OK, the blog is a little out of date because I’ve been working. I mean it! I’m not kidding! My days have been starting at 7:00 – 8:00 a.m. every day (weekends included; in fact, I had to met everybody at 5:15 a.m. in the hotel lobby so we could catch our flight from Namibia to South Africa). This has been murder on my body clock…which includes a natural “snooze” feature when I have to wake up before sunrise!Anyway, we left Namibia VERY early in the morning so that we could get to the airport and hang around waiting for the Namibia Airways staff to arrive so they could check us in. We were there a good hour before they showed up.
Namibia Air is a tiny outfit. They have exactly four planes. This morning, three of the planes were parked on the tarmac, as the airport here doesn’t have boarding gates. We had to walk across the tarmac to the planes after clearing security. I managed to pull out my camera and take some footage as we neared our aircraft. It was pretty cool seeing such a large plane from this angle. In the U.S., passengers are never allowed to approach a plane like this without armed guards surrounding them.
Two hours later, we landed in Johannesburg. They issued me a 1-year visa, which I thought was quite generous. Our host, Mario, the crazed faux-Cuban, proudly drove us around the city and explained that the neighborhoods with the high brick walls, topped with electrical fencing wrapped around barbed-wire, broken glass, and used hospital needles are the “safe” areas where people live. The “really safe” areas have walls with machine gun nests and guards equipped with RPG’s.
So, welcome to Johannesburg; a city with two populations. The wealthy white people live in fortified mini-cities. The rest of the population live in squalor.
It is easy to judge this situation on its surface, but that would be unfair. Grossly unfair. Many of the blacks are from other African nations…like Nigeria, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. There are no controls at the borders. The people who cross them at will are illiterate, homeless, and have no skills. They arrive by the tens of thousands with no means of support. So, they turn to crime. Often violent crime.
The Johannesburg newspaper is a very depressing thing to read. On the front page is a description of the daily shootings, stabbings, and beatings that occurred the day before. Pages two and three cover the recent armed robberies, batteries, and car-jackings. Pages five and six are devoted to rapes, assaults, and petit theft. The funnies are on page seven.
Despite its problems, Johannesburg is a beautiful place. There are purple trees everywhere. Mario told me the name of these trees, but it’s impossible to pronounce or spell because an Afrikaans word (or possibly Swahili…I don’t know). Anyway, they are deep purple in color…like they came off the set of the Telly Tubbies.
There are also big piles of dirt everywhere around the city. When I say “piles,” I really mean small mountains…many of them more than 100 feet high. I was told that these are where they pile the dirt they dig from the gold mines. By the looks of it, there are scores and scores of huge gold mines all around the city.
Mario drove us straight to the international headquarters of CSX (the company he runs). It’s an impressive building in the middle of a business park. It looks like it was built in an old factory. The cubicle areas are open, the ceilings go up three stories, the air conditioning ducts are exposed. But looks can be deceiving; they told us that it was designed from the beginning to look like it had been retrofitted from an old warehouse. Seems to me like it would have been cheaper to find an old warehouse from the beginning…
My boss and I met with their sales staff, and I did a song and dance for them. I wowed them with our latest products, and they seemed genuinely excited about the new opportunities these products can generate. A few hours later, we were whisked to our hotel.
I happen to be “Diamond” status with the Hilton hotel chain…I stay with them a lot. When we were checking in, I was asked to sign a receipt for 9,900 Rand. I had no idea what this was worth in American currency. I signed it and went to my room.
My “room” turned out to be a suite…with its own swimming pool, butler room, 12-seat dining table, private movie theater, and a helicopter pad. Perhaps I exaggerate a little, but when I did the calculation, 9,900 Rand turned out to be $1,326.19! In a panic, I picked up the phone (before I touched anything else in the room), and called my boss’ cell phone. No answer! I send a text message. I called his room. Still no answer. So, I decided to settle in to the most expensive hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. I drank the complimentary bottle of Champaign—and consequently didn’t care how much the room costs. I enjoyed a massage (including the famous “Hilton Happy Ending”)! And I curled up in my luxurious covers for a quick nap.
After a while, we were picked up by our distributors and driven to an amazing restaurant on the other side of town. It’s modeled after a Brazilian churrascarias, where they bring skewers of meat to your table, carve off slabs that fall onto your plate, and have medics on standby should the cholesterol rush overwhelm your arteries.
The meal was wonderful, and the wine and beer flowed freely. We got to really know our distributors and had a great time. Somehow, the group talked me into getting on stage and dancing with a professional terpsichean (yes, that’s a word and a profession…go look it up!). Eventually, the crowd started yelling for me to “take it off,” and much to my surprise, I did! Yep…I was dancing with this hot chick (old enough to by my mom… but still hot) there on stage without a shirt. Don’t believe me? Well, you’ll have to watch the video all the way to the end…
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