My Experience in Pretoria and JHB

As research assistants working under the supervision of Prof. Nirvana Bechan, we had been instructed to conduct interviews with various ambassadors in Pretoria. The research topic that was under discussion was nuclear exploration, particularly the affects that it has on international communications and how countries such as China, Netherlands and France are affected by North Korea and Iran who are actively involved in nuclear exploration.
The first step was to compile a formal letter that provided information such as who we were, our request to interview the ambassador and what the purpose of the research was. It was indeed a topic that scared many countries and resulted in a negative response. Traviss and myself also compiled a list of embassy’s and proceeded to making contact with them. At first it seemed like an impossible task as ambassadors where either too busy, overseas or on holiday and could not accommodate us in the first week of October 2010. After weeks of phone calls and correspondence via email we successfully confirmed four embassy’s in Pretoria which were Argentina, Netherlands, South Korea and Norway. We compiled a list of questions which would be directed to the ambassadors, these dealt with three sub topics which were international relations, the activities of an ambassador and nuclear exploration.
I think the biggest motivator for myself and Traviss was the fact that we would have the opportunity to travel to Johannesburg by air, be exposed to different cultures and meet ambassadors of different countries. Prof. Nirvana Bechan confirmed that we would be going to Johannesburg on the 5th of October 2010 on the 05:45 flight and would return on 6th October 2010 on the 19:00 flight. We had been booked into the Southern Sun Hotel where each of us had our own room with a flat screen television and a bath and shower, but nothing could replace my bed and pillow at home when I woke up several times in the same night. My experience on the flight was so exciting, everyone around me was sleeping and I was having an adrenaline rush, looking outside through the window and patiently waiting for takeoff.
The experience has taught me so much, firstly when I was younger, I always wanted to be an air hostess and on the morning of the 5th October I realised it was one of the worst jobs one could do and that these individuals were nothing more than glorified waitresses having to deal with impatient and difficult individuals on the aircraft.
On a lighter note, we had such a lovely and spacious car that safely took us to Pretoria with the help of a GPS (you saved our lives). The interviews with the ambassadors and diplomats provided us with such knowledgeable information that we would not be able to find in any academic material and has greatly improved our interview skills. We had learnt valuable information like Ambassadors and diplomats only stay in a country for a period of 3-5 years and have to return to the country that they are originally from and apply with Foreign Affairs to be sent to another country. The job truly requires the ambassador to have passion for people which was evident in every interview, even though our cultures and backgrounds we different there was a common understanding. These ambassadors and diplomats are really passionate about their countries and genuinely wanted to help us in gathering sufficient information on our research topic.
When interviewing the ambassadors one realises how severely these countries are affected by North Korea’s involvement in nuclear exploration giving particular reference to what Ambassador Kim had said about a South Korean house wife who stepped on the North Korean border and was murdered which gives us an indication of no respect for human life because the people of North Korea are starving and their focus is on producing nuclear arms.
Johannesburg and Pretoria is so different from Cape Town, all the roads look the same and there are so many one ways. There are huge buildings everywhere and everyone is in a rush to some or other place. In Cape Town all you have to do is look to the mountain to find your way home and travelling to a destination does not have more than 2-3 different routes.
Overall I had an amazing learning experience and I look forward to travelling the world in future and meeting people of diverse cultures.