Celine en Afrique du Sud

Mercredi 30 janvier 2008

Sawubona! (Hello…)

Je reprends la plume après quelques semaines de silence car je veux fêter avec vous un grand événement incontournable: le deuxième jour d’affilé depuis le début de l’année sans coupure d’électricité!!! En effet, depuis mon retour de vacances, il y a eu des load shedding tous les jours, et pour user du genre dramatique, le chaos s’est emparé de la ville… Comme je l’avais évoqué dans un précédent article, la circulation est infernale sans feux de circulation ! D’autres exemples de la praticité des coupures d’électricité :

- payer son billet de cinéma et entre le moment où tu payes et le moment ou tu arrives devant ta salle, l’électricité est coupée

- être en train de courir sur ton tapis roulant dans ta salle de sport et tout d’un coup le tapis s’arrête et la salle est plongée dans le noir

Je pourrais en raconter des milliers comme ca ;) Mais il y a plus impactant… cela fait maintenant plus d’une semaine que les mines (de charbon, d’or…) sont fermées pour cause de sécurité, ce qui fait perdre (tenez-vous bien…) 33 millions d’euros par jour à l’Afrique du Sud !

Un autre événement majeur : ils sont en train de me construire un bureau, enfin ! Pour ceux d’entre vous qui ne le savaient pas, je suis sans-bureau-fixe depuis que je suis arrivée ici, (cad il y a 3 mois et demi maintenant), errant de bureau libre en bureau libre, de jour en jour… Cela devrait être une bonne nouvelle, mais vu le début des travaux, cela augure assez mal : je pense que je vais pouvoir toucher les deux murs en me tenant au milieu et en écartant les bras… Je ne sais même pas comment ils vont réussir a installer un bureau dans cette pièce ! Heureusement, g une fenêtre et la vue est belle ! Vu le nombre de départs ici en ce moment pourtant, les bureaux se libèrent : je vais donc tenter de négocier un autre bureau un peu plus grand ;)

Troisième sujet de l’article : finalement, a mon grand regret [je tiens a tous vous remercier pour vos idées et votre inspiration mais…] mon binôme m’a laissé tomber au dernier moment pour la soirée déguisée d’il y a une semaine, et j’ai été obligée d’abandonner l’idée de me déguiser… Mais certains costumes valaient vraiment le détour, mon préféré étant le 118 218 ! Il y avait évidemment Bonnie and Clyde, il y avait aussi Eminem et 50 Rands, etc… J’ai quand même le plaisir de vous annoncer qu’après une soirée sans thème samedi dernier, nous revenons à nos habitudes ! Le thème de ce samedi est, je cite l’organisateur: "The dress code is "Mix and Miss-Match". Yes, make it clash, from head to toe, clothes shall not go together: Stripes on squares. Florescent on hand knitted. Tacky on classy. Snap! Blend the colours and shapes, and let us all look like a lively fruit salad". En gros, l’idée est de mélanger les opposés ! Thème un peu plus abordable avec une penderie limitée de VIE qui a le droit a un petit déménagement ;) Promis, ce sera compte rendu avec photo a l’appui cette fois ;)

Bref, je vais éviter de faire trop long ;) Bonne journée a vous ! Alors qu’a Téhéran il neige, ici, l’été a l’air de s’être décidé a enfin pointer le bout de son nez !

Par Celine
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Lundi 14 janvier 2008

Existential questions!

After two weeks in France for the Christmas holidays, I am back in Johannesburg!!! Nothing much has happened yet, except for parties, restaurants and brunch but I am glad to tell you that the nice weather is back after a very rainy beginning of summer here! I already got sun-burnt! Let’s also announce (with less pleasure) the return of load shedding (electricity problem) with the end of the official holidays and the return to work for everybody!

I have three things to tell you this time:

- You can register to the newsletter: you will then be informed each time I write a new article! (I know, Seb, I said I did not like it but I do not write as often as you do, so people tend to forget my blog ;)

- Second, I need your help, for once! Next Saturday, I have a costumed party at a friends’ house and the theme is “by pair”! I still need to find my pair but if you have any idea on how we could dress up… it would help a lot! I am waiting for your commentaries…

- Last but not least my friends, this is a test: I would like to know if this site really needs to be in English! So, if you are not French speaking and want this blog to stay in English, write a commentary in response to that article! If no English answer, it will come back to French ;););) That the hard law of the jungle ;)

Thanks!

Par Celine
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Dimanche 30 décembre 2007

Vacances de Noel!

Salut tout le monde!

Bon, pour faire originale, je vous souhaite a tous de bonnes fetes de Noel et une bonne fin d'annee ;)
Je sais, cela fait plus de 10 jours que je n'ai pas ecrit sur mon blog et vous devez etre traumatisés (si si, j'y crois ;) de ne pas recevoir de mes nouvelles.

Je suis en fait rentrée en France, faisant la surprise a mes parents, d'ou le fait que je n'ai prevenu personne! Je suis donc en France depuis le 22 decembre, et repars le 4 au soir. Encore quelques jours avant le retour!!!

Ce retour est assez déroutant, je dois dire, car mon départ de la cité des lys était trop récent pour que cela ne me manque réellement... Evidemment, cela me fait plaisir de vous revoir ;) Mais deux mois après mon départ, je commencais réellement a me faire mon trou la-bas ;) Evidemment, les fetes de Noel sont particulieres et devraient toujours etre fetees en famille, ce qui justifie un petit retour (et pour la petite histoire, mes parents repartent en expat en Janvier et ma soeur en stage a l'etranger, du coup, c'etait la derniere occasion pour reunir toute la petite famille avant longtemps)!

Alors, pour répondre à la question qui revient le plus souvent lorsque je vous ai en direct: oui! ca me plait vraiment! Ma vie là-bas est vraiment sympa et j'apprécie énormément tous les gens autour de moi! L'histoire du pays est riche et palpable, en constante évolution. Bref, venez juger par vous-meme des que vous voulez ;)

A bientot pour de nouvelles aventures dès mon retour en Afrique du Sud !!!

Bises, Céline

Par Celine
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Jeudi 20 décembre 2007

I am cursed…. (about police arrests and closed places)

This week-end was supposed to be my week-end (yeah, 25 years old… !!!), and as the holidays are beginning to weight on the motivation of the Woodmead offices (Lafarge), the atmosphere was more relaxed. This was auguring of a good week-end.

Friday night was a girl evening with Fedile (a South African friend of Florent, the guy I know from Mexico) and her friends (40 girls to celebrate the gone-by year, you can imagine the general mood!). After a good dinner, we went out to dance. Then, the curse begins! We were stopped by the police on our way home. How could I explain?! Here, everybody drives drunk since everything is negotiable with the police, if you see what I mean… I was in the car so of course, we were stopped (4^th time I have been stopped by the police in 2 months…. Unbelievable… and I can tell you that you are not reassured when you are stopped in the middle of the night by 2 policemen here). Fedile had drunk ‘a bit’ and the situation was critical but, unbelievable) after 10 minutes of discussion he let us go (after having tried to keep Fedile with him, and after having understood that he was not going to get anything from us). Ouf, on a eu chaud, as one says in French! But we did stress a bit!

Then, Sunday, brunch at a friends’ house interrupted by a lot of phone calls from Norway and France and a lot of singing (Andrea og Anine dere singer så bra) ;) The plan of the afternoon was to go to the concert given for the reconciliation day (the 16^th December is a free day here!) in Pretoria. So we went! But, that was without curse number 2: by the time we came to Pretoria, the concert was over (South African organization…)! The only thing we saw of Pretoria was the Mc Donald’s, since some of us hadn’t eaten before leaving… Back to the start, Johannesburg, where we watched the worst movie ever: Dead Evil, curse number 3!

After a quick restaurant, we decided to go out (as the reconciliation day was on a free day, Sunday, they moved it to Monday, so it was a long week-end!!! Not bad, we should apply the same thing in France ;) We then decided to go out on Sunday night to finish the week-end on a nice note. But curse number 4: after having crossed the whole town to go to Newtown, the Shivava, famous bar, was CLOSED!!! So world-weary but still in a good mood, and as I was not allowed by the others to go to bed before my birthday was really over (midnight…), we went back to a friends’ house and hold until midnight before collapsing after a week-end loaded in emotions and parties!

Par Celine
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Mercredi 19 décembre 2007

Elections in South Africa

A very important election took place this week-end, determining the next president of the leading political party in South Africa, ANC (African National Congress). The person elected to this post is most likely to be the next president of South Africa… And Zuma was elected… quite a choc! Judge by yourself:

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3212,36-990920@51-989956,0.html

Par Celine
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Mercredi 19 décembre 2007

Security… and life goes on!

I told you my next article would be about security!! So here I go! Of course, the aim of this article is not to frighten you and deter you from coming to visit me ;) But in order to understand the reality of the country you cannot oversee this reality: security problems are integrated to the everyday life.

Crime is an issue here: Johannesburg being said the city with the highest crime rate in the world in a non-war country.

A short but straight-to-the-point extract of a security report by Global Insight:

“South Africans are more likely to be killed as a result of shooting than in a car accident, with almost one in nine of all deaths—and almost half of all unnatural deaths in South Africa—a result of murder (comment: if you saw them driving, you would understand what this meant ;). According to the government's own official figures for the period between April 2006 and March 2007, some 19,202 people were murdered in South Africa. Although the number, which equates to approximately 52 homicides a day and puts South Africa's murder rate seven times higher than that of the United States, it represents the first increase in four years and is still lower than the peak of 21,553 murders recorded in 2002-03”

Of course, the majority of these crimes are located in the Gauteng province, economical center of South Africa, including Pretoria and Johannesburg:

“Crime has had a particularly noticeable impact on Johannesburg, the commercial centre of South Africa. Many residents have adapted by fortifying their houses or moving into guarded complexes. Business has also been affected, particularly in the flight of professions from the central business district (CBD) to the suburbs, notably Sandton”.

That is why I live in a compound with a security gate at the entrance and at least two guards always present, in the Sandton area, Morningside. By the way, I live in French Lane, can you believe it ;) Still, I have a lot of friends living more south and in houses, without any guards.

The main problem in South Africa is not robbery or car-jacking, but the fact that all those actions degenerate very quickly and are almost every time very violent. Thus, in October, they killed a famous Reggae singer (Lucky Dube) while car-jacking him, even if he had already handed over his car. Or during robberies into houses, they can go up to finish people at the warm iron. In a nutshell, life does not have much value and the history of the country (mainly apartheid) makes it hard to forget the discrepancies between rich and poor people!

So given those facts and the situation here, you need to be “a bit” careful and to be on the watch all the time. The main security advises are:

- Avoid driving at night

- Avoid going to Johannesburg center (Newtown…)

- Never drive with the windows open

- Always lock your car doors

- Never stop at red light at night

- Always check that you are not followed when you go home

- If the police stops you, make sure they are real cops and go to the next gas station before stopping

- Always have a minimum amount of cash on you to give out if something happens

- Never stop and ask for a direction in the street

- Always keep enough distance between you and the car in front of you in order to always be able to drive past if something happens, same when you stop at a robot

- Always make sure you have at least half a tank

- Etc, etc, etc….

I have to confess that I tend to forget all of this crap and live normally, but eventually you always have the thought at the back of your head without realizing it... Nevertheless, I drive a lot at night (how can you survive without going out after 7 in the evening ;) and I am very often in the center of Johannesburg, where I have been to the best parties and where the atmosphere is really good.

An anecdote: I remember my first week-end here, a bunch of us were supposed to go to a club in Newtown. There were white South African girls among us, and they told us that they had never been in Newtown in their whole life, that they were scared to go there because it was too dangerous! This is another South African reality: despite of the efforts made, I find that the white and the black world are two quite separate worlds. So it is not very difficult to be one of the few white persons in a place.

Another anecdote: we were at the restaurant, and I happen to hear the discussion (me, curious, no?!!) of the table next to ours. Their bill took time to come; it was crowded at that time, so they were complaining about the quality of the service. The first punch line is the conclusion of their discussion: it is always like that when a white is not in charge or around to check! The second punch line is that those people were speaking French (but thank god, with a weird accent so they were not French at least…)!!!

With the 2010 football world cup, South Africa promised to better the security situation in Gauteng, but how will they manage that?! Last week, they killed 14 robbers… maybe it will help?! (French irony…).

Par Celine
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Jeudi 13 décembre 2007

Here I come!

Hello everybody!

I promised my beloved Norwegian family (Guro, dette er din skyld…) that I would at least write in English (they spared me from the Norwegian writing, everything is good to take…) so that they could share too… so here I go! (I will not promise every article in English but we will see ;)

Just to make a long story short, (those who have read the previous articles, go directly to the next level…) I have been here two months already and everything is really great! Time is flying by without realizing!!!

First, some basics!

- It is summer here, so summer vacations have begun! It is becoming very empty in the offices!

- Yes, it is true: water goes the other way round in the sink because of being in the South hemisphere!

- There is one hour difference with Norway/France at the moment, but none during your summer time

Then, work.

Lifestyle here is really different from the one in France and much more alike the Norwegian one: getting up at 5 to go to the gym, begin work between 6 and 8 to finish at 4 in the evening… But the reasons for this rhythm are slightly different: they also follow the sun life but because of security issues (you do not want to get home after sunset…). Of course, as you can imagine (if you have seen me in the morning before), I do not follow this rhythm completely! I begin only at 7.30 (by skipping the gym ;) and finish between 5 and 6… My work is very interesting. It is quite similar to what I did in Paris, but with a much more concrete side (no play on words here with the industry I am working in…). Not only numbers but numbers that takes into account the field reality! I should also travel a little bit next year for some of my projects; I am really looking forward to doing that!

At last, my life!

Of course, the first persons I met here were French people: a friend that was in Mexico with me, Florent and the son of my parents’ friend, Armand. The latter lives with 3 other guys, and they know quite a lot of people through their firm (French construction firm: 250 French people…. versus mine: 3-4 French people…). So I mostly hang out with them. As they have been here for only some months too, we visit a lot together: meteor craters, the Soweto township (where they parked all the black workers during apartheid), Lion Park… and of course we go out a lot: the night life is quite developed and as in Mexico everybody can and love to dance here!!!

I found an apartment after some weeks: two rooms, two baths, a swimming pool in the complex and a balcony… It is really nice! You are welcome to visit ;)

So to conclude, so far so good, as I love to say ;) I am settling down, and beginning to be used to my new life: driving everyday, working in English, adapting to the culture (e.g. dancing, taking it cool…..) I manage ;) I will not give you all the details of my first driving tries, but I’ll just tell you that it was pretty complicated: a lot of 90 degrees (almost, I promise!) inclination roads here! And when there is power cuts, no traffic lights work… people drive really badly and you see accidents everywhere all the time!!!

I also have to deceive you: the weather has not been that good yet! I got sun-burnt several times (je sais Lea, c pas bien, je vais faire tres attention a lavenir ;) but in general, there is a lot of rain and storms! It should get better over Christmas so I’ll see!

I'll update my blog as often as possible so just drop by, sometimes!!!

Par Celine
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Mardi 11 décembre 2007

Photos en vrac

THe wall of fame in my room ;) If you're not on it, send me your picture!!!

The Nelson Mandela square (Sandton) by night. THere are a lot of restaurants around the squre. Nice to be outside and breath some air ;)

Sandton number 2! Eh oui, towers and modern buildings! THis is Johannesburg!!!

And now I am going to present you the people I very often am with!!!

Alec during the Soweto bike tour (the children always wanted to get on our bikes as soon as we stopped!)

Disguised party: from Orient to ast Orient! Funny! ANother bunch of friends!

Vane et and a baby lion at the Lion Park!!! They really look like teddy bears!!!

Armand, sceptical, in front of the cheetas. (And a bit of Guillaume)

Unathi, she works with Armand and knows all the parties and places to be!

Thierry. One of Armand's roomy.

Et voila pour un petit tour d'horizon! Evidemment, il y en a d'autres, ms c pour le prochain episode ;);)

Par Celine
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Mardi 11 décembre 2007

Lion Park

Ce week-end, une tentative infructueuse d’approche culturelle : une visite de galerie d’art a Newtown. Oui, nous y étions sur les horaires d’ouverture, mais ne me demandez pas pourquoi, c’était fermé… Nous avons donc fini dans notre incontournable lieu de rencontre ici, un resto/bar…

Heureusement, pour rehausser le coté local de l’aventure, notre excursion du dimanche était une visite au Lion Park !!! Eh oui, j’ai enfin essaye le nouvel objectif de mon appareil photo (160 photos en 3h, no comment)! Et j’adoooore les zèbres !

Ce petit parc est entre le zoo (lionceaux dans des enclos que l’on peut aller caresser) et la réserve naturelle : visite des enclos puis tour en voiture au milieu des animaux. Après s’être fait attaqué par une autruche (on ne dirait pas comme ca, mais c’est méchant ces bestioles…) et avoir attendu qu’une girafe veuille bien sortir de la route, nous avons atterri sur les lions ! Il manquait le coté un peu sauvage et nature (les clôtures étant visibles à peu près partout) mais cela n’enlève rien à la beauté des animaux! J’ai découvert par la même occasion qu’il existait une race de lions blancs ! Magnifique !!!!

But what can that be?! A camel?! He was hardrock!

Me and a white lion baby!

Eh oui, it is quite impressive!

My favorite! So cute!

A white lion. I did not even know it existed!

And another part of the first picture!

Ah, on m'a dit que je devais mettre plus de photos, alors c choses faites ;)

Au prochain épisode : mon arrestation par la police a deux heures du matin… qui sera accompagne par une section sur la sécurité en Afrique du Sud…

Et vous, qu’avez-vous de prévu pour les vacances ?! Pou ma part, un petit tour a Cape Town s’impose ! Un Noel au bord de la mer, ca sonne plutôt bien ;)

Par Celine
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Mardi 11 décembre 2007

Le comble du comble!

Certains jours, on se rend compte de l’extrême organisation et du contrôle des flux au sein des sociétés dans lesquelles nous vivons de nos jours. Cette prise de conscience est souvent véhiculée par l’expérimentation de son contraire : le chaos !

En direct de Johannesburg, j’ai donc teste pour vous la compréhension de l’utilité des feux de circulation (appelés communément ‘robots’, ici !) pendant les 3h de coupure d’électricité généralisée par jour en ce moment (ou comment mettre une heure et demie pour rentrer chez soi au lieu de 7 minutes montre en main !!!). Qui a dit que l’Afrique du Sud était un pays développé ?!!! En effet, la croissance de la consommation d’électricité ayant été sous-estimée et aucun nouvel investissement n’ayant été effectué ces dernières années, la production des centrales ne suffit plus à approvisionner la consommation nationale. Les coupures seront donc régulières ces prochaines années (jusqu’a ce que de nouvelles centrales soient construites… je vous rassure, elles sont prévues …. pour 2011…). Amis des produits frais et autres denrées périssables dans votre frigo, bonjour !

Extrait du site d’Eskom, équivalent sud-af de notre chère EDF…

“When there is not enough electricity available to meet the demand from all Eskom’s customers, it could be necessary to interrupt supply to certain areas. This is called load shedding”.

Et le must du must, dans le journal aujourd’hui: “The Eskom head office was without power from 10am to at least 12.30 yesterday. Eskom load-shedded itself and could not access its own website to check which areas were out”.

PS : un centre commercial plongé dans le noir, c assez intéressant comme expérience et il faut le voir pour le croire ;)
PS 2 : sur ces mots, l’électricité est revenue, et la lumière fut ! Merci Eskom...

Par Celine
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celafsu

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Sawubona! (Hello…)

Existential questions!

Vacances de Noel!

I am cursed…. (about police arrests and closed places)

Elections in South Africa

Security… and life goes on!

Here I come!

Photos en vrac

Lion Park

Le comble du comble!

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