My first 'proper international work junket' turned out to be not so much junket and lashings of 'proper work': airport to hotel, 14hrs a day inside a conference centre, followed by hotel to office to airport. No leaving the compound after dark, on security grounds and... could this really be the same country that my carefree pal Brenda grew up riding horses in? I mean, Hartebeespoort, the homeveld of my favourite Aussie-hating Saffer (something to do with getting their arses kicked at rugby apparently, but I'm from Melbourne, home of AFL, so can pretend not to care) is just the other side of the kloof of us here in Rustenburg... So despite the hard work, I was determined to soak up every spare moment, after all I declared to my colleagues, this is my first time in Africa! The women around me, from Lesotho and Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi, all fell about laughing. "Oh girl," they cried, wiping tears "this is not Africa. This is euroDisney Africa! You come to where I'm from, I'll show you Africa!"
And in the next few days, they did. Their hoots of delight as I tackled my first mealie pap dinner, eating with my fingers in the hotel restaurant, wasn't the half of it. In delivering training to my colleagues from across the southern continent, I learned what it's like to be unable to upgrade your vehicle fleet because the fuel quality is so pisspoor that it would murder a modern engine in minutes, the class systems that leave even senior administrators feeling unable to report wrongdoing, the daily rigors of an office life where the internet is always slow, the power goes down more often than it stays up, and its perfectly normal to hear five languages all spoken at once in the back of a bus... with the token white girl in the room the only one who doesn't understand all five.
Our cosy enclave, 2 hours from Johannesburg, really did seem tame by comparison -there was only one storm, and it only knocked out the web for a day. Despite that though, there's a rugged beauty here that I havent seen since I left Australia, and it was amazing to just go for a wander in the mornings and soak up the colour and life...
And, of course, I'd brought an Antsy with me, who sauntered off each day with the wife and adult kids of my colleague James, bringing home tales to regale us with over dinner... feeding baby lions, the cheetah park, a safari trip with elephants and rhinos and wildebeests. There was even a zebra out the bus window, just grazing by the road...
Johannesburg was an eyeopener of a different kind - the sort of place where outsiders wonder how the locals ever feel at ease. From the bank that was closed following a robbery (and the fact that they had printed signage for just such an eventuality... obviously not rare then), to the high walls surrounding every home, and the sudden adjitation of our taxi driver as we passed through a township on the way to the airport ... "The doors are locked, but can you just make sure you dont have any valuables on the seats. Wallets, keys, phones, put them on the floor or underneath you." And when we reached the airport, we were staggered to see the two checkin counters - one for luggage, one for your firearms.... since when could you carry firearms ANYWHERE on a plane???
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