Wednesday, September 27, 2006

What I learnt in London

  1. Heeled shoes should never be worn to work. No matter how comfortable they may seem in the morning, thanks to commuting they will be killing you by the end of the day and you may have to walk home barefeet
  2. Don't allow yourself to day dream because you will mislay your handbag with credit cards inside causing a good hour of panic and running between pub and office to locate it and in the process scraping all the skin off the fourth toe of your right foot and making already uncomfortable work shoes unbearable
  3. It doesn't matter how long it has been seen since you have seen your best friends. You know each other so well that when you see each other again it is as if no time has passed at all. I miss my best friends.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

High voltage

This morning I sat in the departures hall of the Delhi airport and watched all the foreigners going home swathed in India in an attempt to take a piece of it home with them. I think developing countries do that to you, like malaria they get into your blood and awaken a part of you that often lies dormant. It’s a part of you that overlooks the smells and the chaos and sees something much bigger; the energy.

I was trying to explain to someone what it is about India that reminds me of South Africa and I came up with the following analogy. The differences between South Africa and India can be likened to the differences between the plugs of the two countries. To start, both countries experience frequent power cuts! The Indian plugs are also three pronged but slightly smaller than its SA equivalent so that the SA two prong “fits” in the bottom two holes leaving the apex of the plug ominously empty (if I dust off the cobwebs of my Std 8 Science knowledge is that not earth?). It’s not an exact fit and you have to be careful you don’t knock it or risk a barrage of sparks but at the end of the day it’s the same voltage running through the wires.