Arrived in South Africa – Aug 1-2, 2011

Elizabeth and I arrived in Cape Town on Monday, and basically crashed due to the long, 18-hour flight. The trip over the Atlantic seems short compared to the Amsterdam to Cape Town flight. We were literally at the bottom of Africa, at the point where two oceans meet: Atlantic, meet Indian. We started our trip by flying straight to Johannesburg on Tuesday. After getting settled, we visited the Joburg office of our South African partner, Faculty Training Institute. The head of FTI, Steve Erlank, showed us around and we got to see their preparation. Very impressive with three training rooms, offices, a kitchen, and huge cafeteria for students.

Training in South Africa is mostly the same as it is in the US. One difference is that FTI runs 6-month long programs in business analysis, with some of the training in the daytime and most of it evenings or weekends. They have some “short courses” like we do, but the longer program gives students more depth and more time to apply their new skills. I wish American organizations could be more patient like this! Steve and part of his Johannesburg team are shown in the photo.

We made sure our training rooms were set for the two classes we would teach/observe, and returned to our hotel. It’s a bit of a drive to and from the training center, and the traffic is hectic like in the US. Luckily, Steve drove us, especially since they drive on the left here. We felt right at home with most other things, and are anxious to meet our African students. Look for more posts to follow.