The Diary of a Reluctant Management Consultant

South Africa, found rather cunningly at the southern end of Africa

With only four sleeps to go until the start of the Soccer World Cup, tourists from all over the world are making their way to South Africa, eager to follow their teams through this beautiful country of ours. But South Africa is not your regular, run-of-the-mill-we-have-public-transport-and-electricity countries. So, as a service to all the visitors arriving this week, here are my top tips for the month ahead:

• The name of our country, South Africa, is quite a clever little clue indicating exactly where you can find us, i.e. the southern bit of Africa. This tip is particularly for the American I met on the plane in February who, when I said I was from South Africa wanted to know “so, where in Africa would I find that?” The southern part, I believe.
• South Africa is a big country, roughly about three times the size of Germany. We have game parks the size of England. Thus, our cities aren’t all within an hour’s driving distance. In fact, with the traffic, even the cities that are within an hour’s driving distance aren’t an hour apart!
• It’s winter in South Africa. Most photographs or short, promotional videos of South Africa always have us basking in the African sunshine, frolicking in oceans and barbecuing with people of different races. This is true for most of the year, but winter here can actually be quite cold. It snows in certain parts and the mercury drops to below freezing in several places, particularly overnight. So, if you’re going to an evening game in Johannesburg or even worse, Bloemfontein, you may want to wear something warm, unless you’re from Yorkshire, in which case a t-shirt will suffice.
• As private vehicles will be prevented from accessing the stadia (or ‘stadiums’ if you went to a government school), you will need to take a “park ‘n ride” bus or a minibus taxi to get to the game. Public transport here is not quite as organised as you might find it in your home country, so please do not be perturbed if your bus is late or if your taxi drives up a one way, hooting annoyingly at all the cars driving in the opposite, but correct, direction. Rather conveniently though, taxis will stop to pick you up on the side of a five lane highway.
• When South Africans tell you we have robots at every major intersection, it’s not that we’ve automated everything, it’s because we call traffic lights ‘robots’. We don’t know why either. They don’t normally work.
• ‘Now’, ‘just now’ and ‘now now’ are all used interchangeably, and contrary to what you might think, none of them mean ‘immediately’ but rather refer to some arbitrary time in the future, anywhere between now and next Thursday.
• Beware soccer hooligans: the South African Police does not have a reputation for having a kind and caring approach for dealing with unruly behaviour. They have guns and use them regularly, sometimes even for police-related matters.
• South Africa’s real treasure is that great man Nelson Mandela. If you’d like to take in some of Nelson Mandela’s “Madiba Magic”, please feel free to take Nelson Mandela Drive, go across the Nelson Mandela Bridge, shop at Nelson Mandela Square, visit Nelson Mandela Bay and catch a show at the Nelson Mandela Theatre.
• We use the metric system, so please beware. When the speed limit on highway says 120, that’s kilometres per hour rather than miles per hour. We also drive on the right side of the road, i.e. the left, unless of course you’re in the aforementioned minibus taxi in which case you might find yourself going at 120 miles per hour on the wrong side of the road. Welcome to South Africa. Please enjoy your stay!