Sylvia's Journal

I practically live in planes these days. I am getting very good at ‘grin and bear it.’ After two very full plane rides (an upgrade for the first one – seven hours including a lot of sleep – and a downgrade in the second – 10 hours and no sleep), I arrived in a cool South Africa. Daytime here is like Como and Manchester but night time is a bit cooler. It was 11 degrees Celsius.

I was whisked off to a palatial structure, formerly the grandiose home of a couple which, I was told, felt a little too grandiose after they split up and was turned into a B&B.  I am sleeping in a room with a wildlife motif – scary looking monkeys raiding a baobab tree in the bathroom, grooming monkeys as lampstands and leopard skin curtains. A grand  (everything in this place merits the adjective ‘grand’) terrace looks out over the city from the hillside suburb of Waterkloof.

I hardly had time to explore the place. A sign said there was a spa but I won’t know about it. Before I knew it the alarm went off, I had breakfast and it was off to work with my colleague Megh from Lesotho. We are flying there tomorrow.

I spent most of the day with the senior management team interviewing candidates for the deputy project director position.  One interview was in person, one on a fairly good skype line and the other on an even better Cisco line; still there were periodic outages which made the process a little more tedious, especially for someone just off the plane. I tried to hide my yawns in the afternoon and made myself a cup of very strong coffee – that stopped the yawning.

Getting the right person for the job with everyone agreeing on who is most ‘right’ is tricky when there are so many different needs and expectations.  I wrote down my observations, as an outsider, and will await the decision with great curiosity.

I sampled my first good South African wine of this trip during dinner with two colleagues – the wine will certainly help with a second night of catch-up sleep.

Tomorrow we take off for Lesotho, bypassing the capital for the town of Leribe, a rather depressed place I remember from my last trip when we drove through it – memories of abandoned Chinese textile factories and high school kids in their starched uniforms – wondering what will happen to them after they graduate – where would they go?

In between the meetings I managed to do my first quiz of the Model Thinking course.  I had to revisit several lectures to feel confident enough to press the submit button. I got a 7.5 for 12 answers – something like a C minus I figured – which left me quite proud. Imagine answering questions like this: In the game of life, a world begins with 4 cells in a row in the alive state, and no other cells alive. After 20 updates, what state is the world in? (In other words, which cells are alive at this point?) – I got that one wrong; and this: How many possible preference orderings exist for four alternatives? These orderings must satisfy transitivity. I got that one right. Clap, clap.

The next four lectures are up – I will continue even though it is, mathematically speaking, a bit of a stretch for my mind. Its neural connections for mathematics are rather thin after 4 decades of inactivity.

I had hoped to be able to exchange some of my many miles for an upgrade for the 15 hour flight to Jo’burg, finally having the required fare base, but I was out of luck because every seat was taken. And so I sat in the back of an overbooked plane.

A mother with a four month old baby sat in back of me, with the baby kicking against my back while I was trying to fall asleep. He had a few crying fits in the beginning of the flight. I was dreading the next 14 hours but he fell asleep as did I.  At the end, when we left the plane, everyone sitting around the baby complimented the mom about his good behavior. It could have been a lot worse.

I don’t know why so many people go to cold South Africa from warm Atlanta or other parts of sunny America. The flight was full of kids, from babies to teenagers. I was curious about their stories but only got the one from my section, a film crew, two missionaries and an oil man.

Everyone was in a good mood and no one seemed to mind the fact that we were packed in like sardines, even the big guys and heavy ladies – I did not hear one complaint.

I passed the hours, sleeping a bit, reading a bit and watching an entire series of TED videos, more satisfying than the few films I tried but gave up on. I actually like to watch other peoples’ screens; I don’t care about the sound when the movie is of the action or violent genre. My neighbor watched several Rocky films and on the other side of the aisle a young kid was watching a whole bunch of destructive transformers at work while the beautiful heroine in the white blouse remained spotless despite buildings, cars and flying objects crashing on or around her.

It was still light when we landed in Jo’burg but by the time I arrived at my hotel in Pretoria it was dark. Charles the office driver picked me up and he filled me in on what’s happening in South Africa: the election of a South African woman to the African Union’s presidency, schoolbooks that, half a year into the school year, have still not been delivered in Limpopo province and winter weather in the Eastern Cape with passes closed due to snow, and flooding further down. It’s weird to see snow ploughs at work in July.

The hotel is a block from the office and across the street are liquor stores and fast food joints.  Finding healthy food is going to be a challenge once more.