It's Sunday, so of course it's off to work with us. On the way to the mine, I spotted what looked like monkeys by the roadside, ambling along. As we got closer I saw it was the famed baboon tribe, making their twice-daily migration across the valley. I'd never seen baboons in the wild before, so though it was brief the image is burnt in my memory. I must take my camera along if I'm passing by there at that time again.
Once at site, during a casual conversation late in the day I got some pointers on speaking Tswana, the local language here. It seems to be fairly straightforward, with a root word which has a tense syllable after it and some prefixes that give it context. I'm sure it's more complicated once you get into it of course. I've learnt a couple of words... one of the engineers taught me "Gosiame", which means "Goodbye", and online I read "Dumela" is hello. I'll give them a try at work tomorrow. Remembering to pronounce the G in the same as a Russian H will be the trickiest part. I get giggles when I pronounce it like an English G...
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Friday, 28 August 2009
Daily ramblings while working at the mine
Working every day, there's not a lot to report on. I've seen most of the unusual things in between here and work, and photographed them, though not all.
I was told a story about one of the nearby mines. Apparently every day, the conveyor belt carrying iron ore to the plant would stop. Once someone went out to the control shed and flipped the switch, it would start back up. It was happening at the same time every day, and the cause was baffling the people on site, until one of the engineers hid and watched for hours to see what was happening. Along came a tribe of baboons, doing their daily commute across the valley... the head baboon walked up to the control panel, flicked the switch disabling the conveyor belt, and supervised while the females and young safely made their way across the conveyor belt, before following them over.
I had heard of this before, even recalling photos taken of it happening, but wasn't aware that it was here that it had happened, at the Sishen mine. I did see monkeys sitting on the bridge, about where I was told the baboons traversed each day... maybe it's true?
I walked into one of the tea rooms today, and one of the foremen called out to me, wanting to make a bet over whether the Australians would win rugby against South Africa tomorrow. The foreman looks like Michael Clarke (the big guy from Green Mile and Pulp Fiction). So we agreed on a 750ml bottle of whiskey, depending on who won. For the first time in my life, I'll have a reason to find out what the result of a rugby game was. I don't even like whiskey, and my loathing for rugby is well publicised, but it was an amusing interaction so worth it. People seem to be as much into spectator sports here as they are in Australia.
Training one of the staff at the mine site, and I read out the name of one of the workers, and she seemed shocked... "You read Tswana! That name is in Tswana, how did you know it?"... I just read it as it was written, being used to phonetic spellings of names in the roman alphabet from Japan. She was all excited for a few seconds, which made me realise I should learn some Tswana. Someone approached me in the street later as I was on my way to the gym, and asked me if I had a room he could rent, as he'd only just arrived in town from Cape Town and hadn't found a place to stay yet. I apologised that I'm not from the area and wished him well, and he commented, "that's the first time someone has asked me to speak English. Everyone here wants me to speak in Afrikaan". The politics of language here are interesting, and also a bit sad.
I have been going to the gym semi-regularly, as much as work permits, which hasn't been very often this week. My goal is to lose at least 1kg while on this trip... normally I put on weight due to always eating in restaurants, not being able to plan meals, servings being too large, not having access to my normal workarounds to stuffing myself with food at meal times and not having snacks in between. I weighed myself today, and halfway through this trip my weight hasn't changed at all, but at least I haven't gained any yet, which is something.
I've got the car happily driving around and being tracked, drawing circles on the ground and the camera can work out the angle of the ground and roughly how far the car is away. Now I need to move onto a more challenging problem... identifying more than one region in an image, without identifying too many. It's more challenging than I'd initially given it credit for, which is good, giving me a chance to stretch the brain muscles a little.
I was told a story about one of the nearby mines. Apparently every day, the conveyor belt carrying iron ore to the plant would stop. Once someone went out to the control shed and flipped the switch, it would start back up. It was happening at the same time every day, and the cause was baffling the people on site, until one of the engineers hid and watched for hours to see what was happening. Along came a tribe of baboons, doing their daily commute across the valley... the head baboon walked up to the control panel, flicked the switch disabling the conveyor belt, and supervised while the females and young safely made their way across the conveyor belt, before following them over.
I had heard of this before, even recalling photos taken of it happening, but wasn't aware that it was here that it had happened, at the Sishen mine. I did see monkeys sitting on the bridge, about where I was told the baboons traversed each day... maybe it's true?
I walked into one of the tea rooms today, and one of the foremen called out to me, wanting to make a bet over whether the Australians would win rugby against South Africa tomorrow. The foreman looks like Michael Clarke (the big guy from Green Mile and Pulp Fiction). So we agreed on a 750ml bottle of whiskey, depending on who won. For the first time in my life, I'll have a reason to find out what the result of a rugby game was. I don't even like whiskey, and my loathing for rugby is well publicised, but it was an amusing interaction so worth it. People seem to be as much into spectator sports here as they are in Australia.
Training one of the staff at the mine site, and I read out the name of one of the workers, and she seemed shocked... "You read Tswana! That name is in Tswana, how did you know it?"... I just read it as it was written, being used to phonetic spellings of names in the roman alphabet from Japan. She was all excited for a few seconds, which made me realise I should learn some Tswana. Someone approached me in the street later as I was on my way to the gym, and asked me if I had a room he could rent, as he'd only just arrived in town from Cape Town and hadn't found a place to stay yet. I apologised that I'm not from the area and wished him well, and he commented, "that's the first time someone has asked me to speak English. Everyone here wants me to speak in Afrikaan". The politics of language here are interesting, and also a bit sad.
I have been going to the gym semi-regularly, as much as work permits, which hasn't been very often this week. My goal is to lose at least 1kg while on this trip... normally I put on weight due to always eating in restaurants, not being able to plan meals, servings being too large, not having access to my normal workarounds to stuffing myself with food at meal times and not having snacks in between. I weighed myself today, and halfway through this trip my weight hasn't changed at all, but at least I haven't gained any yet, which is something.
I've got the car happily driving around and being tracked, drawing circles on the ground and the camera can work out the angle of the ground and roughly how far the car is away. Now I need to move onto a more challenging problem... identifying more than one region in an image, without identifying too many. It's more challenging than I'd initially given it credit for, which is good, giving me a chance to stretch the brain muscles a little.
Sunday, 23 August 2009
Roaring Sand and the Three Hand Shake
I've spent a few days here in Kathu now, most of the time spent on site. People seem to be very friendly, ready with a smile or a wave, but they do seem to be somewhat wary until you've demonstrated some friendliness. One of the things I noticed was an extended handshake that some of the African people do... I wasn't sure what it was or how to do it until I asked one of them about it and he demonstrated what he called the Three Hand Shake, a common greeting in South Africa. Further north in Africa apparently it is hugs or three kisses, much like the Italians, but down South, the handshake. He also pointed out that some of the older Afrikaans aren't that familiar with the three hand shake, so I was not to expect it when shaking hands with them.
A couple of days ago, I drove the ute (they call them "buckies" here) back from the mine site, where it had been driven around inside the mine. We got back to the Lodge where we are staying, and just as we entered there was an almighty crash. I looked over at Michael and stopped the car, he said "It's the flag, keep going". When driving on a mine site, light vehicles like utes have to have a very high flag on them, so they can be seen above the windrows and other machines and not be run over. We hadn't taken it down from when it was driven on site, and there was an archway at the entrance to the Lodge, and the flag had hit that. I rolled on through the archway and parked, when a very irate guy in a ute pulled up in front of us and got out.
"Didn't you hear the crash? You smashed all the lights!"
Turns out there was a candelabra hung inside the archway, and the flag had bent down then flicked up and hit it, smashing two of the lights in it. Whoops! I apologised and he said "It's okay, I just had to yell and get it out of my system. I hate those damned flags!"
Looking at it later, there's several marks in the archway... we're not the first to do it, it seems.
This morning I went with Harry down to a place one of the dealer staff recommended we visit, called Witsand or Brulsand... White Sand or Roaring Sand in English. It's a region of rolling white sand dunes, in the middle of the dark red Kalahari desert. Its colour is distinct, and striated in places with the red sands of its surroundings, but the most distinctive point is the "roaring" it is said to do.
We stopped in at the reception center, paid a nominal fee for visiting the park, and borrowed a couple of bicycles and headed first down a walking track. I've never tried to ride a bicycle through sand before, and now I know why... I didn't fall, but I came off plenty of times and whenever the sand got deep, we had to walk. There was an open air museum, with a few artifacts from when farming was done in the area, and a graveyard from about 70 years ago... only one grave had a headstone, the rest are believed to be relatives of that person. Riding the bike was really hard work, and I was glad I'd spent all those hours on the exercise bike in the gym or I'd have had a much more difficult time.
We then returned, much to the amazement of the staff at the center.... "Don't tell me you rode the whole way? It's called a walking track for a reason!" and I had to agree, it was pretty tough going. We got in the car and went around to the Brulsand section. There was another carload of people there ahead of us, and we climbed up the dune, it was about 30-40 metres high and tough going. No roaring sounds though... we walked around a bit, I got some photos of the spectacular vista, then we headed back. Just as we were about to get in the car and go, we said hello to the other group, and they told us to go off the track a little and try the dune there, to hear the roaring, so we did.
I was expecting to hear the same kind of squeaking sound you get walking on dry sand. What I got was something quite different. Climbing up the dune at that spot, I started hearing a faint groan with each step (not me and not Harry, though it was hard going walking up a dune!). It got louder as I moved higher up the dune, and continued for several seconds after each footfall. It was deeper, both in tone and in location, than the squeaking you get walking on sand. While it wasn't an all-out roar for us, it was certainly a new experience, and one I'm glad to have. I took a video of it, and will need to see if it managed to capture the tone of the sound.
Standing on the top of the dune, I remarked aloud to myself, that this job is taking me to the strangest places... first I went north of the Arctic Circle, and now I'm in the Kalahari desert. Few jobs for a software guy offer that kind of adventure. It makes me keen to do as good a job as I can, so I continue to be sent.
After that, we headed back to town, and I got to work.
I'll update this with photos later.
A couple of days ago, I drove the ute (they call them "buckies" here) back from the mine site, where it had been driven around inside the mine. We got back to the Lodge where we are staying, and just as we entered there was an almighty crash. I looked over at Michael and stopped the car, he said "It's the flag, keep going". When driving on a mine site, light vehicles like utes have to have a very high flag on them, so they can be seen above the windrows and other machines and not be run over. We hadn't taken it down from when it was driven on site, and there was an archway at the entrance to the Lodge, and the flag had hit that. I rolled on through the archway and parked, when a very irate guy in a ute pulled up in front of us and got out.
"Didn't you hear the crash? You smashed all the lights!"
Turns out there was a candelabra hung inside the archway, and the flag had bent down then flicked up and hit it, smashing two of the lights in it. Whoops! I apologised and he said "It's okay, I just had to yell and get it out of my system. I hate those damned flags!"
Looking at it later, there's several marks in the archway... we're not the first to do it, it seems.
This morning I went with Harry down to a place one of the dealer staff recommended we visit, called Witsand or Brulsand... White Sand or Roaring Sand in English. It's a region of rolling white sand dunes, in the middle of the dark red Kalahari desert. Its colour is distinct, and striated in places with the red sands of its surroundings, but the most distinctive point is the "roaring" it is said to do.
We stopped in at the reception center, paid a nominal fee for visiting the park, and borrowed a couple of bicycles and headed first down a walking track. I've never tried to ride a bicycle through sand before, and now I know why... I didn't fall, but I came off plenty of times and whenever the sand got deep, we had to walk. There was an open air museum, with a few artifacts from when farming was done in the area, and a graveyard from about 70 years ago... only one grave had a headstone, the rest are believed to be relatives of that person. Riding the bike was really hard work, and I was glad I'd spent all those hours on the exercise bike in the gym or I'd have had a much more difficult time.
We then returned, much to the amazement of the staff at the center.... "Don't tell me you rode the whole way? It's called a walking track for a reason!" and I had to agree, it was pretty tough going. We got in the car and went around to the Brulsand section. There was another carload of people there ahead of us, and we climbed up the dune, it was about 30-40 metres high and tough going. No roaring sounds though... we walked around a bit, I got some photos of the spectacular vista, then we headed back. Just as we were about to get in the car and go, we said hello to the other group, and they told us to go off the track a little and try the dune there, to hear the roaring, so we did.
I was expecting to hear the same kind of squeaking sound you get walking on dry sand. What I got was something quite different. Climbing up the dune at that spot, I started hearing a faint groan with each step (not me and not Harry, though it was hard going walking up a dune!). It got louder as I moved higher up the dune, and continued for several seconds after each footfall. It was deeper, both in tone and in location, than the squeaking you get walking on sand. While it wasn't an all-out roar for us, it was certainly a new experience, and one I'm glad to have. I took a video of it, and will need to see if it managed to capture the tone of the sound.
Standing on the top of the dune, I remarked aloud to myself, that this job is taking me to the strangest places... first I went north of the Arctic Circle, and now I'm in the Kalahari desert. Few jobs for a software guy offer that kind of adventure. It makes me keen to do as good a job as I can, so I continue to be sent.
After that, we headed back to town, and I got to work.
I'll update this with photos later.
Monday, 17 August 2009
Jo'burg, sorta
So I'm sitting in my hotel room in Johannesburg now, having arrived here just over 4 hours ago. I'm in some gated community, a complex with a casino and hotels, shops, restaurants all around. I'm feeling a bit punchdrunk from the trip... 14 hour flight with precious little sleep, an hour or two in the middle at best. It would've been better if the laptop didn't overload the plane's power supply, causing it to shut down... they mustn't be rated to supply 2.5 Amps. I got by with movies (Wolverine), a book ("The Dreaming Void" by Peter F. Hamilton), and episodes of "The IT Crowd", the Simpsons and Family Guy, without feeling too bored.
I did peek out the window at Africa as we flew over, but it bears a close resemblance to rural Australia. The villages are different though... shiny metallic structures laid out in regular rows, I've not seen one up close yet.
I don't know if it's a cultural thing, the limited exposure I've had so far, or just that I've only interacted with airport and hotel staff so far... people seem to look away once the initial contact is made, looking around and scanning the area while continuing to talk to you, it's a little unusual. Will find out what the cause is over the next few weeks.
Tomorrow I have the long drive to site... 7-8 hours in the car. Internet will become sporadic at that point, so this might be my last post for a while. I must go to sleep now though, I'm really getting dozy.
One last thing though... I perfected the hardware side of the project, took some photos for reference then packed it all up. Now I'm onto the software side of things... vastly more challenging.
I did peek out the window at Africa as we flew over, but it bears a close resemblance to rural Australia. The villages are different though... shiny metallic structures laid out in regular rows, I've not seen one up close yet.
I don't know if it's a cultural thing, the limited exposure I've had so far, or just that I've only interacted with airport and hotel staff so far... people seem to look away once the initial contact is made, looking around and scanning the area while continuing to talk to you, it's a little unusual. Will find out what the cause is over the next few weeks.
Tomorrow I have the long drive to site... 7-8 hours in the car. Internet will become sporadic at that point, so this might be my last post for a while. I must go to sleep now though, I'm really getting dozy.
One last thing though... I perfected the hardware side of the project, took some photos for reference then packed it all up. Now I'm onto the software side of things... vastly more challenging.
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Back on the road again
I'll be back on the road again soon... I'm heading to South Africa for work on Monday, out to a place called Kathu. I'll be there for a month, and internet access is very limited, verging on non-existent, I'm told. I'll be taking my electronics gear with me, so I have something to play around with to keep me entertained outside of work. I've gotten the system to the point where I can press a key on the keyboard and the remote control car will move... but I need to rewire it, it isn't working predictably.
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