Thursday 4 March 2010

Today we held a meeting in Ratanda, myself and Hanolet wanted to meet with some new intakes to get the details on their businesses.
The meeting took place inside an office used by a taxi-business owner, while Hanolet took them through the basic introduction i had the chance to wander around a bit, one thing that caught my eye was a shrine-like display of photos on the wall opposite the entrance, the photographs pictured different cars (used as taxi's?) all destroyed in car accidents! pretty intense!
I wasn't sure if these pictures where part of an awareness campaign or just memorabilia belonging to the taxi owner...but it's like posting 'recent deaths' certificates outside a doctors room.. cant be good for business right?!
During the interviews the subject of Jacob Zuma came up somehow, the people at the meeting all expressing their views on the Presidents....habits. "Him having lots of wives and the things he does...It's just culture, people won't understand.." This is not a political blog and i didn't vote, so i don't really have an opinion.
Once we had explained and recieved all the relative info to the guys attending the meeting we had to drive through to another meeting at the Heidelberg Taxi Rank.
The man we where meeting wanted us to come to him, not the other way round..think it's something to do with 'displaying dominance' or something...?
He's a middle aged African man, relatively well spoken and extremely difficult, thankfully Hanolet has the patience of a brick and deals with these characters better than i ever could!
After satisfying his curiosity and answering the many questions, it was arranged that we would all meet again (at a place he specified) next week to continue with taking the details of his team.
We managed to escape the taxi rank, the car was still there, and headed back to civilization! Some interesting people around, the more time i spend with them the more i wonder if i'll ever fully understand some of them! it's a cultural mixing pot out there! Not sure what's on for tomorrow..but you will know when i do!