Weekend Fun in Joburg and Pretoria

I used the weekend to see and experience as much of Johannesburg and the surrounding areas as possible. After a few drinks with IMD classmates and our new South African friends on Friday night we headed home early to get plenty of sleep for a busy Saturday.

Saturday morning the school had organized 5 different activities for us to choose from: cooking, dancing, creating fine art, visiting a natural history museum, or a visit to a center that taught traditional African healing. I chose to go to the dancing, and it was really interesting. We went to a community center in Soweto township, where a group of professional dancers performed for us and then taught us a contemporary African dance and two traditional songs.

We got back to the hotel around 2:30 in the afternoon, and almost immediately I jumped in a taxi with some friends to head to the Apartheid museum. We only had two hours to explore it before it closed at 5pm, but we tried to make the most of it. One of the more interesting parts was that when you buy your ticket you are randomly assigned to be either "white" or "non-white" and you have to walk through separate entrances based on what you were assigned. The museum was big, and had enough information to easily fill 5 or 6 hours, so I will have to return at some point in the future.

After the museum we jumped in a taxi again and headed to Pretoria, 45 minutes away, to go to a rugby game between the Blue Bulls and the Cheetahs.

That night when we got back to the hotel at 10:30pm I really wanted to head to a bar to experience Joburg nightlife but I was just too completely exhausted to even consider it, and went to bed instead.

Leaving downtown Joburg.

Heading towards Soweto township.

Arriving in Soweto.

A typical street in Soweto.

Typical houses.

This was one of the nicer streets.

The community center where our dance class took place.

Waiting to begin.

We were in an old gym.

The dance troupe performing for us.

My teacher was Sboniso.

Arriving at the rugby game.

The Blue Bulls against the Cheetahs. Luckily we sat in the blue section.

Working for Badiramogo, Women's Clothing Manufacturer

Between the two companies my team was offered to work with I chose Badiramogo, along with my classmates Lars (from Norway) and Fernando (from Argentina) because the company was bigger and required more analysis. Therefore, my ten days of the consulting project were spent in a sewing factory analyzing the operations of the business to find areas where they could improve productivity and save cost.

The company was started by Ken Zerf, a white South African who had worked in clothing for more than 20 years before starting his own factory so he could run things the way he thought they should be run. His factory employed 125 workers, mostly middle aged black South African women, a few black South African men, and two Indian women.

The factory was located about 30 minutes drive from downtown Johannesburg, in a fairly dangerous suburb near the Ellis Park soccer stadium. We had to take lunches with us to eat because there were no restaurants in the area surrounding the building and it was too dangerous for us to be out walking around. Every day we were there our driver, Gino, stayed with the van at the factory, ready to drive us anywhere we needed to go at any time. The first day he parked the van in front of the building and sat in the back seat reading, staying inconspicuous but ready to move if he was accosted. On the second day Ken offered that he could park the van in the basement parking garage where it was safer, and Gino responded by saying, "Yes, sir, thank you, that would be very good because it is not so safe around here." If our defense-trained bodyguard/driver thought an area was unsafe, I was inclined to believe him.

Badiramogo had business, but not enough, and Ken was surviving week to week, never really knowing if he would be around the next month. Ken was known for producing the highest quality products in the area and for being 100% reliable. However, his costs were outpacing his revenues. We were asked to look at everything, from operations to financials, and ask as many questions as we wanted. Ken was completely open to everything we asked, but his workers were obviously very questioning of who we were and what we were doing, and they were extremely shy at first. I made it my goal to befriend them, and from the first day I made sure that Lars, Fernando and I spent breaks and lunchtime sitting in with them, trying to be accepted as one of them. While at first they were shy and it seemd that not many of them spoke English, after about three days it became obvious that almost all of them spoke very good English, and once they warmed up to us we couldn't get them to stop talking.

One of my favorite memories was a worker who was also named Rosemary who had many questions for me. Rosemary asked how old I was, and when I said 27 she asked if I was married, and when I said no, she was very surprised and then asked, "But how many children do you have?" If being 27 and unmarried was bad enough, finding out that I was 27, unmarried, with no children was unheard of. Her next question was, "why not?" I wasn't quite sure how to answer that question, but the first thing that came to mind was that I was waiting until I finished school. She nodded approvingly at this answer and it seemd to satisfy her. She ended the conversation by saying, "Well, when you have children I will come be your nanny."

The most amazing part was the bond that formed between the three people in my team and the workers. The first day they were quite wary of us, but by the fourth day they were our best friends, and asked us many times to come back to see them.

Heading to work in our MTN-sponsored van with driver.

Driving through Johannesburg.



This is the street my factory was on, near Ellis Park.

The front entrance of the factory. It was on the third floor.



Looking over Ken's schedule board.



First step: laying out the fabric.





2nd step: cutting the fabric into the right shapes.





3rd step: assembly line.

Heading into the breakroom!

The woman next to me is also named Rosemary.

Breaks and lunch are serious matters.

Digging into food given to me by one of the workers.

Each worker had his or her personal mug at the factory.

Finshed garments waiting tobe sent out.

Security is so tight that the workers had to use a finger scan to get in and out of the building.

Leaving work for the day.

IMD University Trip to South Africa

After summer break was over there was still a lot to look forward to. As part of our coursework at IMD, the school paid for the entire class to go on a trip to South Africa to work on 2 week consulting projects for small start-up companies in Johannesburg.

When we met together at the school to take the bus to the Geneva airport, I was quite surprised by how different everyone looked after not seeing them for 3 weeks. The best way I can describe it is that people looked happy, relaxed, and even radiant after the summer holidays, which was our first major break from the stressful 6 months of the MBA program. We were talking nonstop, catching up on each other's summer adventures, and laughing more than we had all year long.

We arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa on Monday morning of July 19, and after the 11 hr flight my classmates all looked normal again because we were exhausted from the trip. I didn't sleep at all on the flight because of a bad stomachache I'd gotten before we left, so I was not in the best of moods.

When we got off the plane in Johannesburg, I was startled by how the racial divide between blacks and whites was still clearly evident. Perhaps I was cued to be looking for it, but I did notice that the menial workers, such as the construction workers, cleaning staff and cashiers, were mostly black, while the managers were mostly white. On the drive from the airport I saw lots of black Africans just standing around, hanging around, or even sleeping on the side of the highway.

The places we passed had names like Mandela Square and Gandhi Mall, and street names such as Jan Smuts Ave. It was as if the country was proud of and also embarrased by its history. I had been warned about how the wealthy Africans who remain in the country live in gated apartment communities with thick metal sliding gates and guards, but I somehow didn't believe it was really like that until we got there and I saw it for myself. Every single property had a fence around it, most more than 8ft high with barbed wire or electrical currents running across the top. When cars pulled up to a complex of condos they had to be approved by the guard and buzzed in, and the thick solid metal gate would slide open long enough for the car to pull in and then close again with a bang.

The hotel where we were staying, just across the street from Mandela Square, was very nice, clean, and in a very safe area of town. It was fresh and modern, and the hotel rooms looked the same as anywhere else in the world. In Mandela Square were 2 huge shopping malls with many expensive stores and lots of fancy restaurants.

After we arrived and checked in we had several hours to kill, so some people went for lunch in Mandela Square, while I took a much needed three hour nap. That evening we went to our welcome dinner to meet the entrepreneurs we would be working with during the following two weeks. My group was assigned to two companies - Badiramogo, started by Ken Zerf, which manufactured clothing, and Mashabela Personnel, started by Candace Mashabela and Tebogo Gabashane, which was an IT recruiting firm.  Within my group we had to decide how to split the five of us among the two companies.

As I looked around at my surroundings I couldn't believe that I was actually in Africa for the first time in my life.

To get to the airport we had two buses, including a double decker, AND a cargo trailer for the luggage.

We hadn't seen each other in 3 weeks so there was lots to catch up on.

It was barely organized chaos getting us unloaded and checked in at the airport.

Boarding together for the flight from Geneva to Zurich. The airline was smart to put us together at the back.

We took up nearly half the plane. It was the loudest plane I've ever been on as everyone caught up on each other's summer adventures.

We watched ourselves take off from a live camera feed. It was weird.

Sunset from the plane.

Flight path into Johannesburg!

Arriving at Johannesburg airport!

The World Cup has just ended a few days before we got there.

First view of the city.

Seeing downtown from a distance.

There were people loitering everywhere.

Even sitting, lying, and sleeping on the side of the roads.

The walls guarding the buildings were tall and imposing, with spikes on top.

Cars had to be approved by the guard and buzzed in to their complexes. It's hard to see but there's electrical wire running along the top of this fence.

Our hotel rooms looked just like anywhere else in the world.

Meeting our entrepreneurs for the first time.

About to enjoy a great welcome dinner.

With beautiful place settings.

Our host organization, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), put on a great show for us.

My group was assigned to two companies. This is Ken from Badiramogo (left) with my classmate Fernando.

This is Candace from the other company. She and I became fast friends.

I couldn't believe I was in Africa. The surroundings were very different, yet also very much the same.

But this bird was not the same, and was completely foreign to me. Never figured out what it was.