Top 10 things I will NOT miss about SA....

From the home office in Port Elizabeth, South Africa here are the top 10 things I will NOT miss about SA.
Here we go...

#10: People that honk their horns at me because I am letting a mother and her child cross the road in front of my car. In a crosswalk. During a commute where there's bumper to bumper traffic and had I NOT stopped we all would have made it about 50 more feet before having to stop anyway. It's called Karma people...

#9: The absolutely meaningless and wrong use of the phrase "so long". This should be used if and only if: 1.)You're part of the cast of the Sound of Music. 2.) You're casually saying good-bye. But South Africans randomly stick this phrase into the middle of seemingly ANY sentence and it drives me nuts.
"Can I get you some water so long?"
"Have a seat so long"
 "Oh look! A Zebra so long"
Why people, why?

#8: Two words: LOAD. SHEDDING.

#7: South African Playgrounds. Rusty, irresponsible, unmaintained death-traps all on top of poured concrete slabs. Great way to get rid of unwanted kids and pretend it was an accident. OY!

You don't want to fall off these swings:

 Unmagical:

#6: The great Store Scavenger Hunt. No idea why they do this, but in any SA shopping center, they proudly display all the names of the shops in the center but none of the names correspond to the actual locations of those shops in ANY WAY. There will be a sign that says "Woolworths Foods" right over the stationary store. They're basically saying "There's a Wooli's here SOMEWHERE. Good luck finding it."

 Pick and Pay is like a mile away on far end of this shopping center. But the sign's on this end....

#5: Great service. Until it's time to leave... and then you'll sit for days trying to find your server to get the check. This happens EVERY time we go out to eat. No one has explained the concept of turning tables for increased revenue. It's painful......

 #4: Gorgeous countryside all around me that I can't explore on my own because it's unsafe. For a hiking, mtn biking, nature lover, it's torture...

#3: Speaking of safety, totally done sleeping in "The ZONE". This is an area of the house where all windows and doors have iron bars over them. We then lock the iron gate of the zone so that if anyone breaks in at night (hopefully) they can't get to us. Also totally done having conversations like "Hey we shouldn't put the Christmas presents under the tree... we should keep them locked in the zone so if there's a break-in we don't lose 'em all..." OVER IT.

#2: Planning my routes around town to avoid the intersections where the panhandlers accost me. Because some of them get mad when I don't give them coins EVERY DAY and they knock at my windows and the dog freaks out and it's just epic. So I plan each outing like a military insertion to avoid certain places at certain times of day.

and the NUMBER ONE thing I will NOT miss about SA:
#1: The Kitchen At La Provence! It rains inside and outside the fridge, when it's humid the thing pees all over the floor, the pots fall into the stove which doesn't light by itself, 2 out of 4 burners work, only 1 of 3 ovens work, there's no dishwasher, the plugs are super sketchy, there's giant rodents (and sometimes monkeys!) competing with me for the food supply, and none of my appliances work without a transformer. Can't wait to kiss it good-bye!

  Pots falling into the stove:

Honorable mention goes out to:
1.) These suckers:

2.) Songs sung in Afrikaans. Seriously, there should be a law against singing in any language with deep gutteral throat-clearing noises....