South Africa Travel Advice and Goodbye CSC

This may apply for more countries than South Africa

1. For most transactions outside of open markets (and even they have it), just use your credit card.  Pay for dinner for all, and then others can pay you in cash..no ATM.

2.  Always be in a group, I would never be alone if I can help it.  Be aware and be open.  Be Safe.  Walk on the streets is still a good thing, day time.   Have fun in the group

Book local trips after you arrive, The outsiders get a little price-gouged using an outside tourist agency.

Really get into the travel experience, you do not learn until you put your toe in the water....

2. Get a driver for transport, it is inexpensive, the tour guides are pretty great, again do it locally and not from your home country.

   

   Of course the guide showed us the sign after he led us here from the right.....

Use the safe provided in each hotel room..the fact that they have a safe should tell you something... I locked my passport, Most credit cards are also in a safe.

 If you happen to have alot of cash, stuff some in your shoe.  You will not worry about it when it is in your shoe.

Eat the food   

If dinner has worms in it, try it, then if you hate it...as I did, you can check it off your box and move to a new adventure

1. Go see things, chances are your hotel is in a nice secure place.  With help of Uber and the concierge go see things.  I would suggest to understand South Africa, go see Soweto and take a bicycle tour off the beaten path.

   

   A little pick up football/soccer in Soweto

2. Public gatherings you are a celebrity, like Soweto, my sheer anglo-saxon presence had people come up and talk to  you.  At times you are a celebrity.  Football (Soccer games), you will stick out, it is OK.  Just be aware.
   
3. If there is no meat, it is not a truly South African Meal.  Vegetarian meals do exist, but if you are having a South African meal it will have meat. 
   
   
   
   
   
   

   

   examining the dinner

4. Politics and religion is on everyone's mind.  The other day I heard this quote on the US election.  "Before you vote for Trump, please remember the crazy driver telling you to not vote for him.."  That is a direct quote.  Everyone loves talking about the corruption in government and the fact that there are inefficiencies a lack of government sharing. 
   
   
5. There is racism in South Africa.  It is just more subversive.  My point is do not assume that all is well in South Africa.  You hear it in many conversations with people. Still you have to see the people where they are now not where you want them to be.    It is a sign of respect to listen, so rarely will you be interrupted and people respect it if you just listen to understand. 
   
6. South Africans are generally pretty outgoing, just an observation.  I see the young people as more individualistic.  Men love the handshakes.

   

   This is called "Shopp"  and this willb e held mid conversation

7. South African women are generally more reserved.  This could be that I am a man.
8. South Africans may use several languages in the same conversation to get their point across.
9.  See many things, do not confine yourself to one area, go to many differing locations and talk to the people.  
   
10. Bring loads of clothes, I packed a little too light and ended up doing laundry ALOT.
    
11. Yes I had my clothes cleaned offsite and it was often, I do not recommend using the hotel services the hotels likely overcharge for it.
12. Don't waste time in the mall.  Be outdoors
    

The last day I did some shopping, hot the Hotel Sauna, sat poolside and relaxed.  It was great
South Africa was great.
I appreciated the time spent and time in the country.  I learned so much in the month about the people, the customer and myself.
My flight home was uneventful, I sprawled out in the back of a near empty flight and rested quite well.

Sunday Soweto Cycle

Busy Sabbath
Church I met another church member and invited him to come cycling in Soweto. 
Sacrament was great as it was the primary progam...A little different than what I was used to, but fun.


Soweto is a cultural center of the South Africa.... someone signed us up for cycling in the Soweto in the afternoon...off the beaten path.  It was a great way to ride around and see things up close...

There was an adult league soccer game we stumbled across

It was not strenuous, but we went and saw some not on your back of the brochure parts of Soweto.  Tutu and Mandela's homes were palatial compared to some of the homes we saw.  There were empty homes that are sitting there which the people of Soweto will not move into as the governmental promises of the homes were reneged.
Our bike tour was rife with socialist ideology smattered throughout.  It is part of the experience.
The bike tour brought us to these areas, some of which which I think never saw a while bicyclist.  Some neighborhoods, kids came out to high five, then there were kids who wanted to get on your bike.  Men took pictures with the women in our group. Then there were kids who actually tried to climb on the bicycle and go for a ride.  It was a little intimidating. 

There were small homes, middle homes, and sewage smelled in many areas that we rode.  It was humbling and I highly recommend the private Soweto bike tour.

For dinner we had Indian food and celebrated  Dewali with some CSC members from India.  It was Southern Indian food, less emphasis on meat--What is Dewali?  one explanation it was a Christmas.  I had an all vegetarian meal, and it was piping hot.  My head was red.

Jamon

Final Presentation to GEP

Our group did a final presentation, it was well put together and I was happy.  I presented the final results on 10 quarters of data and I demonstrated what data they had and what was lacking.  It was eye opening and it took many nights of combing through spreadsheets.

Left to Right at 7th Floor GEP office:  Jamon, Yolande (BDS), Thulani (Project Sponsor), Martin, Thenjiwe (Marketing), Brian (Early Project Sponsor), Jalpa, Li Hua, Cordelia (Information Officer)

  Missing was Jolinda (True Sponsor) , Fikele (BDS Leader), Obed (Consolidation whom I trained), Cindy (Admin), Natalabesing (Admin), Doll (Information Officer), Mashapa (ICT or IT), Richardo (Investments) and Stanley (Post Investments).

The dynamic of the meeting got animated over the financial findings.,  They had not seen it before as the data was unstructured.  I checked my findings and it helped articulate a stary about where they were serving small business and areas to improve.  Then the conversation evolved into why one region was given more funds then others.  People had conversations on the data and we went from there.
People saw the need for consolidated data, and it was exciting to kind of point it out and demonstrated what can be seen and show them evidence of performance.

The team I was a part of showed other parts such as an org chart and also other measures to help the group see their impact.
At the end they applauded a vision statement.
Overall the audience was polite and not antsy.
I look at what our team provided, a framework to measure, an org chart set with open source software to update, existing measurements of today to help, excel training.  I think it was productive and good, and I saw the value of the pro bono work.
I think if we had one more week, we could have done more, but for what we provided, I am happy.

 To conclude the project I jumped in the pool, this goes back to the Clark tradition that when your chores are done, you can go swimming...we were done.

 




  

Design Thinking Workshop

In the morning I awoke to see the score of the World series game to hear it is tied int he 9th and then listened online as the Cubs scored in the 10th



Note my text to my Friend Greg Busath on Sunday and his reply after the game which his beloved Cubs won...

Thursday Design Thinking
The night before I needed sketch pens as described by my teammate, $100 USD later at the expensive mall I ran through the rain.


Our group did a design thinking workshop, which was really cool.
I loved learning about it and then actually doing it.
It is so relevant, i thought of how I can see it from any relationship with a group of people that I deal with.
We had fun, my job was to help the differing teams think through their exercise and think of what is going on.
First step was to simulate a persona and then see the customer experience through them.
Many senior leaders were there and it really made a difference in having participation.  Some talked about corruption and the Sr. leaders said this is good, we need to talk about it and clear the air.
https://youtu.be/wa8-JdLaIRk



https://youtu.be/l-0ffcY2UzA

I was exhausted by the end.

Saturday Football (Soccer) at a Rivalry game the Soweto Derby

 Saturday morning there were no planned activities.  I went to get the soccer tickets.   They asked for my ID, but I always kept my ID in a safe, so I had to go back to the hotel, get it, then back to the grocery store to pick up tickets




 Then I did some shopping and came back for 1 hour before the game...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyUquubDSrY





In what might be the best South African experience I had.
It was to what I now learned as the Soweto Derby.
 We were caught in traffic leaving our hotel after 1:00 for a 3:30 game.  it was a lot of traffic, in fact to just fast forward...We arrived with 15 minutes to spare for gametime. The journey there was just pure South Africa.
Here is the walk from the car to the stadium:
https://youtu.be/7kwg5aqXEJU



 As we were a few kilometers out  from the game the traffic picked up.  Cars were full of yellow for Chiefs or Black for the pirates.  People were so drunk on arrival.  Cars were  illegally full of people, doors open while driving...and even more to follow.  In fact as an aside the shopping centre was full of people wearing the uniforms.   The whoel city was talking.  I peppered everyone I spoke to about the game.  A woman at the grocery store said in Collie I trust (he is the Goalie for the chiefs)
The game was intense but friendly.  There was a rivalry but no fighting.  Fans sat by each other and I did not see one altercation.
Ok but back to the drive, maybe the most interesting part....As the cars stopped in the traffic jam, the some passengers got out and just started dancing. Just dancing near the car on the street in the traffic jam. It was wild.

I found some youtube videos that may help show what I saw.  I did not bring anything that looked valuable, so I would not be robbed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPxHhcVaPKI

 Did our van of mostly White people stick out?  Yes more on that after the game.  In the same traffic jam toward the game, people rolled down the windows and asked who we supported. 
The pirates fans became the cooler fan base to root for as they put there forearms in an X, and if you did it back, you were a pirate fan.  the whole crossbones.  chiefs put up two fingers which would not be OK in england.  Not knowing what to expect, I wore green.  No one hates green at these games.
After getting dropped off we meandered through crowds not knowing how long the lines were.  People were selling everything, portable bbqs, knockoffs of everything.   I even saw chicken on a BBQ, robes to wear, hats, berets.

The seven of us sat together.....the seats were OK except one thing...it was direct SUN the whole game. A gracious IBMer gave me her hat and I did not roast.  It was over 95 F.  The game was exciting but the constant dancing and playing was just something to behold.  I really can not describe it.  It was just a party atmosphere but civil.  Only once did I see something fall from the upper deck toward our lower levels.  The fans were nice.  We stuck out.  Everyone asking who we supported, I tried not to commit to anyone.
The game was exciting but overall the fandom experience was just being there. I was in silence just mesmerized by the party atmosphere whether the game was on or not.   I sat by a family who came from over 100KM away for this city rivalry.
At the half, the stadium in a collective gasp watched two people do ball tricks.  Taking off a shirt while balancing balls. It was just as exciting as the game.
On the downside, one of our people in our group was nearly pickpocketed.
The game ended in a draw, I thought oh good no rioting after.  There was none....we were the riot scene.
Afterward it got even weirder as some of the few white people as we were waiting for our car, fans just started taking pictures with us.

Here we are before the mob scene descended on us....

Worried about being pickpocketed for this photo op we were gracious but I held my phone and wallet very firmly.  Every picture, my hand is in my pocket.

We made it back in one piece.
We had dinner and tried to process what we went through.


Another video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7erN_aGmPpU

 

Jamon

Halloween without candy :(

Halloween
I did not trick or treat with my kids.  Some of the kids went with friends.

Meanwhile here in SA
We were groggy this morning, and I put on an excel class with three from the customer.  I was falling asleep while talking to my family on Sunday Night.

I walked through formulas and what to do, and how to do it.  my intent was to expand their horizon of how to use Excel.  I think I did, but each formula, was laborious.  These were people who have excel but are largely untrained on Excel

For lunch I went to Cafe Nyama and got Two large Burgers for 30 rand (that is just over $2 USD).
I forgot to bring my power cord to the office....so my computer was burning battery all day, it died just before 3pm. 
Back at the hotel, I plugged in the power cord and ran my poor PC ...it needs to be upgraded.

We celebrated  two birthdays with Cake (note the unity) and went out for Mexican in Rosebank.

Many did not know Mexican foods, I kind of knew what was going on.

Birthday Unity

Mexican Food in South Africa for the CSC participants from India and Ireland

Happy Halloween!

Jamon