Yesterday evening at a braai (BBQ) with some friends I finally got an answer to why there is no IKEA nor any market for their products here in South Africa. The reason is that the only people who can afford IKEA furniture are white people. These same people are completely foreign to the idea of doing any kind of work in their own home; let alone assembling furniture. Last night Chris told us about a friend who had lived a while in London and moved back to South Africa. He had shipped at great expense an IKEA cabinet he had bought in London because he was so proud to have build it himself. Imagine that – building your own furniture from scratch!
On that same note I’ve heard that many South Africans do not know how to use the petrol station with out assistance. You can spot a South African when you see someone sitting in their car waiting for someone to come over and do all the work; not even getting out of the car to pay.
It was an interesting experience last night two families (aside from us) with two small children each. The adults sat outside by the Braai while the Zimbabweans took care of one child each inside. One “nanny” per child. Most of the time the nannies watched cartoons with the kids. The Zimbabweans got to eat the same food as us mainly because the host family didn’t have a separate kitchen where they could make their own food.
In restaurants it is cheaper to have human dishwashers than a machine. In construction it is cheaper to have a group of laborers mix concrete for days by hand than to buy a truck of ready mixed concrete.
This is such a stark contrast to Sweden where labor costs are among the highest in the world, while material stuff is relatively cheap. Here it is the opposite stuff is expensive and services cheap.
Och när var det apartheit avskaffades…?
Ja – det har gått 16 år sedan apartheit avskaffades men det är fortfarande de fattiga svarta och de rika vita…
Interesting observations, sad as they are.