This was a week of final ‘everythings’ …. final day in Mafikeng, final dinner with the North West staff and final long bus ride.  We also had final presentation to the client, final presentation to IBM, final day in Johannesburg, final team T25 workout, final dinner, and on and on, but I’ll focus on just a few items in this post.

Our final dinner in Mafikeng was back at the Hotel School (the school for training tourism majors where we had eaten a few times before).  We treated our DOT representatives, North West University leaders, and North West University students to dinner to thank them for welcoming us to their province.  Valentina gifted us all NWU t-shirts so we all wore them to show appreciation for the place that was our work office for three weeks.   We passed out gifts and gave final farewells to those we wouldn’t see again.

The IBM Team showing NWU pride

Team 3 — Effie, Chandra, me and our Master student Kebiditswe

The bus ride from Mafikeng to Johannesburg went near the Cradle of Humankind and we decided a few weeks back that we would stop there.  It was something I had never heard of prior to arriving here, but was such a worthwhile visit.  According to Wikipedia, the Cradle of Humankind is a World Heritage Site about an hour northwest of Johannesburg in the Gauteng province. The name Cradle of Humankind reflects the fact that the site has produced a large number, as well as some of the oldest, hominin fossils ever found, some dating back as far as 3.5 million years ago. The cradle is a large area and we specifically we stopped at Sterkfontein cave, which has produced more than a third of early hominid fossils ever found prior to 2010.

We took a tour of the limestone caves and then enjoyed lunch outside before continuing on the Johannesburg. #ibmcsc

Cave tour selfie! Leigh, Paola, Julie, me and Aruna