Reflections and breakdowns

During this trip I have started to realise how self-centred we as an American culture can be; sometimes we are so unaware of other people in the world aside from ourselves. We have grown to not only enjoy, but also expect, to have things "our way, right away". Fast, cheap and convenient is the name of the game nowadays in the States, and it takes some time to get used to the slower-paced culture here in South Africa, and in India as well.

We are all accustomed to being able to run to Wal-Mart at midnight or later and buy snacks or hairspray or lipstick or new flip-flops or stain remover. We are familiar with not eating dinner until 9 or so at night, and being able to hop in our cars and grab Wendy's fast food, or even a late night pick-me-up at Starbucks. Here in South Africa retail stores close at about 6 and restaurants about 9. There is no Domino's or Papa John's pizza that will be delivered to you in 30 minutes or less at any time of the day or night.

Additionally, we Americans want everything as cheap as possible. Many big-box American retailers get much of their raw material from overseas, from countries where human labour is cheaper. This, in my view, is at the expense of local merchants and craftsmen who can also produce the same products, just not mass produce them, therefore costing the American consumer more.

I think there is something to be said for supporting local merchants at the markets in South Africa and India and buying items that someone has poured their blood, sweat and tears into producing, to make a living.

To get back to the cricket - it is the games that start around noon that are the hardest. Standing in the scorching sun, I end up with the craziest-looking tan-lines on my back from the skinny red, white and blue straps on our White Mischief uniforms.

The past couple of matches, Ross Taylor has been saving the day for us. We all kind of get excited whenever he walks in to bat these days, expecting the ball to be flying out of the stadium in no time. The number of close finishes at these dying stages of the league competition have got all of us completely hooked on to the game. Wow, what finishes! Almost every game has been a potential nail-biter. We really have to get the ball rolling on bringing this fine sport back home to the States.

I don't know what exactly our bus driver does during these matches in Pretoria, but it seems like he turns on his light and blasts the radio and the air-con for several hours. Recently, for the second time, we returned to the bus to find that the battery was dead as a doornail, and so our bus was, again, stuck parked on the side of the road in front of the stadium.

For the second time, we had to literally push the bus into the road while in neutral to attempt to "pop the clutch" and get it moving again. However, this time, we pushed and pushed but the dang bus never budged. We were convinced the driver actually had the bus in "park", rather than "neutral", or had the emergency brake on. We waited nearly two hours for a new bus, but eventually just got enough man power to get the bus moving again. Finally we were on the road back to Jo'burg.