Business as usual.

The day before yesterday we woke up to hit the crowded streets of Pretoria, like every day this week. The route we take to get to Centurion technopark goes almost directly through Pretoria central. Well, the day went pretty much normally: wake up at 6:45, a quick shower and then an hour in the traffic on a 25km road to labour. The highlight of the day was when our Host "Keke", brought us some giraffe-curry, bananasalad, rise and broccoli. I might say, I didn't taste much because of my cold, but it sure was delicious! :P
Yesterday we wisited Mamelodi area the first time, just to orientate to the place and have some lunch. Lunch was interresting, indeed. It consisted of chicken wings, chicken necks, beef, chicken feet (The actual foot cooked, not that much meat, but plenty of disgusting), chicken livers and finally, the piece de resistance: tryfe, (or that's what I heard). It was chopped intestines of a cow. Pieces of stomach, and what looked like guts. it was "delicious". Well, when in Rome..
Today we went to mamelodi to get the survey done. We arrived there around ten fifteen, just to realize the pupils we were supposed to "interrogate", were leaving already! We executed a quick "seize and question" maneuver with great precision. It wasn't a well rehearsed tactic by a long shot, but we managed to get the answers. (Quality of the answers is classified, though..) We left Mamelodi and headed back to our stronghold. The whole evening we waited for the info that, will we or will we not go to mamelodi tomorrow aswell (to visit another school). It turned out, that our contact hadn't gotten a phonecall he was waiting, so we'll go down to NSN in the morning to wait for it. Ingenious, I might add.. Well again, when in Rome.. I hear it's the African way to deal with things. One must be patient.. Like watching the paint to dry.. Yup, that's it for the day. By the way, our crew is being overwhelmed by an awful disease from the darkest africa. The undersigned is suffering from cold and our brave navigator is struck to the bottom of the bed by and evil fever. Are we going to perish in the cold grasp of malaria? How will we ever survive to the next day?

-Arttu-

Day after first weekend

During the weekend, that felt like it last a week!:), we had got accustomed at least to the urban way of life in ZA. So far we've experienced plenty of new things every day. And there're surely lots and lots of things still left for us to discover, especially wonders of nature outside the concrete jungle. We aim to publish the highlights here, even though trying hard to recall, some things simply do not incarnate to mind at the right moment and sometimes one thinks that one thing is not worth it to publish though someone else might think it is.

During the first days we woke up rather late by African standards and so we decided to alter our habits so that we would be awake soon after sunrise and aim to finish our daily businesses by sunset because it was time to put pure leisure time activities on hold for now.

And we wanted to avoid crazy traffic jams, so we hit the road early in the morning and requested our scrupulous navigator buddy to guide us to the Nokia Siemens Networks' premises in Centurion, about 20 kilometers away from our present home neighbourhood Waverley.

We arrived to our destination on schedule and so we had time to enjoy breakfast at some local joint before entering NSN's offices. We had worked on our project during the weekend and previous weeks, so we knew what to do to get forward. We are going to do some interviews in the coming days so now the mission is to get prepared so that we will surely get the correct sort of result data to work with later on.

After working hours we had intention to do some sport but when we were supposed to go out Mother Nature decided to give us spout of rain with thunder included, not at all surprising weather condition in Gauteng province this time of the year. Hopefully tomorrow will have more energy to do some exercise or soon our physical conditions start to get worsen.

We filled up our vehicle's fuel tank first time today. In this country no need to do anything except drive next to the pump and you will get full service as long as got some rands to spare.

Our highly respected Chef's flu from few weeks back made comeback, but regardless of that he still bravely cooked amazingly delicious dinner for all of us, occasion that the undersigned has to amend some day.

But now gotta get some sleep to have energy to operate efficiently next day.

-Teemu-

Trekking like a Voortrekker

GPS navigator is a wonderful gadget. Just pick a location you want to go and it will give you directions and guide you while driving. Above all, it doesn't get mad after taking a wrong turn.. The little technological wonder has allowed us to explore and see different, yet fascinating things in this wonderful country.

Our contact person from Nokia suggested that we should spend the weekend orienting to our surroundings. And that we have. With our rental car, cheap gasoline and GPS navigation at our service, we have seen the Voortrekker monument in Pretoria, wealthy malls in Sandton and the streets of downtown Pretoria. All this within two days..

After the meeting with the other group we started to plan something to do for Sunday. After quick wiki we decided to visit the Voortrekker monument, built in memory for the European settlers who came here in 1830's in search for fertile farming lands and bright future.
The monument was build on top of a hill in 1940's in the Art Deco style. The monument itself was quite impressive not to mention the beautiful scenery that opened from the top viewing neighbouring surroundings. Inside the monument, museum enlightened us about the history of these pioneers.

After visiting the monument, we picked a random spot on Sandton near Johannesburg in hope of finding a place to dine. After stepping out of the parking hall, we encountered a huge bronze statue which turned out to portray Nelson Mandela himself. To our surprise there happened to be a charity event, in which supposed celebrities played football in a tournament in the middle of the square. Around the square there were restaurants in which people were watching the event. Since we didn't really care to stay there among so many people we decided to head in the depths of the shopping mall. All the luxury clothes and electronics stores were closed, but we managed to find a nice looking Italian restaurant, in which we decided to eat. The food was quite good and above all it was not that expensive. Overall, the last few days have gone quite nicely without any major problems.


-Anton-

First days in ZA.

So, the flight from Istanbul to Johannesburg was murder. Trying to sleep in an upright position with punctured eardrum, thus being unable to wear earplugs, was not the most comfortable thing I've encountered. With the two hours or so sleep, we were set loose to the heat of South-Africa.

Getting the car Teemu had hired was not hard. Getting us five, our luggage and the car to southern Pretoria was. We had an hour to the meeting we had with our Nokia contact when we started our car. Little did we know, the freeway was packed with people trying to migrate from J-burg to Pretoria. Yup, 1 hour equals 4 kilometers. Well, when we got it going the 40 km trip went relatively fast. We were at NSN at around two o'clock. We had our meeting, and left with our heads filled with ideas. Next thing: Find the house. Thanks to our navigator assisted with Antons "vision" and expertise, we managed to find the venue. Looks nice. Refrigerator, microwave-oven, beds, what else do you need? Oh, yeah.. Digital satellite television with "300" channels. We were all set, indeed.

With a good nights sleep and an "applied" english breakfast, we embarked on the road to Pretoria central in the hunt of prepaid simcards and a portable internet. After hours of walking in the scorching sun we aquired all the goods. We got the attention of the ladies with our shemagh scarves, Anton and I. After all the roaming around in Pretoria, we got back to Gratia and started relaxing. We share the house with couple of Gekkos, I hope they keep quiet climbing the walls and ceilings. Apart from the room-mates, the place is cosy and homelike. We will enjoy our stay of eight days in Gratia. Tomorrow we'll meet up with the other Nokia group and hit our wise heads together.
That's pretty much all for the start, keep tuned to the blog. We'll try to update it frequently.

-Arttu-