Most, if not all beings, are creatures of habit. And I have come to realize that habits are not only a matter of ease, but a vital strategy of survival. Darwin's theory on the survival of the fittest, while undoubtedly true for the most part, overlooked the vital aspect of good habits in determining which creatures would survive to propagate and expand their species. In fact, an extremely fit specimen with bad habits might have succumbed, while its far weaker counterpart, but with good habits, might have survived and passed on those surviving habits to its progeny. Thus it was that some diminutive, but oversexed, night prowling mouse, on the look out for sleeping females of which to take advantage, escaped the jaws of larger daytime predators and not only survived, but redirected a rapidly expanding species' habits.

Then there is me. While by no means diminutive, nor night prowling, there are certain habits to which I adhere in order to survive in a country where the odds seem stacked against me. With a predictability on which you could bet your limited fortune, I always go to the same hairdresser, the same street vendor, the same movie rental store, the same pharmacy, the same photo-developing store, the same 7-Eleven, the same restaurant or coffee shop, the same doctor and the same dentist. Why? Quite simple really. Except for the doctor and dentist, no one else speaks English and yet they know exactly what I want without a single word being exchanged between us.

Take my hairdresser, for example, who has been cutting my hair for the past four years. I walked into her salon this morning and we smiled a greeting to each other. She then pointed to a chair and I sat down. She put a wrap-around hair-doesn't-fall-on-your-clothes thingy around me, plugged in her electric razor and in ten silent minutes had cut my hair really short, exactly as I like it. She then rubbed all the loose hairs off my head, undid the wrap-around and smiled at me. I stood up, paid her, said "Bye-bye", whereupon she said "Tzai gian", and I left happy. There was no need for me to explain how I wanted my hair cut or to inquire about the cost, or any of the other things that need language in these situations.

Admittedly, these habits are not the stuff of adventure and discovery, but they help me survive and make of a potentially hostile environment a relatively blissful domestic situation. Adventure and discovery are for lands where I don't have to live.

7 December 2003

Dion Marc Delport

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