How does the (African) chicken cross the road?

To be honest, I have no idea, as we aren’t living in a rural area where chickens and goats roam free.  One of our neighbours has recently acquired an adolescent cockerel, or so I hear, but that’s as rural as it gets.  I know it’s an adolescent because I’ve never heard it crowing before mid-morning.

So, now that we’ve established my total ignorance about chickens, I can tell you that there are, however, some significant differences around the world in how people cross the road….

In America you would cross a road by car.  I understand that in city centres where people do actually walk, it is not acceptable to cross unless there is a green man at the lights, regardless of the amount of traffic.

In France, crossing the road as a pedestrian in a city centre is probably regarded by insurance companies as an extreme sport of the kind likely to send your premiums soaring.  French cities do have zebra crossings, but these are really there to suggest to pedestrians the most likely point at which they might like to consider losing a limb and to help the emergency services with speedy collection of body parts and hapless pedestrians.

In the UK, drivers will stop at zebra crossings and most pedestrians will remember what they were taught as children: stop, look, listen.  Local authorities employ people whose job it is to go around schools and teach pedestrian classes.  At least, they do in Worcestershire, because I have spent a whole morning assisting a lady as she taught a group of 9 year olds how to cross a road.  Thankfully there was no test at the end, otherwise my daughter would still be walking to school with L-plates on.

In South Africa, you cross as and when the mood takes you.  Only the weak and fearful wait until the road is clear in both directions.  The brave and cool go half way, then stand waiting as buses, lorries and taxies miss them by a hair.  In South Africa, it is also acceptable and perfectly normal to wander down the side of a three lane highway.  And to cross it without the aid of any man-made nonsense like bridges.  Very disconcerting to the British driver who has no experience of seeing people moving along the side of motorways.  We’re very used to seeing motorway maintenance staff at the side of motorways, but they’re usually not moving.

In Fish Hoek, we have quite a number of roundabouts, or circles, as we call them here.  Actually, the road layout in Fish Hoek is quite interesting.  We live on Carlton Road.  As you drive along Main Road you will see a road called Carlton Road turning off on one side.  Logically, you would think that is the place to turn if you want to come and see us, but if you do, you will find it comes to a fairly abrupt end at a T-junction and that the house numbers get nowhere near what you are looking for.  That’s because if you want to get to us, you have to turn down Banks Road, which then (at the circle) becomes the other half of Carlton Road.  This isn’t the only little local anomaly.  The back roads of Fish Hoek are often the place to find perplexed looking motorists who think they have found the road they were looking for, only to discover that this is just half of it.  The other half is somewhere else.  This could be an oversight on the part of the town planners, but personally I think it is part of a plan to keep outsiders away and deter tourists.

Anyway, the procedure for crossing a road junction with a roundabout-circle is very different here to in the UK.  I thought a little diagram might help, using the infamous “Magic Roundabout” in Swindon.  The route in blue is the route the British pedestrian would take.  The route in red is the South African route.  You will see that the blue route includes various points at which the pedestrian stops and assesses the situation.  The red route is pretty much straight from start to finish via the most direct possible route.  Any stopping points are likely to be half way across the road rather than at any predictable point.

So perhaps the question should be…. how do chickens cross the road?  They go round the edge of the roundabouts, because anyone with any guts knows you just go straight through the middle.

And the mystery item is….

Thank you for the suggestions.  I was very impressed by how many of you picked up on the theme of some kind of escape route for wildlife who didn’t want to enjoy a dip in the pool.

The truth behind our mysterious two bricks and a piece of nylon mesh is that it is an emergency escape exit for toads.  Specifically for Western Leopard Toads.  According to our landlord, at certain times of the year, this local endangered species go wandering around and sometimes end up falling (or maybe jumping or diving, who knows) into swimming pools.  They are then unable to get back out again and so you run the risk of finding a dead toad in your pool – not nice.  Or possibly even worse, an exhausted toad with severe hypothermia requiring mouth to mouth resuscitation and expert medical care.  Or even multiple toads.

Those of you who have known me long, loved me in spite of that and laughed at me often may be aware that I do have a teeny weeny problem with amphibians of any sort. That is teeny weeny as in rooted to the spot, paralysed with fear at the sight of even the tiniest little frog. At forty paces.  Seriously, these things are frightening.  You never know which way they’re going to jump. I’m not sure that they know which way they’re going to jump.  And yes, I know I’m bigger than them, and no, I promise you that there is absolutely no way on earth that they are more scared of me than I am of them.  I also know that toads tend not to jump but that in no way reduces the fear.  It just slightly increases the possibility of outrunning it.

Friends of ours run a beautiful campsite in Wales which they maintain to the highest possible standard.  Their shower blocks and toilets have won awards for cleanliness.  In fact, their toilets are so lovely that the frogs in their lake, of which there are several million, like to go and inspect the facilities.  We camped there once and I was trapped in the toilet block by a frog blocking the doorway.  I was there so long that Neil was wondering what had happened to me.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t wondering enough to come and rescue me.  The frog and I had a long long face-off, until eventually I emerged triumphant by squealing and running. I love these friends dearly, but we were only able to go back when there was a mobile home with its own toilet and shower available for us to stay in.  There are some trials which no friendship can possibly be expected to withstand.

Before our next camping holiday, I emailed the camp site to ask about frogs, and was assured that they were an amphibian-free zone.  I think that’s perfectly normal behaviour.

So with all that in mind, you can imagine the toad escape in the pool presents something of an emotional and environmental dilemma for me.  On the one hand, I don’t particularly want to have to fish dead toads out of the pool. And there is no way I’m administering first aid to waterlogged amphibians, endangered or not. So, it’s probably a good thing that it’s there.  However, in an ideal world I would have liked to discover that this is a part of the world renowned for its complete and utter absence of amphibian wildlife. Since it apparently is not, I’m looking into ways to make the garden frog and toad proof.  I’ve got my eye on a spare piece of wood to fasten across the bottom of the garden gate where there are toad-sized spaces, but am wondering if that is enough.  Do toads dig tunnels?  Should we be taking out the concrete fence panels and digging six foot foundations to fill with concrete before reinstalling them? Or perhaps a moat full of crocodiles?  Maybe the snakes in the nature reserve across the road will have eaten all the toads.  At least if I find a snake in the garden there are emergency services I can call.  I’m not sure they’d come out for a toad.

And in case you’re wondering… No, that it is not me holding that toad.  That photo came from the internet which is about as close as I want to get to one of these things.  They grow even bigger than the one in the photo, which is really only a little titchy one.

It’s a people thing..

One of the things you notice a lot in South Africa is people… there are a lot of them.  What I mean by this is that at any given moment during the day, in a town centre, shopping mall or on the beach, there are a lot of people hanging around at times when in the UK things might be quieter.

Driving along you will see people sitting by the side of the road.  Waiting for a taxi bus, waiting for somebody to come and offer them work, or just waiting.

This probably reflects the high unemployment rates here in South Africa.  If you have no work, you may as well sit around at the side of the road waiting for something to happen, or wander around the shops, or go to the beach.

The high unemployment rates can also be seen in the way that jobs which would be done by one or two people in the UK are shared out amongst several more than that over here.  Roadworks don’t have warning lights – they have a person (usually a lady) whose job it is to stand at the side of the road, just before the roadworks, waving an orange flag in a casually relaxed kind of way.  The roadworks will be staffed by a small army, but there does seem to be less leaning on shovels than in the UK.

Petrol stations are all manned and while your petrol tank is being filled you can have your windscreen washed and your oil and water checked.

Walking past a Mugg & Bean cafe the other day (South Africa’s answer to Starbucks or Costa’s) I was struck by the large number of staff.  A Costa Cafe that size in the UK would have had a third of that number – and no table service.  Not that all the staff necessarily guarantees faster service… after all, this is Africa!

And just to remind you that this really is Africa, on any lamp-post or available surface, you may see an advertisement for your local sangoma, offering to bring you success in work, love or money. Apparently, although 80% of South Africans would call themselves Christians, 70% of South Africans have consulted or would be happy to consult a sangoma at some point.  I’m not great at maths, but even I can see that there is a considerable overlap there of those who claim to put their trust in Christ, but are happy to see if a little bit of witchcraft can help out from time to time.  It is not for nothing that the church in Africa is described as being a mile wide but an inch deep. It highlights the need for Bible training for those in leadership in their local churches, one of the projects Neil is working on.

Some of you may remember that one of my first posts was to do with the joys of wheelie bin collection…. anyway, today was bin day and I really ought to go and get it back inside as the wind is picking up and the next thing I know it will be blown halfway down the road.  Bin day is all very uneventful over here.  Unless the wind picks up.