28th October

I wrote before about the African bird, hadeda that makes this awful sounds...
here is the recorded sound
Imagine waking up with that every day. No need for an alarm...

So as I said we went o the WineEx, wine fair in the Sandton Convention Center on our last night together as  a team of 6.
It was a fabulous event with so many people and hundreds of wines to be tasted. Most of them South African  but there were a few exceptions.

 It was good there was cheese and crackers to eat in between the tasting.

Near the exit there was a machine to test your alcohol level.
I had 0,05 so I did well between the tasting and the drinking.

 A picture at the entrance of the hotel with the doorman who  I saw every day for 3 weeks.

Our last teamdinner with a last digestive 'Springbok'.
Time to say goodbye. 3 of our teammembers will leave and Ron, Renee and myself went to Capetown to continue our journey.

28th October

This is our last day together as a team... an emotional day given we worked so intense together the last 3 weeks.
Today we went to the Joburg Zoo. It's 54 ha! So quit different from the Antwerp Zoo!

We were invited by the MMC of Public Safety and got a private tour.

You see that Renee has curly hair now on the pictures. That reminds me I did not you tell you about the 'pencil test'. During Apartheid the black people had to do the pencil test. When the pencil  stayed behind their ears, they were  'tagged' as being black. Otherwise they were white.  Still today you feel it is sensitive and most of the black women would straighten their hair or wear a wig. Wigs are very common in South Africa.

This afternoon wehad to pack ( I just hope I can get everything in my suitcase!) and this evening we go together to a Wine-expo that is organized near the hotel.

I will for sure miss Joburg and the hotel. It became a bit 'home' and most of the personnel knows us by now. I will miss the great breakfast with fresh exotic fruit and fresh pancakes.... With papaya, guava,etc... I did not like papaya (paw paw) very much but Pat told me that when you eat it with a bit of lemon it is excellent. And it is true! So I ate it every day...

 I add below some pictures of the hotel and the garden which we saw wake up from spring to summer. The flowers are gorgeous now!

 This bird is called 'hadeda' and  it's a common bird in SA. But the sound that bird makes is terrible. We are used to it now but the first day when we wok up with this sound it was if someone was in trouble...
I will add the sound of the bird in the blog as soon as I receive the file

 This flower is an African flower called protea and the hotel is names after that.
 This evening we went to a Wine Expo that was held near the hotel. For 15€ you could taste any kind of African wines and champagne. I will add the pictures later but it was very different from what we know as Wine fair.  We celebrated the end of the project and it's time to say goodbye...
None of us will forget this  experience. 4 weeks ago we did not know each other and know we are like family.So the splitting up is very strange as experience.

3 of us go to Cape Town for a few days.
 
I will keep sharing my experiences.  Everyone says Joburg and Cape Town are not comparable so I am curious to see it.
I will keep you posted
Time to pack now as we leave at 5:30 am....

#ibmcsc south afrrica

28th October

Today when we came out of the hotel they were  putting barbed wire in front of the hotel  in preparation for the protest march. It were students claiming for free education.... we were told to leave the hotel and stay away given there could be incidents.
It was very impressive to see how the hotel became a  stronghold....

So we took the Gautrain and visited Pretoria.
We went to Churchsquare  and  visited the Union buildings where the president has his offices.

The jacarandas were amazing as people had told us and the timming was perfect. In a few days the flowers will be gone...

 There are around 60000 jacaranda trees in Pretoria.People cannot plan any new ones as they want to reduce the number given this was a tree that was imported in 1888. The lilla colour is beautiful everywhere in the city.

In the afternoon we prepared to get the the Executive major office for the final presnetation. We were all set with signed copied of the outcome of our work.  We prepared a presentations and a 60 pages whitepaper describing our recommendations.
Besides the Executive Major, there was also the Head of Strategy, the Chief of Staff and of course... our friedn Abraham, the CIO of the City.  From IBM besides ourselves the General manager of South Africa was there and the account team.

Our presentation went very well. The major said he wanted to take this work and take out the quick wins for fast result; in the panning work they are doing he will use our recommendations.
We got very positive feedback of the IBM GM of SA. He said he was blown away by the outcome and would never have imagined we could get to this level in 3 weeks...
That was the best recognition we could get for our work!
The Executive Major signed our books and that makes the picture complete!

After we finsihed we went to an African restaurant  'Gramadoela's'.
Ron and I wanted to taste the Mopani worms.  It was actually good and crispy.  I am glad I took that challenge and  ate the worls which are a typical African appetizer.

Tommorrow is our last day here in Joburg as a team.
We were invited by the MMC to visit the  Joburg Zoo so  in the end we'll be able to see the big 5!

#ibmcsc south africa