Sometimes reality sets in

Today was the first day of the Growth and Development Summit. Overall, it was informative to attend, and there were probably over 500 people there from the 7 different Local Municipalities that make up the OR Tambo District Municipality. The Mayor from each municipality gave a presentation on what his/her respective municipality was doing toward Local Economic Development. I need to always remember that there is such a long way to go… but most of the talk today revolved around “We need to do…” rather than “We are doing…” or “We have done…”

Tomorrow at the Municipality itself, it is Health and HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. From what I understand, there are going to be a series of meetings in the morning, then in the afternoon it will be Sports Day (all going out for some sports and activities), followed by a braai.

HIV/AIDS is such a prevalent issue here, and you hear it discussed in meetings and in the open more often. For example, I understand there is a list that is kept confidential of those working in the Municipality who suffer from the disease – so it is understood why/when they stop showing up to work – or to anticipate when they will be off the payroll. Some of the statistics about average life expectancy and rising percentages of HIV/AIDS in South Africa (and Africa overall) are a staggering reality, but really about all the people with major health issues in general. It’s sad to see all the funerals that these people go to – there are days when people don’t show up to work because a family member or friend has died, and that is just understood. Sometimes when you ask someone how their weekend was, you get responses that they went to a funeral or two.

I had my own encounter this week. One of the workers in my department has been sick, and she was out a few days last week. She has had an ongoing cough, claims to be sweating a lot more than normal, and has some other sick symptoms. She went to see a doctor last week, so when I asked her yesterday morning how she was feeling, she told me she thought that she was better, but that her doctor told her she “should go get tested.” Tough to react when someone tells you that, and I wasn’t quite sure what to say. But I just told her that we are there to help her in any way and would support her, to let us know what we could do. And so I asked her if she would get tested and she just kept repeating “It’s too hard, Brian. It’s too hard…” I’m finding that facing some of the realities here really can be difficult at times, and it took me a little time to get back into gear and be able to focus on starting my Monday morning.

State of the Union

Last Friday, South African President Thabo Mbeki gave his State of the Union Address from Cape Town. Unlike at home in the U.S., Mbeki's address was held at 11:00 AM. What was interesting to us was how at 11:00, basically everyone in the Municipality stopped working and proceeded to the Mayor's Boardroom to watch the address. Now, granted, I'm working in the Municipal government, so everyone here takes a bit more interest and holds Mbeki in such high regard. But I wondered if everyone working at that time - government or non-government - stopped their work to watch the President's speech. I started talking to some of the my teammates and the other Americans about it - and we all agreed we wondered that if the U.S. President's State of the Union address were during the day rather than at night, would the viewership increase? I feel like sometimes at home, people are more upset that their prime-time TV shows are delayed or cancelled.

Mbeki spoke a lot about the development in South Africa, gave statistics about health and wellness, economic advancement and improvements, his visions for ongoing growth. He also happened to mention UNDP a few times - not specifically about our Municipal Capacity Development Support Initiative project - but about UNDP's greater work in South Africa or UNDP derived statistics. One interesting one that provoked applause in the President's audience was SA's status in spending more money on water and sanitation development than on military.

Another topic he mentioned which struck on a personal level - that each District Municipality would be holding a Growth and Development Summit this month. I'll be attending OR Tambo D.M.'s Summit starting this week with the Development and Planning Manager and a few of the councilors. I look forward to it and hope to learn a great deal about how the growth of the local and district municipalities matches the growth and vision of South Africa overall.

Car batteries

Had to tell this story that happened to us the other day...

Our car battery died in the Municipality parking lot. One of the Councilors pulled his car around and tried to jumpstart our battery. No luck. So here are the 4 Americans fairly clueless about cars (we have our AAA and roadside assistance...). And we’ve got some of the Municipality workers, the Mayor (in his suit), etc all out looking under the hood.

Both cars are shut off, and they begin to unscrew the battery from our car and from the Councilor’s car. They put Councilor’s battery in our car and get the car started... then as the car is running, they unscrew that battery and remove it, put our dead battery back in while the car is running, and of course there was a pretty big spark, to which they all just laughed… then the car ran fine and we drove it home.

You couldn’t have paid me money to touch anything under the hood of a running car! And we all expressed we'd never seen that done before. They all wrote it off as normal practice, and they were all cracking up. And the Mayor just says with a big grin “Welcome to Africa!” We laughed... Everyday, something new.

One month in

Pretty quick week here so far, work plugging along. I was away at an all day event yesterday with DEAT (Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism) and SANBI (South African Biodiversity National Institute). I had a low key weekend this past one – stayed in Port Edward and went fishing, fired up a braii with some of my team and a few other UNDP volunteers on Saturday night, then Sunday went mountain biking… there are some unbelievable trails and views right here in my own backyard.

Actually we recently found out that the movie Blood Diamond, which is out right now, filmed a lot of its parts right here in the Umtamvuna/Mzamba region. We went and saw it one night last week, more to see the scenery and how much we recognized – good story, much better movie than I expected – but it was funny to see it over here. If you haven’t seen it, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is supposed to be from South Africa – so when he first spoke in the movie, everyone in the theater started laughing at his attempt of a South African accent.

Hard to believe that I’ve been here a month already… but so much, so quickly has become normal and routine for me that I feel well settled in. I’ve even wondered if 3.5 months will really be enough time… Here, in no particular order are some things I’ve just gotten used to:

The sun rising so early every morning… a clear night sky with more stars than I’ve ever seen… incredibly welcoming and passionate people at work at the Municipality … continual progress and confidence with my municipal colleagues as they’ve become more comfortable with me… KFC in seemingly every town here… Port Edward locals… malva pudding… watching cricket and rugby on TV… plug adaptor plugged into plug adaptor plugged into plug adaptor to match my US plug… traffic signals called robots… meetings that never start on time at work… group song in meetings and large events… prayer to open and close meetings… people walking on the sides of major roads… using a pre-paid cell phone/buying airtime/international calling cards… not talking on my phone as much as normal (without free nights and weekends!)… cows, goats, sheep, horses along the way of R61… various roadkill along R61 (mostly stray dogs)… large potholes… peri-peri sauce… driving on the opposite side of the road… meetings and speeches at work varying between English and Xhosa… successfully pronouncing co-workers names that have click sounds in them… greeting people, replying, saying thank you in Xhosa, as well as various other words… Hansa, Castle, and Carling Black Label beers… monkey and baboon sightings… incredible natural beauty in so many shapes and forms… dealing with and adjusting to municipal budget constraints daily…rolling brownouts and losses of electricity… EVERYONE has a cell phone or two (even the most rural of farmers!)… accounting for the time difference with calls or emails back home… having roommates again… doing basically everything with my team… coffee by French press… rondeval huts… a lot of various bugs… the poverty and labor I see on the ride to work each day… late 80s/early 90s music being big on the radio… eating samp (maize meal and beans)…pickup trucks and minibus taxi vans driving R61 overfilled with people… the sight and smell of burning wood and/or trash… long, challenging, and fulfilling days at work, and good nights of sleep…

"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.