The 'Different' List: South Africa vs. USA

I wonder if the very common desire to travel internationally in retirement is in the need for the refreshment of the new. In South Africa, where I am hanging out talking to very different people about retirement, I experience differentness in almost every moment.

• Differing sounding birds
• Dogs wandering about and barking at will
• Strange fruit trees that drop apparently edible star shaped fruit
• Driving on the left
• Slower traffic (me) to the left
• Steering wheel on the right
• Stick shift on the left with reversed gears
• Metric everything
• Simple road signs that have no meaning at all for me i.e.

(I keep hoping I’m not abnormal.)

All this traffic strangeness has introduced another strangeness: getting honked at. That is something that happens to Abby and her family. Not me!

• Lots of churches promising healing and requiring tithes
• Being the only person of my skin color in the store
• Worrying about crime.
• Tipping someone to watch the car at the mall. When you come back, they help you back out.
• Money: one dollar = 14.4 rand

• Tipping (10%)
• The way credit cards are handled
• Lots of servants. Listened to a (long) sermon that regularly used the servant imagery in the New Testament with direction application. “You know how you need to tell servants what to do?” O and servants are always black in South Africa.
• The dirt is reddish, never black.
• Lots of dirt (red) roads
• Trees with all sorts of crazy flowers and berries
• Biscuits that are, in fact, cookies
• Bars that have no idea what a martini is, but have 17 drinks using brandy. The pub I am in most does not have martini glasses!
• No spanish sub-culture. I the US, I’m used to the subtle presence of a significant Hispanic population. Not here.
• A second, insider language for locals (Afrikaans)
• Very few insects, therefore, no screens on windows
• Few swimming pools
• Boring salads: iceberg lettuce, sliced tomatoes, cucumber slice
• Few people wearing caps
• Corrugated metal roofs

• Corrugated metal houses (the building material of choice in very poor neighborhoods)
• Wondering whether the color of my skin is influencing whatever is going on
• The idea that most American are rich
• Meeting community health care workers who look quite ordinary who are living on about $100 a month
• The absence of progressive protestantism
• Family graveyards
• The comfort of a massive dog lying at your feet

• Since I am travelling alone, it’s a different world to not negotiate any life event. I’m keeping an even more peculiar sleep pattern than I usually do. Actually, I’m not noticing any pattern at all yet.

I sometimes feel something happening in my brain, as if all this new is creating new zappy paths in my head. When I come here, I make a point of not doing any tours. Having to try and understand things keeps me on my toes. No, I am not googling everything I find. People on the farm here are singing songs I have never heard in a language I will never know. I do not ask them what the songs are about. I don’t have to know everything to enjoy everything. I hope my retirement will be a greater comfort with knowing less (than I thought I did when younger at least) and enjoying more.