I arrived in South Africa on Sunday morning and since then time has not stood still!
Coming from -5°C in London to +35°C in Pretoria was a big shock, but I guess that it is very easy to get used to blue skies, twelve hours of sunshine a day and a permanent holiday feeling!
Until I have found a flat, I am staying with three other ODI fellows in a lovely guesthouse in Northern Pretoria. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I see is the pool outside my bedroom window, the palm trees and the blue sky. We start work very early, but getting up at 5:35am is no problem at all if it is this gorgeous outside! By 7am I am at my desk in the treasury. We are on the 20th floor and the view from the office is just breath-taking: All the desks are right next to the windows and we have a 360° view over Pretoria! I love it!
Everyone at work has been really lovely, making sure that I settle in quickly. The atmosphere is really good and everyone seems to genuinely get on really well – I think it should be pretty nice working here! After a few days of fighting against bureaucracy filling in thousands of forms, I have been given my first assignment as well: I am supposed to investigate whether South Africa should introduce a carbon tax now or wait until the credit crunch is over. It is actually quite interesting but I have never written a memo for anyone important before, so it should be interesting how I get on …
Coming back to Africa, it was really nice to see so many familiar sights: Shops I recognized, vendors selling foods that I liked, candy bars which I craved and the permanent “horning” of minibuses trying to pick up passengers. The people are as chatty and friendly as always: everyone asks you how you are all the time, how you’re getting on and wants to know where you are from and what things are like over there. Someone asked me today about the weather in Germany and when I told him that it was currently -20°C, he felt really sorry cause he thought it was like that all year long … kinda a second Siberia!
In the next couple of days I am going to try and buy a car and find a nice stylish flat. Houses over here are beautiful with big gardens and pools, so Ewa and I should be able to find something pretty sweet between us! The idea of driving is making me a little nervous especially as school starts again next week and things will get messy, but luckily Pretoria seems to have only one-way roads. I am sure this is gonna annoy me very soon, but for the beginning it is a blessing!
Anyway, I hope I did not bore you too much and I will do my very best to keep you up-to-date with life in South Africa! It’s certainly promising to be an exciting year!
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