Saffers (South Africans to the rest of the world) have been flying the home nest to points north, south, east and west since the 1980's and those of us left behind got used to the plaintive cries and pleas to visitors from home to bring with them items such as biltong (beef jerky), rusks (hard, dry lumps of biscuit), boerwors (a coarsely ground spicy sausage), Mrs Ball's chutney... blah blah fishcakes. Letters back to the nest resounded with longing for milktart and lemon meringue pie and complaints about unfamiliar supermarket merchandising which had the immigrants walking aimlessly up and down the aisles because margarine, for instance, wasn't in the dairy section of the fridge but filled the shelves in the tea and coffee aisle. Fabric softener or liquid detergent - who could tell, the blurb on the bottle wasn't revealing the secret and the brand meant nothing to the new resident.
Some of the more unique requests to take with me on visits over the water included Bovril, Smarties, Marula Cream Liqueur and Prestik which I happily slipped into my luggage.
The letters of joy when these migrants discovered South African shops was rather sweet, although I couldn't relate to cravings for any of the above except, of course, Smarties and who can live without Prestik? (Like Blu Tack but much, much better!) Fancy living in a new country with all the many local things to discover, and craving boerie?
Oh, yes, how the mighty have fallen now we ourselves are exploring new territory. As delighted as we were to hear that some friends were coming to visit within 2 months of our relocation, the pleasure heightened when I sent the list to them for packing:
- salt crystals for the grinder
- vegetable stock
- Betadine antiseptic cream
- Jacobs coffee
- perforated clingwrap
- wood screws (not my list, that was on HO's!)
At home, a roll of clingwrap lives in the pantry for years, barely touched, but without my lidded Corningware dishes I am pushed to cover food with film and the clingwrap available here is diabolical. And no-one here has ever heard of it being perforated, what a wonderous thing that would be. Err, yeah, right, cutting edge stuff! Salt a'plenty here, but no refills for the grinder it's all fine salt. Stock cubes abound in all the usual meat flavours but no vegetable in, well, stock. Finally, considering that Kenya is a huge producer and exporter of coffee, and the ground coffees available are absolutely wonderful, the instant coffee here is dreadful and sometimes, one just wants a quick pick me up without going the extra mile.
About all I can say regarding our list is that it is at least original, if rather pathetic! Chastened, I'll stop rolling my eyes when a migrant sends an SOS over the airwaves for some basic Saffer stuff and will immediately see what I can do to help!
