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.

Hoop Dreams

As you read this blog you fortunately or unfortunately end up reading about the type of activities that Mr. Deep and I enjoy. So here's another post about another one of our favorite pastimes, NBA basketball. 

While we have a few friends who enjoy watching NBA games, it something that most people we know could care less about. I'm not sure why people don't care for it. 

I will tell you why I like basketball better than any other professional sport. First, it's fast. Baseball is the opposite of fast and football keeps stopping play. Second, it's high scoring and there are a lot of lead changes. Third, basketball is a wonderful combination of strength, grace, strategy and teamwork. Finally, I love that a player can be posterized with a block, knocked down on his butt, mortified by missing an easy shot and other embarrassments and that person's job is to get back up the floor like it never happened. A great metaphor for life.  I know deep thoughts right? Well I don't call this blog "my thoughts from the deep end" for nothing.

Recently the first ever NBA basketball game was played on the continent of Africa and was held here in Joburg.  The two teams consisted of players who are from or whose parents are from Africa (Team Africa) vs. players from around the world on the other team (Team World.)  The purpose of the game was to raise the visibility of the sport in Africa in an effort to try to increase the number of professional players coming out of Africa in the future.

Unfortunately, someone in the Deep household operations department fell down on the job and didn't buy tickets to the game when they went on sale. The game sold out very quickly and the Deep family was sadly going to have to watch the game on TV at home, rather than attending in person. 

Luckily, we became aware that a live broadcast of the game and a fan zone area was going to be held at the Montecasino right near our house. I haven't written about the Montecasino before. It's a huge entertainment complex that consists of a casino (obvs), hotels, restaurants, stores, movies, bowling alley, bars and an open air piazza with a giant television. The whole thing is built in a Tuscan style. Really it's a little big Vegas and Disney World ish and the kind of thing a lot of people would love to hate if it wasn't such a fun place to hang out and entertain yourself.

Luol Deng, a member of the NBA's Miami Heat, Mr. Deep and my favorite team, was captain of Team Africa.  Luol was born in Sudan (in the part that is now South Sudan) and then emigrated with his family as a child to Egypt and later to the U.K. during the second Sudanese Civil War.  

Team Africa was leading much of the game, but then Chris Paul hit a few three point shots and Team World came back and ended up winning. It was an exciting game, especially when two African born NBA legends, Dikembe Mutombo and Hakeem Ulajuwon, who are age 49 and 52 respectively, joined the game for a few minutes. The fans from Africa went crazy. 

The guy with the microphone is Muggsy Bogues. He is the shortest player (5 feet 3" or 1.6 meters) ever to play in the NBA. He was the special guest and ran the shooting contest for the fans.

Watching on the big screen with the Montecasino Tuscan architechure in the background.

People lining up to shoot hoops

Hanging out with Luol Deng

The Toronto Raptor mascot. He was not a huge fan of my Miami Heat shirt.

Mr. Deep poses with the Larry O'Brien NBA Championship trophy

Clear as Mud?

While you might think my greatest achievement during my short time in South Africa is driving without incident, I can promise you that it's actually even more impressive that I can understand one bit of the unfamiliar and confusing game of Cricket. 

A few weeks ago South Africa played in the Cricket World Cup quarter and semi finals. A lot of people here were really excited about this and so it seemed like as good of a time as any to try to understand the game. The South African team, Proteus, ended up losing to New Zealand in the semi finals, but if they had won it would have been the first time ever that South Africa made it to the final round. I watched several of the games and thanks to Mr. Deep, I would say I understood about 80-90% of it which is 100% more than I understood about the game two months ago and 100% more than I understand about Rugby, also a very popular sport.  Mr. Deep learned about Cricket from watching with his co-workers and they patiently explained it to him. 

There are a few things about cricket that are unusual and surprising. In no particular order.

1) You thought baseball games were long  
The quarter and semi-finals were taking place in Australia and New Zealand so the games would start at about 3:00 in the morning South Africa time. When we woke up at 6 a.m. we would put the games on the t.v. The game against New Zealand did not end until noon South Africa time! There was an hour and half rain delay but still. These games are long!

2) There is no switching back and forth between offense and defense 
One team bats first and they score until the other team either get ten outs (called wickets) or until they run out of overs (the allowed number of pitches.) So the second team to bat knows what score they need to beat to win and knows exactly the run rate of runs per over they need at any given time to win.

3) Once you're out you're really out
Meaning you can't bat anymore for the rest of the match. It's like a baseball out meets an NBA ejection. 

4) Dinner is served 
There is a drink break for hydration purposes and then there is also a dinner break. How civilized! 

5) Duckworth and Lewis
No, not a new comedy team. If there is a significant rain delay then Duckworth Lewis goes into effect. Duckworth and Lewis were two English statisticians who came up with some kind of formula which I can't begin to understand and I am not sure that anyone really understands how it is calculated. If there is a rain delay in order to end the game in a reasonable time a target winning score is created using this Duckworth Lewis formula. As per Wikipedia, a mathematical formulation designed to calculate the target score for the team batting second in a limited overs cricket match interrupted by weather or other circumstances. I can't even think of what an analogy would be in life. Maybe like a discount randomly determined by a sales clerk that you get if you buy a sweater that is slightly damaged? Imagine if that time at the Superbowl when the lights went out some type of Duckworth Lewis calculation was enacted?