"Ctrl Z! Ctrl P!"

Week 4 coming to a close...

I held a training session yesterday for the department... we covered some basics of Microsoft Word that will hopefully help them in the long run. It was a great session - I felt comfortable getting up there and training the crew, while we joked around and made it fun and interactive... I don't think they are too accustomed to being asked to participate or called upon, so when I started asking them to take part and demonstrate to the others how to do certain things in Word, you could see the surprise in their faces. It's a good surprise though, I want them to build that confidence.

You should have seen the excitement on their faces when I taught them the icons for Increase/Decrease Indent with Bullets and Numbering... (One quote I got was..."I always just hit the space bar and I can never line things up.") Or shortcuts for Copy, Paste, Undo, and Print (Ctrl C, V, Z, or P). Find/Replace was also a big one. They literally spent the rest of the day with smiles and would say to me "Ctrl Z! Ctrl P!" It was pretty funny. Next week is a review of MS Excel, and they asked that we do some sort of computer training once a week, which is perfect.

This is a good test for me too - to see how well I can teach. The key is patience, and I am normally so used to knowing these applications, being quick on the keyboard, using shortcuts, etc. Even at home when I show my parents things on the computer I tend to fly through and explain too quickly - that's just natural to me. But yesterday I think I did well - patient, slow, allowed time for questions and could gauge when they understood and re-review. Simple things can go a long way.

Here are a few other photos I took walking down Main Street, Bizana the other day around lunchtime...




Walking towards the main intersection in Bizana... traffic always gets a bit heavier at lunchtime



Hawker stands are all over the streets... a look at how they set up their tents everyday... Ingonyama (straight ahead) is the market I normally walk to for a drink or a snack.



Next door to the Municipality building is a school that I can see from where I sit. Here's one of the classes doing their lesson outside.

This way to Coffee Bay

The second part of last weekend was in Coffee Bay, which is a tiny little beach community on the Eastern Cape, close to East London... We had a couple good days here… stayed at the Coffee Shack Backpackers… and went on an amazing hike on Sunday morning to the natural landmark ‘Hole In the Wall.’


It rained pretty hard when we arrived but we still went for a walk on the beach to do some exploring. Here I am with my teammate Heather... as the tide creeps up on us unexpectedly.

We headed off on our hike early Sunday morning to beat the mid-day sun... the walk was about 3hrs from our hostel to 'Hole in the Wall.' Along the entire hike we had some incredible views and it was a lot of up and down hill, along the coast, over rocks and cliffs. Here we start it off - I think Pete (third in from left, normally a late sleeper) scratches his head wondering if this a good idea...

I think we could have made the hike under our own direction, but we were all of a sudden approached by some local boys who spoke little English that just decided to escort us and point the way. More or less they just stand on the path and look for hikers and hope that they can make a few Rand out of making the hike, which we ended up giving them because they did point out a few shortcuts.





A look back over some of what we had just hiked...

Needless to say, the sun was beating down and luckily we brought enough water for the walk. Here we are crossing the final major crest with the 'Hole in the Wall' rock in the distance... (right about there in the middle of the picture, kind of jets out)

'Hole in the Wall' from a distance. Amazing that over time the waves could erode a rock of such width, but I actually didn't find it as impressive as I had read it to be. I actually enjoyed some of the views from the hike much more. We did cool off, though, by jumping in the ocean here on this little cove beach! Well worth it. An unbeatable weather day.

After stopping for a short lunch at the ‘Hole In the Wall’ hotel, we decided hiking 3 hrs back in the early afternoon sun was not the best idea (poor planning, I know), especially when Team Bizana had a 5 hr drive back home that afternoon/evening. We needed to try to get back to Coffee Shack (which was 9 km away). Luckily, we flagged down a few locals who head to Coffee Bay to fish and we all hopped in the back of their pickup, as they offered to give us a ride. Here we are, all 8 of us with some of the locals in the pick up, you can’t see the dog that was lying in the middle here. If you could imagine me, holding on to whatever I could grab, balancing myself amongst 10 others, a dog, fishing rods and tackle boxes, on a winding, hilly, dirt road. A bit of a bumpy ride, but with the open breeze coming at us and the sea in the distance, it just added to the overall experience! I do things here everyday that I would never do at home!

Umtata and Mandela

Pretty busy Monday getting back to work – start of week 4. A lot going on this week - a few meetings with some of the Municipal Standing and Executive Committees, trying to get my team to prioritize a lot of their own personal tasks, running a training session on Microsoft Word for my department on Thursday. Good balance of stuff for the week.

I know most of you reading this are in some extremely cold weather right now and don’t want to hear about how hot it is here. But yesterday was honestly one of the hottest days I’ve ever experienced in my life. Summer is officially here in Bizana, and when the sun beats down here it can get oppressive. There’s no humidity really, it’s just strict heat.

We spent the weekend visiting our Accenture/UNDP teammates in Umtata, then we all drove to Coffee Bay on Sat/Sun. My Accenture team is working in Bizana in the Oliver Tambo District Municipality, the other Accenture 4 are working in Umtata in the King Sabato Dalindyebo Municipality; both municipalities are in the Eastern Cape Province. The areas that my team are focused on are the same as the Umtata team (IT, HR, Finance, and Local Economic Development), so essentially the projects mirror each other… just in different locations, different problems and issues, different challenges and roadblocks. In any case, it was great to see Umtata after hearing so much about it – both from our team there as well as my colleagues in the municipal realm. Umtata is a bit more of a political “hub” for the Eastern Cape, so many travel there often for meetings – about a 3 hr drive from Bizana.

Umtata is a city and a bit more developed, whereas Bizana is more like a little town with a “downtown” that's basically 2 perpendicular streets . Umtata’s streets are on a grid, there are traffic lights... no traffic lights in Bizana (traffic lights are known here as “robots” btw – I love the roadsigns that read “Robot – 500m ahead”). But you can tell there is some definite danger in Umtata and our teammates certainly have to be much more cautious at times. And sadly, the streets are just so dirty – trash and litter scattered everywhere, as well as bags of trash gone uncollected, empty boxes left by the hawkers and street markets everywhere. But our stay in Umtata was enjoyable nonetheless – had a terrific dinner on Friday night, saw the guest house where our teammates stay, and went to the Nelson Mandela Museum on Saturday morning.

As I mentioned the other day, Nelson Mandela is from that region and grew up in Qunu, which is a village outside of Umtata. He actually has made his home back in the area today.

During my sophomore year at Northwestern, I took “South Africa in the 20th Century” as a class towards my History major. I was fascinated by the history of this country while in that class, making it even more exciting to come and work here. Much of it has come back to me quickly just in some of the reading I have done since being here, as well as hearing stories and accounts of life under apartheid. Before I left the States, I picked up a copy of Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom and have been reading it in bits a pieces so far. Probably sounds a bit cliché I realize, but the book has come to life for me much more than it would have just reading it at home. When he mentions regions or towns, I have a better sense of where they are in relation to the cities. I recognize people’s names, like those who mentored Mandela, or his counterparts in the circle of “freedom fighters.” Mandela and Oliver Tambo were the best of friends and opened a law firm together in the 50s in Jo-burg… and now here I am working in the District named for Tambo.

(An excerpt from Mandela)

Walking through the museum was enlightening. Mandela is such a charismatic and respected leader, a worshipped figure – in South Africa and throughout the world. To learn and see photos about his history, his struggle, his years of imprisonment, and his fight for freedom of his people and of South Africa is amazing. Through him alone you get a sense of what so many in this country have overcome. But it also put a lot into perspective for me about my work.

Mbizana is developing and has its own struggles – 75% unemployment rate, lacking infrastructure, budgetary constraints, health issues and a rising HIV/AIDS population – but sometimes I have to remember that this government alone is still developing. I am working in and seeing first hand the growth of a young democracy. Mandela wasn’t freed from prison until 1990 and not elected as President until 1994 - when his party, the ANC (African National Congress), took over. The organizational, managerial, and decision-making issues I witness daily come with the territory… many colleagues and this Municipality are in a relatively new position and learning as they go. And though so much has been overcome, there is still such a long way to go.