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We’re not a particularly formal bunch of people here in South Africa, and our multitude of languages and cultures don’t make for strict rules of address anyway. On occasion this causes some distress for a certain class of visitor. Take our advice: if you are old-fashioned enough to be affronted by being called anything other than “sir” or “madam”, then don’t come. And if you absolutely have to visit, say for business, then stick to chauffeur-driven cars, five star hotels and restaurants with French-sounding names. Just don’t set foot on the street.

If you are black and could pass for a local, then be prepared to be addressed in a dizzyingly large number of ways, all of which will be incomprehensible to you. Sadly there is no visual cue, no mode of dress or body language, that will set you apart as a foreigner. Just announce yourself as such at your earliest opportunity, crank up your accent a notch for good measure, and your interlocutor will switch over to passable English forthwith.

If you are caucasian, Asian or anything other than a milk-chocolate shade of brown, then you are really in for it. Depending on your sex, age and the ironic intentions of the person addressing you, you may be called any of the following: baas, bra, brother, boss, chief, dame (more often the Afrikaans version than the English), friend, hey you, lady, madam, mamma, man (in either English or Afrikaans in equal portions), meneer, mevrou, sis, sissy, sista and sister. Plus a couple of less common, regional variations.

None of these are necessarily an insult, compliment, a term of endearment or an offer of casual sex. What you are called usually has nothing at all to do with you, your appearance or your relationship with the caller. Don’t take it personally, in other words.

Note that it is considered a sign of ill breeding to respond with the same honorific with which you are addressed. Our suggestion is that you pick out one of the above (or two, if you wish to go gender-specific), try it out on a couple of people and, if it goes down well, stick with it. Do not, under any circumstances, accept from a stranger an offer to be taught a couple of friendly local words. You’ll go around innocently sprouting the most hideous insults imaginable for the rest of your trip. Our sense of humour is weird that way.

If you hail from the northern hemisphere you won’t believe this, but South Africa probably has better cellphone (mobile telephone, GSM or cellular) coverage than your home country. More than 95% of the country – geographically, not by population – has excellent signal coverage. You really have to go way off the grid, deep into the Kalahari desert, for example, to be out of reach.

So no, you don’t need a satellite phone and yes, you can bring your mobile phone and roam. If you aren’t a regular traveller, just make sure the roaming option is active on your account. And remember that roaming charges are set by your home operator and likely range from the exorbitant to price-gouging status.

A better solution may be to rent a cellphone or just buy a local connection for your own handset. Every international airport in South Africa has a cellphone rental kiosk which will kit you out with an active handset that you can give back when you leave. But it’s definitely cheaper to buy a starter pack and to use pre-paid airtime. Less than $10 will get you a SIM card on one of the networks; from there on out you can buy airtime from any just about any retail outlet in the country, or from automatic teller machines, or by credit card over a mobile browser, or from vending machines. It’s more accessible than you think.

Oh, and if your cellphone supports a data connection then you’ll have a good time connecting to the internet. Our mobile data rates are pretty cheap and coverage is universal and pretty quick – if you can make a voice call you can get at least an EDGE connection, if not 3G or better.

Also relatively easy to find (in metropolitan areas) are internet connections good enough to make telephone calls over. If you stay in a decent hotel you should have WiFi access (which you will have to pay for, though), good coffee shops similarly have coverage. Internet cafes are somewhat scarcer these days, but again good hotels will have “business centres” with computers you can use at a price.

Whatever you do, don’t count on using payphones. They are hard to find, more than half require pre-paid cards and a good percentage are broken at any one time. If you absolutely must use a payphone, try looking for one indoors in a shopping centre, where your odds are better.