE IN THE E-MAIL ADDRESS. 

Interviewer: Assuming that you only have two years left before you have to leave Africa, what are some of the places you want to visit and things that you want to do before you leave?  

Mr. Deep: In no particular order, Namibia, Madagascar, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, Victoria Falls whenever it gets some more water running over it, Lesotho, Mozambique, Mauritius, perhaps a safari on the Zambezi river.  I would also like to climb Kilimanjaro as long as I am here.  As for other things to do, catch some live Rugby and Cricket, explore some other areas of Joburg and do some more fishing.  

Interviewer: Yes, you recently went fishing for the first time since living here. Tell us a little about that experience. 

Mr. Deep: We were over at the neighbor's for Christmas lunch.  His whole family was there so I got talking with his father and the topic of fishing came up.  Next thing you know I get an invite for the next morning to go fishing at the Lonehill Dam. Dam is what they call man-made lakes.  I caught some pretty big barbels, which is what they call African Catfish. I seem to remember a blog post about different words they use here.  Guess you can add a couple more.

Interviewer: What else do you want readers to know?  

Mr. Deep:  I am glad I am far removed from that shit-show also known as the Presidential Primaries.  U.S. politics in general to be quite honest.  It is quite nice to not be bombarded by that stuff 24/7. 

Mr. Deep on Boxing Day with the giant barbel that he caught.

The Bioscope Independent Cinema

We love going to the movies. Whether it's an excuse to eat popcorn blockbuster style movie or a film no one has ever heard of, Mr. Deep and I really enjoy spending a few hours in a dark cinema.

When we lived near Newburgh, NY there was a small, independent movie theater called the Downing Film Center and it was one of our regular hang outs.  The Downing was located along the Hudson River waterfront, a revitalized area in the midst of a very run down city of Newburgh. The theater was owned by two retired teachers and was housed in the basement of an old brick building which used to be an art gallery and before that was probably a factory of some kind. There were only about 50-60 seats in the whole place and you had to get their early to get one of the "good chairs." The good chairs were large, came with pillows and reclined a little. The bad chairs were like something you'd sit on in a police station while your statement was being taken. We would often arrive early, sit at the bar across the street, watch the theater out the window and when people started going in we would throw money on the bar, run out and over to the theater to make sure we got a good seat. The Downing had home-made popcorn and you could also bring in your own food and wine if you wanted. 

Then when we moved to White Plains, NY and things got fancier. If you have been to this part of New York you know that everything is fancier in Westchester County. While living there we would visit the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville. Much more upscale than the Downing, Jacob Burns had multiple screens but showed a lot of unusual movies that you wouldn't find in the regular theater. We liked to go and have lunch at this place by the train station, where the maitre d' was always extremely excited to see us, greeting us like we were long lost cousins, even though we only went there a few times. Following lunch we would walk over the movie.

Given this extensive history, you can imagine how thrilled we were when we first laid eyes on the Bioscope Independent Cinema in downtown Joburg. Shortly after we arrived some friends of friends who live here took us to the market on main in the Maboneng area of Joburg. Maboneng is like a little oasis of gentrification in the much vilified Joburg CBD. Maboneng actually means place of light in Sotho. While we were in Maboneng we saw the cinema and agreed to come back and see a movie there. 

Of course life got in the way and we never did go - until this past weekend.

The movie we saw was called Soaked in Bleach and was about the last days of Curt Cobain's life, the front man for the band Nirvana, the biggest rock star for our generation back in the 90s, as well as the reason we all wore a lot of flannel back in the day (and some of us still do.)

Cobain's death had been a ruled a suicide, but the movie casts down on that theory and indicates that he may have been murdered. 

The movie was a little bit too TV police drama for me with reenactments of Courtney Love holed (pun intended) up in a hotel room in LA barking out orders to her minions and such, but it was interesting. Mr. Deep really enjoyed the movie, but Mr. Deep as you may know LOVES a good conspiracy theory so the fact that he liked this movie is not a surprise.

I will admit when we were heading down to the theater, we, or at least I was wondering if was a good idea. All of that talk about staying out of the city is in your head and there were people in park keeping warm by a fire in a trash can, lots of burned out buildings and such, all making you think you might turn into a statistic.

We made it safely and had some time to kill so we went to the restaurant next door called the Pata Pata Restaurant. In looking at their website they refer to themselves as an African Diner. What a great place! Mr. Deep ate an Impala leg dinner while we were waiting. 

cork and bottle cap collection at the Pata Pata

Impala leg dinner

Next time I will have to try the crocodile wors (sausage) with chakalaka

When we walked over to the theater, the box office was in a bar/cafe. We had purchased upgraded tickets that included pizza and a glass of beer or wine. Mr. Deep passed on the pizza since he was full on Impala. I expected that we would get a slice of pizza but no, you get a whole personal size pizza and you can even get toppings if you want. The woman at the counter said they would bring the pizza into the cinema and deliver it to us when it was ready. We also each got a drink with our tickets and we could go out and buy more drinks if we wanted.  At this point, I think I could end this post because clearly the Bioscope IS the greatest movie theater on earth.

A picture of the outside of the theater. I found this online since I didn't take a good one.

I will continue the post because I want to share a bit about the inside of the theater. The seats are all seats from cars. No more bad seats or good seats like at the Downing. Also even though there are only about 50 seats there is stadium seating so there is truly not a bad seat in the house. 

Just noticing that each seat is named for a movie star. I don't know who Sam Dalais is? 

I can't wait to return to the Bioscope to see another movie. If you live in the area, or will be visiting, here are the websites for the Bioscope Independent Cinema and Pata Pata. I highly recommend both.