Ingenuity at its finest

I remember being petrified when we left the Johannesburg airport just over five months ago, and to this day I don’t call it completely irrational. I had heard how crime-riddled South Africa is, and when the OMer who collected us from the airport pulled into a gas station parking lot I waited for the van to be assaulted and my purse to be ripped away. I walked smack up against Todd towards the shop, expecting at any moment to ward off pick-pockets who would, doubtless, assume that my obvious great wealth would be contained in its entirety in my small yellow handbag. 

Many people here (I might even go so far as to say most) have at least one story that begins with, “when my car was stolen...” or worse, “the first time my car was stolen... .” House break-ins are not that uncommon either, so we don’t leave our “valuables” lying around when we leave the flat. When we get in the car, my purse goes out of sight as we’ve been told leaving things like handbags, GPSs, and laptop cases out in plain view is great incentive for a “smash-and-grab,” which is exactly what it sounds like: someone smashing your window and grabbing what they see.

Before we got here I never found myself praying that the car wouldn’t be stolen and praise the Lord, we have not had a single crime-related problem since we arrived :) I’ve calmed down a lot and don’t get nearly as nervous to walk around a shop by myself. Yesterday was a good example of just how far God has brought me. I thought about it as Todd and I went our separate ways at one of the malls. I needed to go to the drugstore and grocery store, and Todd had some banking business to handle. What would have at first taken us twice as long to do we now feel comfortable enough to accomplish using the divide-and-conquer method. Progress indeed. 

On this particular solo shopping adventure, I ran into something that...made an impression. I went to the drugstore first, which is like Walgreens or CVS. I like it (except when I’m looking for chap stick which was almost impossible to find). The main reason I like it is the rewards card it offers. I don’t go to the drugstore very often, but the rewards card has come in handy multiple times at the cinema, where we use it to get our movie tickets half off. Good job, Africa :) 

Anyway, I'm getting off track. I got what I wanted at the drugstore and then made my way to the grocery store, just down the hall (malls here include grocery and drug stores along with the normal mall-ish vendors. Sometimes I think it’s a great set-up, and other times I wish I could just stop at the store without having to park and walk all the way through a mall. The grocery store we usually visit, Spar, is in a strip mall, though, so it’s quite convenient).

As I entered the grocery store, a PicknPay, one of the attendants approached me and said something I didn't quite catch. He gestured me over to a little counter and I was afraid he wanted me to put my bag from the drugstore in some kind of holding place to be picked up when I left. I wasn’t excited about leaving my stuff with someone else, but if that was the policy...

I shouldn’t have worried. This is all the guy wanted to do: 

It cracked me up inside. Never, in my entire life, have I ever had a bag sealed around my wrist. Ingenious? I think so. Having neutralized any shoplifting threat I posed, the attendant released me to go about my business. Just another day in the life in Africa ;)