Saturday 14 June 2014

Money and every day expenses


The exchange rate is roughly 10 Rands ( South African dollar) to $1US dollar which makes things very cheap here for tourists. But living here not so much. The average salary is about $4000 a month- $400 US ! Not much to live on for sure. And you would think that would mean living expenses would be a lot lower but not the case. A trip to the grocery store for basic food supplies would mean an easy $200 trip. 

2L milk- $30Rand
White bread-$10
Cheese-$50 (for less than 500g)
Whole chicken-$90-110
Hamburger mince-$25-40

I did end up buying some nice clothes, more then I was planning on which I blame on Maddy (lol). I kept finding nice things that I really liked and with the exchange rate meant were insanely cheap. A couple nice sweaters, a couple dresses.....

Fuel was roughly $12 a liter which adds up in hurry. 

I really don’t know how anyone manages to save enough in order to buy a house but some people do seem too. Though I do think a lot of people try and work a lot of overtime in order to have spare money. 

One thing I did notice when it came to salaries was that most, if not all people were paid only once a month (!) and in cash at that. Needless to say lots of partying going on during pay weekend. 

Thursday 12 June 2014

The Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial


The Oscar P. Murder trial which is going on right now in Pretoria, South Africa - close to Johanasburg is currently the biggest thing going on in news these days and has been for the last month. And when I mean big news , it has it’s own 24/7 tv channel , twitter and facebook accounts as well. Along with multiple different panel discussions after court is done for the day. And has a twitter feed showing the comments from watchers along the bottom of the tv screen. 

Back story since I have no idea how big of news it is everywhere outside of Africa. 

Oscar also known as “the blade runner” the double leg amputee who ran in the London Olympics against able bodied people. He is charged with murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, of 4 months on Valentine’s Day 2013. 

The trial was suppose to be all done and wrapped up in 3 weeks. Needless to say that went out the window and it is still going on now over 3 months later. The last I heard was that he was in hospital to see if he is mentally capable in handling everything. Kinda of think his defense team is grasping at straws now. Surprised they are doing this now and not after it happened last year. 

Based on everyone that I have talked to, most people have said that he is guilty. Then it varies on whether he planned to kill her or not. I don’t think he was planning too. 

I don’t watch a lot of the court proceedings but I got to give the prosecuter, Gerrie Nel, credit he is GOOD! I for sure would never want to be up against him. He is making experts witness look dumb. And these are experts in their fields for 15+years. Actually pretty interesting to watch him cross examine the experts and he is finding so many holes in the original story and the story keeps changing so it no longer makes any sense. 

I won’t go into to many details ( doubt many of you really care! Lol) but for someone (Oscar) who is scared and never felt safe why is he leaving the balcony door open all night with a ladder out in the open? He had working fans ( Nel spent I think 2 days talking about those fans! Lol drove me nuts!) 

I was hoping this trial would be done before I left Namibia but its not. So will have to keep looking it up to see how it is going. And the trial is still on break with Oscar being in the hospital being checked out for another few weeks. 

Between this and Nelson Mandela passing away, South Africa has been in the news a fair bit in the last year or so. 

Everyday Life in Africa


Someone was asking me about what life was like on a day to day basis so the next few posts will be more in that aspect. 

So expect everything from murder trials, shopping to dealing with horses. 

Sorry for the long delay!

Internet in Namibia was not my friend. I was constantly fighting with it hence no blog or pictures. But here are some more updates.

And yes I am currently in Sydney, Australia.....