Economist article that reinforces my point in ‘The End’

Race in South Africa

When dogs don’t bark
Aug 30th 2001 | JOHANNESBURG
From The Economist print edition

As South Africa plays host to the third UN conference on racism, how much progress has it made itself?

AP

Not equal yet

UNLIKE people, a dog that is a racist cannot hide the fact. Your correspondent’s dog, without any encouragement from past owners, barks ferociously at black people but merely slobbers at whites. Ingozi—the name means “danger” in Zulu—guards a house in a wealthy, mostly white, suburb of Johannesburg. In common with many South African dogs, he has inherited the assumption that any approaching blacks may be robbers.

Ingozi’s instincts are a reminder that old racial animosities still fester in South Africa beneath a brighter surface. In many ways, since the first all-race elections in 1994, the country has made a remarkable transformation from the world’s most openly racist society into a tolerant and democratic one. These days, instead of waving the old (apartheid) South African flag, Afrikaners at rugby matches paint the rainbow flag on their faces. A new black elite mingles with other races in Johannesburg’s malls and restaurants. Television dramas, comedy shows and newspaper cartoons all dare to poke fun at race relations, a sign of a society now a lot more at ease with itself.

The End.

Today, some of us went shark diving near Hermanus.  I think all of us but 2 or 3 were seasick.  We did manage to see three or four sharks though.  The sea was rough and we were actually in the water, were bouncing around in a steel cage dunking our heads under the water when the dive master instructed us to do so. They threw out a rope with fish meat attached to attract the sharks to an area around the cage to give you and up close and personal encounter with the ‘great white’.

The program officially comes to an end tomorrow, but my time here has definitely left some lasting memories and professional skills related to small business consulting in South Africa.  One of the lasting memories that I have thought of again and again during my time here is how an areas like Stellenbosch, the Cape Flats and Cape Town are so different and allow you a make stark comparisons of some pieces of South Africa that don’t necessarily fit together very nicely.  For instance, our bus driver from Cape Town brought along his dog ‘Lucky’ for our trip to Hermanus today. After ‘Lucky’ snapped at a guy on the road trying to sell cell phone chargers to each passer-by, the driver said to us ‘Lucky’ doesn’t like black people.

Unfortunately, ‘Lucky’ isn’t the only one that suffers from stress caused by the company of ‘others’. There are xenophobic people everywhere in the world but

Masikhule Steel Works

We finished our final report for our client today highlighting our deliverables over the past 6 weeks as well as recommendations to achieve future growth targets and better management practices for the business life span.  Last Thursday, 27 July, we visited three schools in Khayelitsha with our client and two sales were made.  We sensed the excitement from our client as he told us how motivated he has become seeing that he could go out and make two sales in one morning. It may have helped having Rebecca and myself by our client’s side but we tried to interject as little as possible during the discussions we had with the school principals. Now, these are three new contacts for our client that he can keep in touch with for future reference and follow up.

Ikaya Trust

We are now wrapping up our engagement with the Trust Center and have learned a lot of lessons from the whole experience.  The homestay tourism project stands to gain from further involvement if upcoming donor funds are used optimally to increase the network of the Center with other NGOs as well as private tourism businesses.  The Indaba Tourism conference/exhibition runs yearly in Durban and KwaZulu-Natal. Attending this exhibition with representatives from the homestays would reap potential relationships with tourism planners, retail and group tourism agents as well as other tourism destinations that focus on township visits elsewhere.

Ikaya Trust Center

I met with six ladies who operate homestays in Kayamandi today.  Mrs. E Swartbooi, Ezme Makhalima, Kholeka Fingo, Valencia Mgijima, Julia Zulu and Patricia Mayakiso

have all been hosting volunteers and other visitors for the past couple of years. The center and municipality would like the women to upgrade their homestays to the level of bed and breakfast and all have received hospitality and tourism training funded by an organization called Boland. THe women do not see themselves becoming bed and breakfast businesses and want to remain the way they are.  Kholeka said a bed and breakfast would not be “a home away from home” and as she sees it, the homestays are there to welcome the visitor into the home, where a family goes about its day as usual while providing for the guests in African fashion.

We are meeting with the women again on Thursday at 1pm at there homes to take photos and learn more about each woman’s homestay experience and what each plans on doing to make their individual experience a memorable one. 

Masikhule Steel Works

We met with the owner of Masikhule today and he was receptive to the logo we presented him that will be stenciled and painted on his finished products with customer approval.

The owner is meeting with the man who is preparing his business plan for him tomorrow, Tuesday,  and we are meeting with him on Thursday to visit some schools in Mfuleni and Khayelitsha where he feels there are potential jobs. When a customer came today that needed to have his muffler repaired, the owner fixed the muffler for R 25 but did not record anything in the books. We have to still work on getting the idea into the owner’s head that every transaction should be recorded to see what the real earnings of the business are.

Branding Masikhule

One of our partners in the program came up with a cost effective and creative idea for putting a logo on our client’s products. We’ve been thinking of a way to use some of the scrap metal that the client has lying around and using it as a welding piece to place on the door or window frames and bars that he makes. Initially, I had the idea of finding someone to supply outdoor stickers with a graphic design for a backdrop with ‘Masikhule Steelworks’ and the phone number on the label.

The problem with this route is the cost and the reliance on a supplier that we never located in the first place. SO the new idea is this. We still recommend using scrap metal for a diamond, oval or square shaped weld but now, instead of a sticker, we will make a stencil out of some durable plastic and spraypaint onto the welded scrap the business name and number. A silver galvanized security door with a blue welded piece placed directly at eye level for the future customer to become acquainted with ‘Masikhule Steelworks’.

Ikaya Trust

Today, Dustin and I went to pay a visit to the centre and met with the restaurant owner ‘Roots’. Roots is being backed by four business people from the Stellenbosch area in his venture of opening up an African cuisine restaurant in Kayamandi.  We were there to see how he planned on collaborating with the centre and its activities.

Its clear that there may not be much. Besides assisting the crafts people to gain exposure with any influx of visitors that takes place after the opening in September, the owner expressed no willingness to have anyone at the centre controlling any aspect of his operations.

We are putting together a booklet for the homestays that Ikaya assists in terms of booking and advertising. We will shoot some photos of each one of the ten homestay mothers’ houses and write up a short profile for each.

 Photos of Cape Town’s skyline, Robben Island and Downtown

Masikhule Steel Works

Today we visited Lolo’s supplier in Mitchell’s Plain. The name of the company is Steel World and Lolo buys most of his materials there including tubing, screws, hinges, primer, paint, cutting blades and welding rods. This is the type of company Lolo would like to see himself in someday. How effectively he would position himself within this industry is questionable given the capacity of his current operations.

Lolo has been very receptive to our pricing recommendations of 15% above total costs. We still have to do a break-even analysis to find out how much Lolo needs to earn in any given month to cover all monthly costs of operation. We have also discussed possible marketing/advertising strategies which we will carry out in our next session, beginning with walking around Mfuleni distributing pamphlets that Lolo has made copies of at the local primary school.