Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference, right?  For us, one of those items is the ability to hit the grocery store once a week on the way home from working at the University.  There is a Pick-n-Pay kind of on the route to the hotel and our ever-accommodating bus driver, Daniel, whom I’ve mentioned before, graciously extends his day to take us there each week.  The first trip took well over an hour — 14 people in a new grocery store, trying to find items and learn the norms of how shopping works here took some time.  Our goal for the next trip was to cut that time in half and we got close — at about 30 to 40 minutes.  The main concern is check-out, which as you can see pictured, is kind of chaotic and always jam packed.  Fingers crossed that next week’s trip is under 30 minutes so Daniel can get home at a reasonable hour.

But we are thankful that we even have this opportunity to pick up items so we can pack lunches for work, have snacks, etc.  The most popular item by far is huge jugs of water and the fixins for peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  Although I learned peanut butter is not universal and while Lucia loves it, she cannot purchase it in Brazil!  Our most creative grocery shopper is Leigh, who constructs beautiful looking sandwiches that put our PB’s to shame.

Pictured is the check out madness and Leigh shopping (water in hand)!#ibmcsc

Just like at home, the#IBMCSC work week is packed with IBM deliverables, but the weekend (or the majority of the weekend) is personal time.  We took advantage of this opportunity to explore the North West province and arranged a weekend safari. The well known park in South Africa is Kruger on the northeastern side of the country.  But in the center of the country on the Northern border with Botswana is a growing and wonderful park — Madikwe Game Reserve.  Compared to Kruger, it’s a baby at only 20-25 years old.  But it boasts the Big 5, countless other animals, multiple private lodges to choose from and is in a Malaria Free zone.  It was a 2-3 hour bus ride from Mafikeng so it seemed like the perfect weekend getaway.

The University helped arrange a bus to take 13 of us from Mafikeng to Madikwe Friday afternoon, arriving around 7:15 pm.  The Tau Game Lodge was our home for the weekend and they delivered big!  We were welcomed with drinks and the best dinner (in my opinion) we’ve had so far.  I enjoyed Biltong souffle (dried meat, like jerky), eland filet, and malva pudding (a new favorite!)  We all buddied up and shared rooms — Effie was my partner for the weekend — and while it was really cold when the sun was down, the individual cottages had wonderfully heated beds and an outdoor shower where you could watch the animals gather at the watering hole nearby.

The safari experience itself is unparalleled.  I created a movie of it, below, followed by a slideshow of highlight pics.  As you can imagine, we have hundreds of pictures from the weekend, but of course, the best are from our Belgian colleague Wouter, who truly has a gift for photos.

Tau Lodge reception area

Tau Lodge patio

Tau Lodge cottages

Our room

Lunch

Glorious food

Wouter and the IBM ladies

Rangers Megan and Dylan

It was really cold when the sun went down

Monkeys at Tau (not on safari)

at the Tau Lodge watering hole

at the Tau Lodge watering hole

Marking territory

Young lion males eating a wildebeest

Young lion males eating a wildebeest

Lioness and cub eating a kill

Brown Hyena

Buffalo

Buffalo

Zsa-Zsu

Wildebeest

Telling us to back off

Mom and Baby

Kudu

Kudu

Morning coffee stop

Effie, Leigh and Savi enjoying sundowners

Lucia and Tarik

Aruna, Tarik, me, Lucia and Paola

Paola, Effie and me

The whole gang

Wouter — who took most of these amazing photographs!!

A final thank you to Dylan, with Paola, Lucia, Aruna, Effie and Valentina

On Thursdays, the South African Broadcast Company (SABC) has the best kept secret in town — their cafeteria serves authentic South African food in their cafeteria.  The food is so good that folks from other companies and the University come to their cafeteria to eat.  So, clearly it made our must-do list.  Luckily the SABC is located just across from the University so Daniel dutifully shuttled us over there along with staff from the University and some of the students who are helping us with the project.  We were not disappointed! Even the drink was a homemade ginger (they LOVE ginger here … my type of place) and the women who made the meal came out to greet us and I loved their aprons.

South African Lunch – Homemade Ginger to drink, and veggies from include a corn-type dish, pumpkin, cabbage and Chakalaka, a spicy South African vegetable relish. Meats of ox tail, cow intestines and some other cut of cow that looked like pulled pork (I can’t recall the name). And homemade bread.

The unexpected part of the day came with the very detailed tour of the SABC afterwards, peeking in recording studios, seeing TV studios, media library, archives and the start of a museum of old equipment. One popular DJ, Benny Motuang was in the middle of his show but invited us into the studio and asked Valentina to take a seat.  The next thing we knew, she was live on air being interviewed and did a wonderful job! Check out my teammate’s blog for the audio portion — http://denayer.com/blog/.

DJ Benny Motuang totally not bothered by all the folks in his studio.

Valentina doing awesome on her surprise radio interview

Door to one of the many recording studios at SABC. Doesn’t it look like it belongs on a ship?

And the random photo that I’ll leave you with today is 4 of the cats who sat outside the SABC cafeteria windows.  Not quite the ‘big cats’ you expect in Africa, but nonetheless cute.

#ibmcsc

Tuesday (June 17, 2014) was a big day for the work part of this adventure.  Our work location for this month is at the North West University Mafikeng’s campus, home to about 11,000 students.  An NWU worker, Daniel, is charged with picking us up in the NWU bus each morning to bring us to work and take us home at the end of each day.  After only one day, he’s starting to learn that getting 14 people anywhere is like herding cats, but he is patient and has a great laugh.  North West University has 3 campuses and a broad set of programs, with our particular campus focused on Rural Development as this, along with Platinum mining, are the main drivers of the region.

North West University Campus. Photo Credit: W. Denayer

We were greeted by the Rector and other University leadership and each smaller team presented our proposed work to the broader crowd.  After months of prep work, we finally got to put that prep to practice and really start working.

The Rector of NWU, M. Davhana –Maselesele
Photo Credit: W. Denayer

The IBM team and leadership of the University, iNeSI and DOT
Photo Credit: S. Hadebe

In non-work related notes, we convinced Daniel to swing by the grocery store on the way home so we are not solely dependent on the lone restaurant at the hotel (which has good food, but 30 days of the same food will get old!). We also celebrated Valentina’s birthday at dinner at the hotel, complete with a cake we got at the grocery store and a sparkly paper crown for the lovely birthday girl!

Stocking up on critical items from the grocery … bananas, water, peanut butter and yes, vodka. After the discovery of ginger beer being so common, we’ll get the whole team hooked on Moscow Mules.

Valentina, the birthday girl!

#ibmcsc

Early Monday morning, we started our adventure to get from Johannesburg to Mafikeng (side note, Mafikeng is actually spelled three different ways and I’m still trying to understand which is the correct one – very confusing – as the answer changes based on who you ask!)

The 14 IBMers from CSC South Africa 12 team plus our trusted advisor, John, gathered with all our luggage.  The first bus arrived and promptly turned around as not being big enough for our luggage.  A half hour later a second bus arrived with a trailer and Tarik took the heroic job of loading all our bags.

A portion of the bags

Our bus and luggage holder

We embarked on the 300 Kilometer journey and saw the South African country-side roll by.  We spotted tons of cattles, horses and sheep, plus a pack of ostriches, a lone zebra, gazelle, and 6 giraffes munching on some trees.  Unfortunately, we were traveling to fast to get any good photos.  We stopped after 2 hours for a lunch break at a gas station.

Local brands of snacks – Ginger Beer is just as common as coke!

Pitstop en route – typical shop

Back on the bus for another 2 hours of getting to know each other and napping.

A cozy bus trip – Julie, Leigh and Savi in the center row – I’m in the back Left next to Sanjay

We arrived around 4 pm to the Mmabatho Palms hotel, 5 hours after starting the journey.  We were greeted by Professor Maaga (pronounced Ma-ah-ha) who will host us for the 4 weeks we are in Mafeking and working at the North West University.  After checking in, we had a briefing and casual dinner at the hotel.  Back to work for most teams as we head to North West University on Tuesday to meet the client, iNeSI, and the leadership of the University to present our Work Plan for the month.  I’m looking forward to getting a lay of this new town, seeing our work environment and settling into a routine.

Check in at the Mmabatho Palms

#ibmcsc

Our 2 days in Johannesburg come to a close this morning as 16 of us board a bus to Mafeking.  Our final teammate Savi arrived yesterday morning and we have 2 advisors from the NGO sponsoring us, Digital Opportunity Trust, traveling with us, Muriuki and John.  John is a PhD candidate at the North West University where will be working the next 3 weeks and can show us the ins-and-outs of our new city.  The trip is only 300 KM, but the driver is saying it will be 5 hours.  Guess we’ll get to know each other really well on a bus for 5 hours!

Joburg has been a wonderful welcome to South Africa with all the amenities of home while getting immersed in our new country. Our hotel was like any American chain and across the street from a mall so the team could get food, hit up a grocery store or bank, or swap our SIM cards to get local data plans.  I loved the little dolls, pictured below, to indicate what type of service you wanted on your room.

Yesterday (Sunday) was spent working from the hotel most of the day.  We had a kick-off session with our client, iNeSI, which is the eSkills Institute for South Africa.  They graciously agreed to work a Sunday morning — not only of a long weekend, but also Father’s day — to get us started in the right direction.  Then our smaller teams broke off to work on our first pitch to the client.  My smaller team includes Effie from Canada and Chandra from Australia, pictured below at our kick off dinner (complete with napkin bibs) and working from a coffee shop yesterday.

And finally, here are two more good pics from Saturday in Joburg that didn’t make it to an earlier post.  The first is many of the team at the Apartheid Museum and the second is my admission to the musuem as a ‘white’ (randomly selected when you buy your ticket, not because I am white).

Chandra, Effie, Julie, Suro, me, Tarik, Valentina, Aruna and Wouter

#ibmcsc

Today marked our first official day doing work for Corporate Service Corp South Africa Team 12 and we kicked it off with a bus ride from the hotel to the IBM office in Johannesburg where we met the Country General Manager and other senior mgmt who graciously took their Saturday morning of a long Holiday weekend to welcome us, give us an overview of IBM in South Africa, and a security briefing.  We posed for what will be one of many group photos, although we are still one shy as our final teammember will arrive Sunday from India.

13 of the IBM CSC SA Team members plus IBM SA Senior leadership and our NGO partner, Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT)

After the morning work meeting, we continued on the bus to do sightseeing in Joburg with a lunch and tour of the Apartheid Museum.  It’s a wonderfully detailed museum that kicks off with a random assignment as either “white” or “black” to enter into separate parts that eventually merge.  And it ends with an array of sticks that when viewed from a certain direction form Nelson Mandela’s profile. From there, the bus toured us through Soweto with stops at Hector Pieterson Square and then to Nelson Mandela’s house.  A quick stop at the hotel, then back on the bus to Sandton Mall to meet two of our clients from iNeSI for an Indian dinner.  The day concluded 11 hours after starting at 9:30 pm and now I sit in my hotel judiciously using my 1 hour of free internet to connect back with the kids, check email and of course post this blog!

Random sticks at first glance

That when viewed from a certain point form Nelson Mandela’s Profile

It was a gorgeous sunny day in Joburg, around 60 degrees, then getting quite chilly when the sun went down.  I knew it would be Winter here, but I hadn’t thought about the fact that it would get dark early so I was quite surprised both last night and tonight when the sun set at 5 pm!  My other very surprising discovery was how fast items charge on 220V!! I had a few other photos I wanted to share, but the free hour on my phone timed out before they could send over email to my laptop, so I’ll post them at some further point. We are back to work tomorrow morning — a Sunday — to start work sessions with the clients.

#ibmcsc south africa