It's Pirate Day (Hip-Hip, Hooray!)

Our arrival in South Africa has come at the same time as many important cultural shifts. Mandela’s 94^th birthday, the ANC party congress (which prepares the country for its upcoming election), and most importantly, the arrival of theme days at our current employer.

Last month brought us “Oriental Day,” the company’s inaugural monthly theme day. When we reminded our officemates about our limited wardrobe selection we were advised to “paint slants” on our eyes. I ended up wearing genuine “oriental” sneakers bought in Tokyo and TJ’s shirt was made in China. Stand-out costumes included a geisha, a ninja, and a traditional “Chinaman” wearing a conical woven hat.

We were treated to a themed lunch of chinese stir-fry, thai spring rolls and fashion sandwiches (South Africa’s version of sushi). It was interesting to see how different cultural sensitivities are from one country to another - terms and phrases that are quite negative to US ears have no negative connotation here.

This month’s theme was Pirates. We pretty much gave up on costumes beyond the requisite plastic sabre. Instead, we focused on food. I figured if we couldn’t (or weren’t willing to spend the $$ to) win at costumes then we’d win on food.

After many hijinks we managed to locate sufficiently thick-skinned melons. From there you can see what we did in the pictures below. In case you were wondering, we made the States proud.