Any South Africans around?

[Seraj]

Hi all,

I'll be heading to South Africa in late February to start training to be a Professional Pilot (Huzzah! Finally!) And I'll be there for a year and a half(ish). I will be staying near Port Elizabeth.

Could anyone who has spent some time, or lived in SA please answer some of my questions, and also pm me ( just in case I remember something I forgot to ask ).


1. It seems very hard to find South Africans on the internets, what is the internet like over there and how does your system work? ( I did some research and hell, picking an ISP and package is far more complex than here in England).


2. If you've been abroad, what are prices like compared to the country you've visited? ( i.e food cheap? clothes and electronics expensive? I dunno :s)

3. Any general information about Port Elizabeth, what are the people there like etc. etc.? ( Other than what I pulled off the wiki)

4. Any advice on what I should bring with me? (Other than the obvious, Marmite and Branston Pickle)

5. For some reason all the questions in my head have disappeared as I was typing this, so er... Any general advice you could give?


Thank you very much, elusive South African!

 

[Hagi]

Hey,

not a native South African but I've spend a year there doing volunteer work. Six months at a place in the absolute middle of nowhere and six months in Johannesburg.

Internet is generally rather expensive in South Africa. There's, as far as I know, not much wiring around so you require one of those mobile devices with a SIM-card and pay for every MB of data. I'm afraid I don't know any more specifics about the system.

Food and basic clothing are, in comparison to European prices, extremely cheap. Most advanced electronics seem to be imported and as such are generally more expensive, a few exceptions exist though.

I've only been in Port Elizabeth for a few days so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about the area specifically though. About the general population though this is what I, coming from a Dutch liberal background, noticed: very polite and welcoming in casual contact but overall distrustful of anything more then that making it, in my experience, more difficult to establish more meaningful connections. There's still a decent amount of racism present although rarely actually mentioned. There's generally a decent amount of fear and distrust for strangers, partly with good reason due to the extremely high crime rates in the country. Most people I interacted with were also very Christian and Atheism was relatively unknown, personally I keep my beliefs very private so apart from some minor annoyances of people believing that Atheist means you rape little kids before sacrificing them to the devil I didn't have to deal with much but if you're more outspoken you should be prepared for it.

Even though South Africa says "Africa" do remember where it's actually geographically located. They've got both lions and penguins there, so along with clothing for extremely high temperatures do also pack some warmer clothing. I'd also recommend seeing if you need to pick up converters for your plugs, they use 3-pin [http://www.samson-power.cn/UploadFile/200911415383972200.jpg] plugs there so you might need them. In addition to that I wouldn't recommend taking anything very expensive along that you don't really need, as I said crime rates are high so you're better off safe then sorry. If you're careful you likely won't have anything stolen but it doesn't hurt to reduce the risk. Can't think of anything more right now but I'll see if something else pops up later.

As for general advice, see if you can take a few weeks off to travel around the country. It's a beautiful place with a character uniquely it's own. Baz Bus [http://www.bazbus.com/] is a company that runs, in my experience, safe and reliable transport around the country specifically for backpackers and delivers you straight to your hostel of choice. It's probably a bit more expensive then standard transport, but compared to European standards still very cheap. It'd be an absolute shame to travel to a country like South Africa without actually seeing the sights it has to offer.

Shoot me a message if you have any more questions, I'd be happy to answer them for you to the best of my ability.

 

[Seraj]

Snip

Thanks ^_^ I will be flying over it during training so will be seeing a lot of it (I have 6 300 nautical mile trips I have to complete within the first couple of months).

Unfortunately my breaks are short and not that often so I wont be able to take many trips around the country .

I'll be staying at the aerodrome at the academy (which is in the middle of nowhere, 2 hours by taxi to Port Elizabeth) so I doubt I'll come across much theft.

The internet is going to be a problem for me, I have quite a high download rate, averaging about 80-90GB/month (where it goes I have no idea...)

Thanks for reminding me about the plug converter, forgot all about that, never seen a plug like that before.

When you say the weather is both warm and cold, how cold? Canada cold or rarely-touches-zero British cold?

Also are their markets local & small shops or are there supermarkets, malls and big franchises etc. etc.?

I'm not quite clear on racism in Africa, is it white is racist to black, or vice versa? (I class as neither, but good to know)

And finally, anything I should be wary of/keep an eye out for? (Other than that shady guy in the corner )

Thank you very much, you've been very helpful, it seems SA-ns have no online presence at all...

 

[EternityTransfer]

I am South African! Yay for me!

Haqi gives some good advice, from a Eurocentric view food and clothes are cheap, electronics are expensive.

Telecommunications costs in South Africa are some of the highest in the world, and 80-90Gb per month is rather unsustainable unless you're prepared to spend some MAJOR money on internet access. High-speed wired lines are usually dependent on having an account with a fixed-line operator (Telkom is the only one), and the likelihood of you having a local exchange 'out in the middle of nowhere' that can provide high-speed (we're talking 385kbps here) access is low. A mobile internet device will set you back a small amount (you pay for the data), and pay-as-you go (ie: prepaid) data normally averages R1/Mb, depending what cellular provider you use, although its cheaper on contract, obviously. Keep a look out for packages offering low prices - there are some good deals)

Remember, South Africa uses 230V appliances.

As to the climate, Port Elizabeth has what is called an oceanic climate. The winter temperature ranges from 20C to 9C, while the summer temperature is 25C to 18C. Expect it to feel a lot hotter - especially out 'in the middle of nowhere', where there is no ocean to supply a nice cool breeze.

The people in PE are known for being very friendly. Haqi seems to have had a negative experience of the people. South Africa is an extremely racially diverse nation, and racism is a touchy subject - we have a history that we're just recovering from. 'Black' and 'White' and 'Coloured' are all acceptable terms. As a foreigner, to stay on the safe side, don't refer to race or colour. Deal with each person as they are.

South Africa has a reputation for having a very high crime rate, so just be wary: lock your doors, keep your bags close by, close car windows at intersections: general safety information.

Supermarkets and shopping malls are common in the urban areas, PE is a reasonably large town so expect there to be plenty of places to shop at. City centers tend to have many areas dedicated to informal traders - selling various small items (pretty much everything actually).

If you want to get any more info from a native South African, PM me and I'll help however I can. I hope you have a good time here - Haqi is right its worth taking a tour if you can.

Have a good time, and good luck with your license!

 

[Hagi]

Didn't really have a negative experience of the people.

I met plenty of great and very friendly people, it's just that great people don't really require any preparation. You meet them, you have a great time, you say goodbye again. Not really much more to it. I don't think you can really prepare for meeting cool people.

It's mostly the negative experiences you need to be prepared for. From my background at least there was a bit of a culture shock when confronted with the Religious and Racist attitude some people had (who did seem in the minority). The fact that, due to the high crime rates, people are at first distrustful even though still very polite also takes a bit of getting used to.

 

[Seraj]

Snip

Snip

:O A South African! On the internet! :O Finally!


Thank you both for all the information


I come from England so all my electronics are already set to 230V, win

I'm going to have some real trouble with the interwebs then :s Goodbye online Tv I guess :'(

What's the crime rate like in PE? Is it considered as bad as in some other areas? (Johannesburg comes to mind).

Also, the local market area you've talked about, is it buy at the price he states or is haggling the norm?

As for religion, I'm a British Libyan, lived in both countries for some time, so know the environment you're talking about and used to it

Thank you both again!

 

[Hagi]

From my experience when you're dealing with street vendors haggling is the norm, although the price stated is usually still way lower then European prices.

From what I've been told while I was in the area, only a few days mind you, PE is a much more relaxed area with lower rates of crime. I would however still advise being careful, I've heard very bad stories from all parts of the country when I was travelling around. The only thing they had in common was that the victims usually weren't being very careful at all (taking a short-cut through a rough neighbourhood at 4AM whilst drunk and getting robbed of everything including their shoes comes to mind...)

There certainly aren't robbers around every street corner or anything like that, in an entire year there the worst I had was losing my cellphone due to it falling out of my pocket. As long as you keep in the back of your mind that crime can and does happen you should be completely fine. It's pretty much the obvious things you have to avoid: don't take rides with strangers, don't go out at night in neighbourhoods you don't know etc.

And yeah, you should probably prepare for going without Internet for quite a while. My first 6 months, in the middle of nowhere, I got a grand total of around 8 hours online. Second six months, in Johannesburg, I got about 4 hours per week. Granted, I was working 16 hours a day...