CTE: Aaron receives jabs from Sister Penny

Aaron at 4 months

    Seems like a strange title for a blog post, but it briefly illustrates the strange language they speak over here in South Africa.  Aaron went for his 4 mo. vaccinations on Thursday, even though he is 6 days away from being 5 months old.  (We're a little slow)  Anyway, we went to the paediatrician's (actual spelling) office and met with Sister Penny (recommended by a friend).  And, of course, my first reaction was: Why are we meeting a nun at the doctor's office?  But, I did not ask that right away.  She took us into her office and wanted to see Aaron's records and started talking about the differences between the US and SA vaccination schedules, seeming very professional.  At the appropriate time, I had to ask what the title Sister meant.  Penny just looked at me a little bewildered, so I asked what she would be called in America.  Her response was that sister is a British term for nurse, stemming from their history where a large number of nurse were actually nuns.

    After that was cleared up it was time for the jabs, which is another word for shots.  They still use terms like vaccinations or immunizations here in SA, but the colloquial term is jabs instead of shots.  Not sure which sounds worse.  Anyway, Aaron did great, took his jabs like a champ, with some minimal crying and was ready to go again.
    The last order of business was Aaron's measurements.  Sister Penny weighed and measured Aaron.  His official 4 mo. plus 24 day measurements were: 7.28 kg and 65 cm.  Pretty amazing, huh!  For those of you who are not a metric-savvy as Diana and I (which means we have a handy iPod conversion tool), the American measurements are: 17 lbs, 4 oz. and 25 5/8 inches.  Unfortunately, they do not do percentage sizes here, but to put that into perspective, Aaron has grown about 3 inches and more than 3 lbs in the last 2 months.  Good work, son!

CTE: The Braai #2

Mike, Jane, Paul, Lee, Aaron & Diana

    As a follow-up to the Braai post from last week, we were able to have another Braai at our house on a beautiful Friday evening (see picture).  Some of our friends from Common Grounds Church (Paul & Lee and Mike & Jane) came over for the braai.  Mike brought his Weber (pronounced Wee-bur) over and was dubbed the Tong-Master (see video below).  We were exposed to one additional type of meat, the SA version of Bratwurst, the Boerewors.  As far as I can tell, there is no standard to the Boerewors, as there are an infinite number of varieties in the grocery stores.  They are typically beef and very long (one continuous sausage) and very tasty, with an assortment of spices, like coriander (very popular in SA), black pepper, garlic, nutmeg, etc...).  They are great on a hotdog bun with tomato sauce (like ketchup) or just plain with salad.  An excellent substitute for the Wisconsin Brat (although I miss them).  Still hoping that we can find some here.
    Lastly, I wanted to add this Youtube video that we watched that night about South African Braai Ettitque.  Enjoy, very funny!

CTE: The Braai

  For my first post about the Cape Town Experience, I wanted to go right to the heart of South African culture, the Braai.  Okay, maybe it does not represent all of South African (or SA, for short) culture, but it certainly seems to be an important aspect.  So, you ask, what is a Braai?  Well, in a nutshell, it is barbecue.  Braai is the Afrikaans word for barbecue.  If you want the Wikipedia definition, click here.  I had been hearing about Braai-ing (actual usage by real South Africans) since we landed in Cape Town and we were keen (great SA word!) to participate in one.  The opportunity presented itself two weekends ago.  September 24th is a national holiday entitled Heritage Day, a celebration of South African culture.  It has also become National Braai Day.  Since Sept 24th fell on a Friday, we had a three-day weekend with lots of time to Braai.
  So, Sunday afternoon, we were invited over to Andy's (fellow UCT professor) house for our first official SA Braai.  (He is the one brandishing the tongs in the picture.)  By observing Andy and querying him on the Braai, I was able to gather enough information to determine what distinguishes a Braai from and American barbecue.

  So, the basic premise is the same.  Men gather to cook meat over an open flame.  Women stay inside and prepare the salad, drinks, etc...  A Braai generally consists of cooking over a wood fire, that is very important and there was a brief ridicule of the Americans and their gas grills.  It is also important which type of wood is used.  That being said, Andy started his fire with wood, but then supplemented it with charcoal, so charcoal is okay if needed.  The other big difference is the type of meat.  At Andy's house, we had sirloin steak, kudu, and lamb chops (all pictured on left).  Kudu is a form of antelope, perfectly legal to eat, quite tasty and expensive.  Andy prepared it for us as a special occasion, our first SA Braai.  Overall, our first SA Braai was a tremendous success with hopefully many more to come.

The Cape Town Experience (CTE)

We have now officially been in Cape Town 5 weeks, at least as of 10 pm tonight.  It is hard to believe that it has been that long.  Of course, in some ways, it feels like we have been here forever as well.

We hit a major milestone yesterday.  Our DSL service at home is finally fully functional!  YAAY!!! Now, I was not using this as an excuse, but it did make it harder to keep everyone up-to-date without the internet.  (Maybe I am too dependent on technology.)  Anyway, I no longer have any excuses to update our blog.  My new plan (if you haven't noticed I like to make plans :) is to give you all brief glimpses into our life in Cape Town, South Africa through short little stories or experiences.  I am calling it the Cape Town Experience Blog Series!  I know,  it is a long name, so for short it will be CTE.  I hope that you enjoy them and I hope that I can keep the momentum going.  Cheers, Steve