The places you will go...

Joseph is super excited to wear IBM Cap

The very next morning Joseph was ready to take us to the client site. Joseph has a million dollar smile. He taught me "Dumela" and "Thobela". It was great to learn collection of useful phrases to exchange greetings with the local people.

As you can see he was equally excited to embark on this journey with us.





The drive from the Garden Court hotel to the university took us 45 minutes. It was a beautiful drive out of Polokwane. Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. We continued to admire our first ride to the Campus for the plenty of beautiful views we encountered on the way.

University of Limpopo

The University of Limpopo is the result of a merger between the former Medical University of Southern Africa and the University of the North, occurred on 01 January 2005.

The Campus is situated to the north-west of Pretoria. It's land extends over some 350 hectares adjoining the Ga-Rankuwa Township and is easily accessible by road and rail. Regular bus and taxi services operate between Pretoria and Dr George Mukhari Hospital as well as between Mabopane and Medunsa.

Prof. Manmela, Muriki, Sameer, Jill, Me and Pam

Our sub team was aligned with the University of Limpopo to work with the Department of Computer Science. Our first few interactions with the client helped us narrow down our scope of work. We requested to interview a list of people to help us gain better understanding on the current pain points and areas we can help address in the next 4 weeks. Jill  Muriuki and Sydney joined us in the second half to discuss the plan ahead.




We were asked to pick up sub team one on our way back. Here is another picture of Jacaranda trees from the parking.

Meet and Greet

Day 4 started with a FANTASTIC kick off meeting with our clients. It was an amazing experience to finally meet them in person. Keeping with South African tradition our sub teams were assigned local names. These names were Kgopong, Cloete, and Mokgalong. These were taken after the surnames of each of three key clients.

 

In South African culture, gifting Sheep is part of the celebration. Ivanplats hosted the kick off ceremony at their office. We met with Mr Jonas Manamela who is leading the research CoE at the University of Limpopo.
After the kick off presentations the team got together for a group photo.

Our client recommended Saskia for dinner so Pam, Mike, Joseph and I decided to take a trip to try some delicious African food. As they say, "Be prepared to embark on an unexpected soul journey, when crossing the threshold of Fusion Boutique Hotel in the heart of Polokwane, the buzzing capital of South Africa’s Limpopo Province. Our senses were mesmerized with the unique establishment. It was a perfect blend of art, comfort, ambiance and exotic taste.




 The food at Saskia with the beauty of the place were an absolute delight of the evening. Our day ended with Joseph driving us back to Garden Court to prepare for the next day.

 Here is a picture from Saskia before the dinner.

Home away from home

Our journey was filled with laughter, excitement, jokes and lot of learning.

Hiro my team member taught me how to scribble my name in Japanese. We talked a bit about our families. He has been to India before however not to Delhi. I mentioned Japan has been on my bucket list of places to visit.

Well, it takes time to perfect a new language so I had to give it a couple of attempts before I could write my name accurately. I found lot of similarities in Japanese and Chinese characters.








We finally arrived in Polokwane the same evening. . It is situated on the Great North road to Zimbabwe, Polokwane is the heart of the Limpopo Province. Polokwane means the "Place of Safety". It is South Africa's largest Urban center. We checked in Garden Court which will be our home for next few weeks.

Enroute Polokwane...

We packed our bags to start our Journey from Jo'berg to Polokwane. It takes about 3 hours by road.

Bus Ride to Polokwane CSC SA Team

 As you can see we have a very diverse team from different continents who are all excited to embark on this journey. We stopped over at Pretoria to take some quick pictures with Mandela's statue. The first picture is with Phuong from Vietnam. The next picture has Cesar, E, Ann and me.

Phuong and I had connected prior to this trip on planning some of the weekend activities. We spent some time on the bus discussing the trip to Kruger Park. I figured most of us were keen to travel to Kruger Park over the weekend.

Here is another view of Pretoria with the big statue. He has one leg slightly in front of the other to demonstrate a nation on the move, and his arms are outstretched as if embracing the nation.

On our way we spotted beautiful Jacaranda trees. Pretoria is transformed into a growing purple mass. It is the most spectacular view which cannot be justified through a picture. Here is the purple blossomed bedecked trees.

The vibrant heart of South Africa - Jo'burg

We finally arrived in Johannesburg on Oct 9^th. Dan and I were picked up by Martin who will be with us for the next few days. Dan and I shared our experience of working with diverse teams. We realized that both of us had an opportunity to work in China with IBM. It is exciting to work with a company which has a global presence over 170 countries.

 

We arrived at our hotel in less than thirty minutes. We decided to meet the rest of the team in the morning over breakfast. I got up early to make safe arrival calls to family and friends. I got ready to meet with fellow IBMers at the breakfast table. 

I met Mike and Cesar at the breakfast table which helped me on the plan for the rest of the day. We were scheduled to meet with IBM executives in the first half followed by a visit to the Museum after lunch.  

The meeting with IBM executives was an eye opener as they provided us a high level overview of the work IBM has done in this part of the world. You feel privileged to contribute to the impact IBM is making to transform the world.  Meet my team who are all excited to embark on this journey.

After the meeting at IBM office, we all were excited to hop on to the bus to go to Liliesleaf farm. Liliesleaf farm is a museum that tells the story of South Africa’s liberation struggle. It was a secret head quarter of African National Congress during 1960s.

On our way back, Carlos proposed we should take a trip to Nelson Mandela Square which was a five minute walk from our hotel. Ann who has been here over a week offered to show us around. 

After a long walk from Mandela square, we need a tea break to revitalize. 

#ibmcscsouthafrica

A week before I go…

It feels like time is flying. Though this is not the first time I’m traveling on an assignment however the experience on preparing for this travel has been very different. We have all been working behind the scenes for last three months on preparing for our respective assignments. The most exciting part is the team members who come from varied walks of life to contribute to a greater mission.

I have had an opportunity to interact with most of them through the last three months learning about their life philosophy, families, professional and personal lives. It’s been a truly enriching experience to get to know these high performing IBMers.

We were also given an opportunity to interact with IBM executives in South Africa. It was quite a humbling experience learning from senior leaders on how to better prepare for our CSC journey. We will be meeting our clients starting this week. I’m excited and thrilled about the discussion tonight which will be the first kick off interaction. 

In the background, I’m getting all the logistics figured. I’m going to focus on learning more about the culture of Limpopo province which is the area we will be stationed at. I have heard that the people in Limpopo province are very warm and welcoming. You get the same feeling when you are traveling within the remote parts of India. You are truly touched by the generosity of the people. 

 It is always fascinating to get some visual view of the places you visit. Here is a quick view of Limpopo on the map.

Limpopo Province

For my fellow wild life enthusiast, we will be very close to Kruger park.

Kruger Park

  

Now I’m going to spend sometime today to delve deeper into our project. I would share some of the highlights in my next post.