Photoless

As you can clearly see, we are currently photoless on the blog; I have great pics of amazing things to share and absolutely no bandwidth with which to share them. Telling you about our efforts to get our technology in order here is a great way to illustrate the way most things are done in good old SA.

So, when we arrived here we found that we had no internet connection. Not to worry, we thought, as John had this really clever, very small, very mobile modem that could be plugged into his computer with a usb port and then it acts by receiving a signal, much like a cel phone, and gives you access to the internet via that route. So bright and early Tuesday morning, only 30 hours after touchdown in Joburg, I’m standing in line (with our driver Jean Claude and all our kids and Jess too) at the “VodaCom” shop; where we should be able to purchase one of these nifty modems and plug away at the internet. After standing in the queue (this is the word for line in every other country I’ve heard of but ours) I speak to the gentleman at the desk who tries to help me figure out which “plan” as far as pre-paid air time or monthly all you can use time or what is best for us, then he proceeds to go to the back room to actually pull the hardware we need to buy and install. Nope, no hardware. So sorry, we don’t have any more of these in our shop, but just go downstairs to the Voda CARE shop and pick one up down there. We go downstairs. All of us. And we stand in another queue. After standing in this queue for a long time we come in front of Johnathon (John-o, no kidding that is what he wanted us to call him). Johnathon listens to the “we came from upstairs to pick up the modem” story and after some time he gets the hardware for us and proceeds to explain entirely different things to us (stuff about gigs and megs and how many would we like and all that mumbo jumbo). I tell him I’m not so techy, but the guy upstairs was going to set me up on plan x. He listens to me and then tells me the guy upstairs was trying to rip me off. So, after hearing that nice man at Voda com shop was a swindler, I’m much inclined to listen to Johno. He spends lots of time with me and the driver, who is trying to look out for my best interest but clearly did not know that vodashop guy was ripping us off and so can’t know if vodacare guy Johno is not ripping us off, and in the end just helps me by holding Lucy and keeping Porter from jumping overboard into the fountain on the lower level of the shopping center. Johno sets up the modem and assures me we are well underway.

O.k., or not. We get home, we follow the directions, and we see that clearly the modem cannot get a good signal here at Summerfield Close (our little spot of earth in SA). We get dropped offline like anyone driving down Holladay blvd. gets dropped from their cel phone on any given day at any given time (I couldn’t wait for Holladay to get just one more cel tower so I could check on the kids while coming home from the Store too until I saw that tower would be on our elementary school property, and then I figured it was fine to be without cel coverage for 5 minutes of my life every day…). So. Unlike any public utility in the States where you can call customer service and wait on hold but hopefully get somewhere with how to solve your problem, we have to go back to Johno at the Vodacare store. Since we worked with him before, we’ve got to wait to work with him again and appearantly Johno is very good at what he does because there are others, several others, who have come to stand before Johno and have all their vodacares made right. Johno, after lots of waiting, gives us audience and tells us we need to haul the huge mac/apple computer with the mega screen into the vodacare shop so “his girls’ can have a go with it (remember, SA speak) and get things in order for us. When I explain I’m a little worried about hauling the heavy computer through the parking lot and then through the shopping center (think Shaumburg Mall Chicagoans, or larger than life Fashion Place mall, complete with furniture stores, clothing, dentist offices, restaurants and Smith’s Market Place all packed into one place; giant city center type stuff). He tells me to send “my friend” with it. This means I should send our driver, Jean Claude, with our expensive computer and make that poor man responsible if someone steals it from him or bumps him as he hauls it miles from the car to vodacar Johno. No thanks. What are the other alternatives? We call a number and get into another queue where someone will call us and let us know that they can somehow meet us at the house to help us with our modem. Amen, customer service at last.

Soo, that phone call came today. They were very persistent with us as we had major home phone issues this morning (you pre-pay your land line here just like you would buy a long distance phone card or a pre-paid cel phone card, and unbeknownst to us our time had run out; go figure!). After many tries they reached us to see if we would be available tomorrow at 11. Actually, we are not available then; but I did explain we were completely open any day this week but Tuesday and we’d be happy to make any necessary arrangement so they could come a different day. “I’ll have to phone you back ma’am, when another time slot becomes available”. CLICK; she didn’t even give me the chance to back track and make 11 tomorrow work out; just “call you later”. Wow. What a country.

So, you see, this is why we are pictureless. Every country has its own way of doing things and even every state and every city. We’ve lived in enough places to know that it takes time to figure out each system and then learn how to peacefully coexist with it. But I have to say, it is becoming more clear to me all the time why people have live-in help here; it takes so much time to run around and stand in all the queues that you really don’t have the time you need to wash the clothes and make the beds. I haven’t even begun to explain how many queues we’ve been in to get a dsl line installed; that will take at least a month and who knows how many man hours worth of waiting on hold or in queues so that somehow, someday before I leave this lovely place I’ll be able to share a few pictures of it (and of our kids enjoying it) with you!