When we were nomadic and slow-traveling around the world we always said we wanted to see how the locals live. Not that we were “living like locals.” One reason for the choice in phrasing was that we weren't necessarily wanting to experience living without certain creature comforts, like aircon, and although we were shopping at the same shops as the locals, we certainly weren’t living like the locals. As a tourist, we didn’t have the opportunity to deal with the mundane of day-to-day life like setting up accounts with the local utilities, registering a car, getting IDs, etc. Therefore, the distinction between living like a local and seeing how the locals live.

Enter South Africa! We are definitely getting to experience a lot of what truly “living like a local” means!

Jim wrote about our first month here and how we are settling in here, but definitely glossed over a few of the frustrating aspects of our local life here, including the bribe culture created by corruption.

Like what it takes to pick up your new ATM card at the bank. First, unlike our home country of the US, you have to pick up your ATM card at the bank. They don’t mail them to you. Why not, because the mail is so unbelievably unreliable and there is just entirely too much corruption to trust the system. Most everything that is shipped in South Africa is done by courier. As a result, my ATM card was sent to the bank and we received an SMS when it was ready.

They have a fantastic automated system for checking in at the bank: simply select what you are there for on a screen and it prints out a number, along with an approximate wait time. I arrived with no one in line ahead of me, but both “special service” tellers werr busy with other customers. My ticket told me I'd have about a five minute wait. But we've already learned what South Africans mean when they say it's the “slowveld” not the “lowveld.” (Lowveld is a name for this region of South Africa.) So Jim left me there to wait while he went shopping. He was able to get all the shopping done in town and come back to the bank before I was close to getting my card. Ninety minutes after I arrived, I finally got my ATM card. It entailed signing a piece of paper and entering the PIN it came with into the keypad. A few clicks on the computer by the teller and whoohoo: an ATM card!

So, as many countries as I've traveled to, as many cities as I've spent a month or two in, I've never truly lived the local experience. I've never gotten a driver's license (although I have gotten many library cards), a bank account, battled traffic on a daily commute, invested in the local politics, gotten a job, or had to find a plumber to fix a leaky pipe. Sure, I've shopped the local grocery store, hungout where the locals hang, but it was never really “living like a local.”

Other than the “living like a local” tasks, I continue documenting our joys of living here through my camera. It brings me so much joy to walk the neighborhood, sit in our backyard with the wildlife, and enjoy the perfect winter weather.