Rooibos Tea at the Robot

We are heading downhill of the A to Z Blog Challenge and today we'll be chatting about something that is a big part of South African culture.

Rooibos [pronounced roy-bos] (Redbush) Tea.  The leaves are used to make an herbal tea called Rooibos

My kids grew up on this stuff because it contains no caffeine and low tannin levels. They called it "juice" until they were about two years old.  It has great health and nutritional benefits and assists with nervous tension, allergies and digestive problems.

The second Southafricanism I am going to talk about is The Robot.  

In South Africa, when we talk about a robot, we don't mean a wee metallic man who moves with a couple of taps from a remote control, we mean a set of traffic lights.  The etymology of the word derives from a description of early traffic lights as robot policemen, which then got truncated with time.

In South Africa you “jump” the robot, rather than go through it.

Usage: Jump the robot and take a short [first] left.

A Robot Made from Recycled Materials

Megan had to do a project for school. 

She was instructed to make something out of recycled materials.  This is what she created.  A robot.  Luckily, I had done a bit of spring cleaning two days before and all the stuff I threw out was still in our dustbins. 

So, we went shopping in the dustbins for materials to use to create a uber cool robot.  

Here's the results!

A plastic loofa for his hair, curlers for his ears, the top of a pen as an earring, Energade bottle tops for eyes, an old hose for a nose, lego for a mouth, a calculator on his tummy, buttons made out of old blister pill packets, more bottle tops and pom-pomss.  His feet are made out of mini up-side-down crates and we covered his entire body and head with tin foil.

We even glued on some old fake eyelashes onto the Energade bottle tops to make him look real