During the course of my training, I travelled to a number of areas outside Pretoria e.g. Johannesburg, Bronkhorstpruit, Polo-kwane, Rustenburg, Welkom, Bloemfontein, Kimberly, Durban, Lichtenburg, Ventersdorp, Mafikeng and Port Elizabeth.

In October 1997, I went to Witbank but I do not recall the specific reason for going there. What I do remember though, is that when I resigned from Duiker Mining at the end of July 1997, I could not take all my belongings at once, so at that time I still needed to check on my ex-colleague, with whom I had left my belongings. The day I got to Witbank, whilst waiting in a taxi in town, I borrowed the Sowetan newspaper from someone to look at the classifieds section. The Sowetan was not even my favourite newspaper for job searches, but that day I had the urge to look at it. Then suddenly, I saw a small advert in the classifieds section, wherein a Pretoria-based recruitment agency was looking for a B.Com graduate to serve articles at a prestigious accounting firm in Pretoria. I looked for someone who could lend me a pen and took down the contact details.

Later, I called the agency and arranged for an interview with them. I was so surprised and at the same time very excited to discover that the accounting firm was actually Deloitte Pretoria. Deloitte had always been my favourite accounting firm and they had given me vacation jobs twice in Durban. The term accounting firm is used interchangeably with auditing or audit firm.

After returning from Witbank, I had an interview with the recruitment agent in Pretoria. She was very impressed with my credentials because I had done some vacation jobs at more than one accounting firms, and she later faxed my CV to Deloitte and arranged an interview for. At the time I was staying with my eldest brother Dumisani, who was famously known as 'Queen Victoria' when he was younger. He was a police man and lived in Tsakane, Springs. My trip to the first interview was a disaster. I used a train from Germiston to Pretoria because it was cheaper. I woke up very early to prepare myself, around 4 am. I took a taxi from Tsakane to Brakpan, another one from Brakpan to Germiston, and then a train from Germiston. The most dramatic part of the trip was with the train trip. As a young boy, whilst reading Zulu short story books, I had learned that the trains had first class and third class, but at the time of my trip I did not think there was still that distinction.

Because I was going to an interview, I was wearing a dark suit, a cream long sleeved shirt, a tie and I was carrying a nice executive folder. When I bought my ticket I never realised what type of ticket it was. Upon reaching the Pretoria platform, I asked the people who were waiting there if I was at the right platform, and they confirmed that I was. Little did I know that I was actually in the first class section but I had a third class ticket. Later on, I realised that it was mostly people dressed formally who were waiting there. Most people were going further down but still on the same level as us. When the train arrived there was commotion, and people just got into any train coach. Our coach was very nice with comfortable grey seats, but many people just jumped in and we were squashed.

At the very next stop, I witnessed something which seemed strange to me. People were jumping out of our coach and running to the other coaches in front, but still on the same train. When I enquired what that was about, I was told that the "runners" were third class ticket holders going to their right coaches, to avoid being fined by ticket examiners. Curiously, I checked my ticket and realised that it was also for the third class coach. Basically, I needed to run too, but looking at how I was dressed, I just could not imagine myself running down to the third class coach. So I sat, waiting for the ticket examiners, thinking that I would simply upgrade my third class ticket. When the ticket examiners arrived, I was told that it was not a matter of topping up with the shortage, I had to pay a fine of R10, which was a big amount because I only had enough money for my return trip.

The interview was scheduled for 9h00 but the train arrived late at the Pretoria station. After disembarking, I started running down towards the Menlyn taxi rank at Van de Waldt street. Along the way I stopped at the public phones that I found and called Deloitte, to inform them of my delay. At Van der Waldt I got into a taxi that was going to Menlyn and waited for it to be full. After the taxi left the CBD going through Sunnyside I informed the driver that I would be getting off around Brooklyn (about halfway towards Menlyn), and the taxi driver asked me why I had not spoken earlier as the taxi was taking a different route. It was too late to get off, so I told the driver to continue. However, that meant that I would get off around Hatfield, very far from Brooklyn, and I was already late for my interview.

When I finally got off the taxi, I started running up the road from Hatfield towards Brooklyn. I was praying for a bus or taxi to come by, and God answered my prayer. A few minutes later, a bus came by and fortunately I was not far from the bus stop at that point. The bus dropped me off just opposite the Deloitte offices. The HR officer, Jonelda Verhoef was actually very surprised when I arrived much earlier than she anticipated, given my earlier call notifying her of my delay in town. At the end of the interview, I told the HR officer that due to being fined in the train, I no longer had enough money for my trip back home, because of the fine by the ticket examiner on the train. She gave me money from petty cash, and I went home wondering if they would still hire me after all the drama.

When I got Bosman train station, I made sure that I bought the right ticket. Along the way, when the ticket examiners approached to check the tickets I proudly produced my ticket, and some guy who had sneaked into our coach without a valid ticket, and a security guard had to be called to assist in taking him out of the coach as he was resisting. At the time I was sitting comfortably, unlike in the morning when I was worried about fine I had received, also wondering about not having enough money to go back.

Not long after the first Deloitte interview, I was called for the second interview and I was later offered a training contract, which started in January 1998. I was a very happy man as I could see my dreams falling into place. I had completed my degree despite all odds, and there I was joining one of the prestigious auditing firms in South Africa, and the world!

It was on Saturday the 3rd January 1998, when I arrived at my temporary place of residence, a flat in Sunnyside called Santa Maria, and I was due to start my articles on Monday the 5th. I was basically a squatter in a flat which was shared by two of my former classmates at University of Durban-Westville, Solly Segoa and Headman Manziya. I speak more about these two gentlemen later.

I am very proud to have been a product of Deloitte Pretoria. I learnt a lot of things that set a good foundation for me as a professional accountant and auditor. The not so good experiences and incidents that I talk about in this chapter, are not aimed at painting a bad picture about my training at the Deloitte Pretoria office, but to share the experiences, good and not so good, that one went through at that point in time.

When I started my articles in the first week of January, I was part of a group of fellow new trainees, the majority of whom were white, and mostly Afrikaans speaking. Our induction took the whole week, and we were given a detailed overview of the Deloitte Pretoria Office, the Deloitte philosophy, the AS2 audit methodology, the human resources policies and processes etc. It was exciting. The week following the induction, a bunch of us were assigned to a client called Landbank in the Pretoria CBD, and my first assignment was to audit Bank & Cash. In that same week, we were also given computer training which focused on Windows 95, MS Word and Excel.

During our training at Deloitte, we audited many clients and that required of us to travel to various locations where those clients were based. During the course of the training, I travelled to the following areas outside Pretoria e.g. Johannesburg, Bronkhorstspruit, Polokwane, Rustenburg, Welkom, Bloemfontein, Kimberly, Durban, Lichtenburg, Ventersdorp, Mafikeng and Port Elizabeth. This extensive travelling and interaction with different companies and government departments, ensured that one dealt with a number of different issues specific to those companies. The clients that I worked on, included amongst others, National Olympic Committee of South Africa (NOCSA), Heystekrand Furniture Factory, Landbank, Civil Aviation, Department of Public Administration, Department of Defence Force, Department of Correctional Services, Vodacom, Firstrand Bank, Corporate Warranty Administrators, De Beers, Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Gauteng Department of Housing, Infotech, Reutech Systems and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Some of the clients we got involved in, were not necessarily those of the Deloitte Pretoria office.

Because the audit assignments that we conducted were mainly focused on the review of the annual financial statements in line with the auditing standard, in order to express an opinion on the fairness of those financial statements. For those who do not necessarily have a detailed understanding of accounting, the financial statements basically comprise of income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. However, overtime, as more developments have happened in the field of accounting and auditing, more guidelines have brought about new terminologies but whatever terminologies are used the base is still the same. At the end of the day, every entity must be able to support the figures that are contained in their financial statements. It must be noted however, that auditors do not check every transaction, but sample transactions for testing.

The audits that we conducted at Deloitte were therefore based on the lowest components of the financial statements i.e. debtors, creditors, bank and cash, inventory, fixed assets, income and expenditure etc. Most of the basic tasks that required a lot of run arounds and checking of supporting documentation were always assigned to junior auditors, whilst the more completed aspects were handled by senior personnel. When auditing other components, we also needed to do physical verification or third party confirmation. For example, in the case of inventory or stock, we used would also do stock counts or stocktaking. That was a process where all the stock on hand at the end of the financial year end would be physically counted. So, if there were physical stores that sold the stock, or warehouses where they would be distributed from, they were basically closed so all the stock could be counted. In the case of bank balances and investments that the business would have recorded in its books, we would request written confirmation from the financial institutions which would be sent directly to us as the audit team. When auditing the payroll function, one of the tests we conducted involved confirming the existence of employees. This involved selecting a sample of names of employees from the employee listing and confirming their existence by meeting them in person and

checking their identity documents.

At one of the first clients that I audited, shortly after starting my articles, I was assigned to audit a portion of the debtors section. I proceeded to do what every auditor was expected to do, that is going through the prior year audit file, confirming the audit programmes with the auditor in charge etc. The tricky part was that even the auditor in charge or supervisor would also be busy conducting their own portions of the audit, as a result, when the new auditors asked too many questions, sometimes they would simply be referred to the prior year audit file for guidance. Therefore, in case in point, having satisfied myself that I was ready to conduct the audit, I requested to meet with the Finance Manager, a middle aged Afrikaans man, who was friendly. Because it was the auditing season, it was generally easy to meet the officials as it was to their interest to have the audit completed as soon as possible with significant issues. When I engaged with the Finance Manager, he quickly realized that I was a first year clerk because I kept on reading my audit programme and trying to follow the steps outline therein. After listening to me babbling and saying things that did not appear coherent, the Senior Finance Manager ("Finance Manager") stopped me.

"How long have you been auditing?" he asked.

"I started this year" I responded.

"Is so and so (name) still there?" asked the Finance Manager.

"Yes. Do you know him?" I asked, very surprised.

"Yes, we served articles together, at the same Deloitte offices where you

are". The Finance Manager responded very casually.

"Really!" I said very surprised and shocked. Shocked because I was actually trying to audit someone who knew exactly how I was supposed to conduct the audit, and I was actually struggling to even express myself. 'Now, how was I supposed to proceed with the audit?' I thought to myself.

The Finance Manager then did something that really helped me throughout my auditing career. He said, "Let me show you how to audit the debtors" and then proceeded to guide me. The trick, he told me, was not just reading the audit programme and getting lost in the detail. He taught the importance of understanding the bigger picture and knowing what the steps in the programme meant. That was a very big boost for my audit career. Interestingly, even way after I had left external auditing, that is the approach I continued using whenever new auditors come to audit me. I ask them specific questions about their studies and training and they get surprised. It then becomes easier to engage with them because they know I used to be one of them.

One of the entries I recorded in my 1998 diary, was of an incident where one of the partners, had come to review our work at a client, and a senior client official had reportedly been very upset with me. He was upset because I had contacted the bank to confirm the bank balances of the business, which was one of the tests we conducted when auditing bank and cash. The only challenge in that instance was that it was me who had done it. The client was so upset that Deloitte had write a formal letter of apology to the client. They had to do it because retaining audit clients was quite a sensitive matter. That reminded me of an incident when I was still a university student, doing vacation work at Price Waterhouse Coopers in Durban, where they had to organize a new table for me at a client. That was because an old white lady, the company boss's wife, was not happy that I had been made to sit on an antique table, which she argued that 'would be damaged'.

Some of the audits that we were involved in, were those of the Deloitte Johannesburg office. We would therefore be part of the teams from that office. The good thing with such assignments was that we would be paid for the kilometres travelled between Pretoria and Johannesburg and that translated into a lot of money, especially if the audits were one or two weeks. One such audit that I was part of was that of Firstrand Bank in the year 2000. Firstrand was a client of the Deloitte FIST division, which specialized on the financial services audits. The audit took place at the Firstrand head office in the Johannesburg CBD. The tricky part with that particular audit was that in that year, Deloitte was taking over from KPMG (as part of rotation of auditors in banks) and for some reason we were given a limited timeframe to use the KPMG prior year files. Therefore, we needed to go through the files in that allocated period and make copies of whatever information we needed. That did not make sense to me because it was not as if KPMG were using the information at that point in time.

We worked very long hours, and would leave the Johannesburg CBD very late at night, and by the morning we would be back there. For me it was really hectic as I had to drive all the way to Pretoria in the evenings, and in order to avoid the Ben Schoeman freeway traffic in the morning, I had to leave Pretoria just before 6 am. The Firstrand head office had a canteen where we had lunch at times, but sometimes we would go and buy chicken from a Nandos outlet which was nearby. Some of the team members once made a joke about the chicken that we bought from Nandos, because on the street not very far from Nandos, there was a hawker who sold raw chickens. The guys said 'if Nandos ran out of chickens, what if they actually buy from the hawker?'

One of the main clients that I audited as a senior auditor, towards the end of my articles, was the Olympic Committee of South Africa (NOCSA), which was based in Houghton. I had in fact audited the organization from the previous years. There I met a lady, Puleng Baloyi, who ended up becoming a good friend. Puleng stayed in a cottage at house in Greenside. I think in my three year articled clerk career, she is the only person from an audit client, who became and remained a close friend, way after I had left auditing. There was a time when we phoned each other a lot and sometimes I would visit her, at her cottage.

The Deloitte Pretoria office was predominantly white and Afrikaans in the main, with the other races in the minority. The intake of the black articled clerks only increased in 1998 and 1999. The black trainees that I remember, who were at the Pretoria office when I joined in 1998, were Solly Segoa, Pumla Ntsubane, Tshwarelo Moutlane, Gloria Mokoena, Ruth Mashego, Doctor Masango Masango and Percy Machaka. The management structure - partners, directors and managers - was dominated by Afrikaans speaking people. At some point, within the top structure of partners, the people I do remember who were not white were Grant Gelink and Edick Lehapa.

As the community of black trainees community, living in and around Pretoria (Sunnyside, Arcadia, Atteridgeville, Soshanguve and Mamelodi), we all had very interesting experiences which were almost common, irrespective of which firm we served articles at. Apart from the people that I have already listed above, the other black audit clerks that I worked with at Deloitte were: Lufuno Ravhuhali, Ronny Ngoasheng, Joshua Rashopola, Nthoki Macheke, Joyce Moloto (now known as Ramasela Ganda), Lucas Ndala, Benjamin Nokaneng, Ikaneng Malebye, Mea Mashao, Percy Machaka, Doctor Masango, Goodwill Hlabangane, Richard Chauke, Seth, Teboho etc. There was also Martha Bokaba who was part of the admin support staff.

Some of the other audit clerks and staff members I recall from the Pretoria Office were: Paul Stedall, Zuleka Jasper, Nicole Shedden, David Stoltz, Gina van Niekerk, Yolanda Erasmus, Udo and Elize Bohmer (a married couple), Hennie Jacobs, Gerrie Roos, Johan Steyn, Renier van Aswegen, Johan Stander, Gerhard de Beer, Philip Coetzee, Gill Barnard, Thomas, Janno, Alvin, Donald, Vaughan, Sandy, Julie, Mercia, Melanie, Luke Kirsten, Pramesh Bhana, Anushuya Gounden, Andre van Loggenberg, Michelle Hau, Francois Burger, Shaun Strydom, Jannies du Plooy, Leon Taljaard, Bester Gryeling, Beyers Joubert, Christo Kruger, Wally Louw, Xavier Botha, Allen Swiegers, Grant Gelink.

The black audit clerks that I remember from the other audit firms, whom we socialized with, included: Collins Mashishi, Otsile Sehularo, Vusi Motha, Headman Manziya. Collins and myself went to the same church, Emmanuel Christian Church (ECC). We met at the Unisa Sunnyside campus where we both used to study, in the evenings and it was the beginning of a great friendship as we had a lot of things in common, even though we came from different parts of the country. He hailed from Mahwelereng in Limpopo and I came from Ulundi which is the northern part of KwaZulu-Natal. When we met, I still attended Hatfield Christian Centre and when Collins invited me to ECC, I fell in love with it and became a very active member until I left Pretoria. ECC was founded by a lovely couple, Pastors Vincent and Tshidi Loate. When I joined the church it was still at a start-up phase, and most of its office bearers were still full-time employees in the corporate world. I speak more about Collins in the later chapters, especially the big role he played after I left the corporate, to start my consulting business. What I can highlight for now, is that he was my best man when I got married.

As black articled clerks at Deloitte, we used to help each other and shared our material things freely, for example, cars, money etc. Sometimes at lunch time, we would walk down from the office to a supermarket in Brooklyn Mall to buy food. We would buy either fish and chips, chicken pieces, sausages, sliced polony, a loaf of bread and, two litre cold drinks. The quantity of the purchases would depend on the number of people present. After buying our lunch, we would go to a spot in the undercover parking lot and enjoy our lunch, whilst chatting about our experiences at various clients or life in general. In that set up, no one was poor and no one was rich. Whatever the background, we all knew that after completing our articles, everyone would have a very bright future. At some point, I remember that Ruth Mashego accompanied me to see my brother who had gone to KwaMhlanga for his driver's licence.

A place to stay

When I moved to Pretoria to start my training in 1998, I did not even have enough money for rent, but I was fortunate to be accommodated by two of my former classmates from varsity who were sharing an apartment in Sunnyside, Solly Segoa and Headman Manziya. My brother, with whom I stayed at his house in Tsakane, Springs. He had promised to give me money for rent, but just when I needed to go to Pretoria, he told me that he did not have the money. He would actually get home drunk and there was no way of reasoning with him. I was therefore forced to go and borrow money from the neighbor, Mr Sukazi, with whom I used to spend time. He had been medically boarded at his workplace, where he worked as a driver.

Following a car accident and a subsequent operation, Mr Sukazi had been partly paralyzed and limped when he walked. He then used his payouts to buy cars which he intended using using as meter taxis in his homeland, in Swaziland. I used to go with him when he went searching for used cars to buy, and he bought a Cressida for about R11 000 and a Corrolla for about R7 000. There was a time when I accompanied him to Zion Christian Church (ZCC), where he went for prayers and to have his Corrolla blessed. When I approached Mr Sukazi, asking for a loan to go to Pretoria, to start my training, he was so surprised. He actually asked me why I did not speak in time, as he was spending the money fixing his cars right in front me. Nevertheless, he was able to make a plan, and I had some money for the first month.

Later on Mr Sukazi got into the minibus taxi industry and later became part of the top structures, which exposed him to some of the violence that is prevalent in that industry. The last time I met him, he had taken a decision to exit the industry after some of his close counterparts had been victims of hitmen. His family members had sat him down and asked him to find other means of generating income as they feared for his life, and that of his family.

Now, back to Solly and Headman. They had started their training in 1997. Solly was also at the same Deloitte office where I was employed and Headman was at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). At that point, Solly already had a car, a silver blue VW Jetta which gave him trouble now and then, but he was able to fix it himself. At one point he removed the petrol tank and discovered that it had sand. Later, Headman also bought his first car, a silver Opel Kadett. When his car arrived, we decided to take it for a long drive to Durban and we visited our former university, now University

of KwaZulu-Natal.

It felt good to finally go to our former university as professionals, after all the hard work and suffering that we had endured as students. Because the trip was not properly planned, it was such a nightmare for when we got to Durban, because all of a sudden there were competing interests. I cannot even properly recall what else we did on that trip except visiting the campus. Everyone had to find his own place to sleep, and some of the guys slept with old friends at the various residences. I visited my relatives at their flat that I used to share with them during my university days. The flat was on Umbilo Road, and on our way back to Johannesburg, my friends fetched me from Berea Centre. One sad thing from that trip, was the argument that arose on our way back, about the traffic fine that Headman received for driving at about 160km/h on a 120km/h zone. Even though he was driving and we were passengers, he argued that we "encouraged" him to drive faster, therefore we had to contribute towards it. He felt betrayed when no one agreed with the idea of sharing the fine. It was argued that Headman as the car owner and the driver, he needed to settle the fine. Headman subsequently looked for another place and left Solly's flat.

Later on, I also started looking for my own space. I had met Simphiwe Mncube, a guy from Northern KZN who worked at one of the government departments, and was also looking for a place, so we decided to share a two-bedroom apartment. When we met the white lady from whom we were renting the flat, she said something very funny.

"Guys, please do not make fire on the floor" she said. We looked at each other in amazement and laughed.

"I am very serious guys. I have seen flats where occupants had actually made fire and burnt the floor" added the lady matter-of-factly. She could see that we were amazed by what she was saying. Who in is his right mind would make a fire on an apartment floor? We wondered. Because it was a middle aged white lady that we were talking to, we just thought she was undermining us. After all, we were two young black men who came from the village to the city. At the time of my moving out of Solly's flat, he had decided to buy a new bedroom suite. Therefore, I took his old bed, to use temporarily before I could buy my own. Solly's old bed was broken in the middle and needed a brick to balance it. Also, the springs of the mattress were unbearable on the ribs, hence I needed to put more blankets to sleep on in order to soften the impact of the springs. Months later, when I was ready to buy my own bed, I left the old bed next to the carport, intending to offer it to the flat caretaker, however, one morning when I woke up the bed was gone.

There came a time when I decided to look for another place to stay, and I moved into Ronny Ngoasheng's apartment. Ronny was my colleague at Deloitte and I have very good memories of my stay there, because it felt like I was living with my own brother. Such a down-to-earth guy. I must add though that when I stayed with Ronny, I did not know as yet that I had a snoring problem. But I do remember that some mornings, I would find him sleeping on the couch in the lounge, and he would say "Zungu, you were snoring", but did not make it sound serious. When I later stayed with Lufuno and his brother in Silverton, I noticed that most of the time I would wake up with my bedroom door closed, even when I purposely left it open. I talk more about this in my book titled 'Why Are You Getting Married'.

Unlike the other places that I shared with friends before, Ronny's apartment was like a normal house. It was fully furnished, it had a comfortable lounge suit, a TV and one of those multi-layered Technics sound system. The kitchen also had all the relevant stuff like beautiful shiny pots. Unlike most of my Deloitte colleagues, Ronny had worked before he started articles at Deloitte. Ronny was also a very neat and quite guy who was comfortable with cooking and cleaning. Month end was grocery time, and we would write our grocery list and go shopping for the grocery to last us a month. On weekends, we would then cook enough food to last us two to three days and store it in the fridge.

Because of our cooking, on some Sundays we attracted frequent visitors, our fellow articled clerks who lived around the Sunnyside area, who would come and chill with us at the flat. Some weekends, Ronny would visit his home in Soshanguve and I would have the apartment all to myself. For me at that time, apart from relaxing with friends, I was part of church activities that kept me busy, like attending prayer meetings and practicing with the worship team.

Towards the completion of my training, I felt that I needed to work for many more companies, gain more experience before I could start my own consulting business. In any event, I did not have capital to start my own business, and I always believed that starting a consulting business required one to have a number of contacts at high places. I remember that in our talks with some of my friends, we would talk about the importance of establishing more black-owned audit firms, where black trainees would not face some of the challenges that we were going through. At that time, there were small black audit firms that used to partner with the big firms for some of the governments assignments. These included amongst others: Gobodo, Sizwe Ntsaluba, Ngubane & Co, Nkonki etc

Some of the challenges that we faced as black trainees at that time were that, unlike our white counterparts, most of us started training without own transport; most of us were still busy with honours studies; and our development did not seem to be at the same level as that of our counterparts. Even though all trainees had mentors assigned to them, we felt that some mentors still struggled or were not matured enough to properly deal with the diversity issues. I remember in my third year of training, I refused to go to a client because my junior was selected to lead our audit team. This was despite the fact that I was one of the most senior members on the team.

The unfortunate part of that incident, was that the junior team member concerned happened to be a very sweet white girl that I was in good terms with. I therefore felt obliged to explain to her that I was not fighting with her as a person, but I was challenging what I perceived to be "unjust treatment". What made the incident explosive, was the manner in which it was initially handled by the manager in charge of the audit and the HR manager. I was on an out-of-town audit in Rustenburg when I called our office on a Friday afternoon to confirm my next assignment. I was amazed to discover that I was assigned on a repeat assignment but my junior would be the team leader. I phoned the manager in charge of the audit to enquire, but she did not understand what my issue was. I then let her know that I could not be part of the team under those circumstances. The manager told me to take the matter up with human resources if I felt aggrieved, and I did.

The HR manager, an Afrikaans man agreed to meet me to discuss the matter the following Monday. That was the day I was supposed to be at the client, which was CSIR. When we met, the HR manager had already made up his mind about my action. He felt that I was wrong and that I should have gone to the client. That made me angrier. I told him that I was going to boycott the client and deal with any consequences thereof.

He reminded me that the firm would lose money if I refused to go to the client, and my response was that I was ready to deal with any consequences, as I was not prepared to intimidated. When they realized that I was not backing down, they told me that their plan had been to send me to go and audit the Stellenbosch branch of CSIR, and I was not interested.

The matter was then escalated to the partner responsible for the audit who could not help either and finally the matter was referred to the partner in charge of the entire Pretoria office. I normally tell people that that man could have made a brilliant politician. He did his homework before meeting with me and when we met, he simply apologised for what had happened, explaining that most of the white managers, still needed to mature when it came to dealing with the issues of diversity and people management skills. He added that as black professionals we also had to assist management in ensuring that diversity issues were managed effectively.

I was then formally removed from the CSIR audit, and I stayed at the office until I was placed on a different client, which was Vodacom. I am happy to say that I won that particular battle but there were managers who were not impressed. Some were no longer willing to include me in their audit teams. I was in a way seen as a rebel. I remember one influential senior manager, who could not hide the fact that he was not impressed with my action. As far as he was concerned, I was let off the hook easily. When I was still at Vodacom, I was later planned on one of that senior manager's clients but my name was subsequently removed, which was in itself a common thing. However, when I called him and politely asked why my name had been removed from the client. His response completely changed our conversation. He said something like "I don't owe you any explanation and actually, who do you think you are?" I don't remember what I said to him but I was very angry, and our telephonic conversation ended badly.

Since the audit team could hear my conversation, they just could not believe the way I was challenging that senior manager. At the end of my telephone call, one lady colleague, Nicole confronted me saying I should immediately phone the manager and apologise. "Hey Becks, I think you have gone too far this time. Once you mess up with this guy, your future in this firm will never be bright" she said. Instead of making me afraid, Nicole made me even more determined to fight against that guy's attitude. I just did not subscribe to the notion of 'untouchables'. After that, life continued as if nothing happened, and that senior manager never asked me about that heated telephone conversation.

What I also remember about Nicole, was that she was very energetic, outspoken and very smart. Her boyfriend was one of the seniors in the firm where worked. Even though we started the articles at the same time, Nicole was one of those people who seemed to be ahead us, and it was not even a question of being given preferential treatment. She was just bright, as far as I was concerned. She was also one of those fellow audit clerks who were willing to assist those struggling with certain concept when auditing. For me, if such colleagues were given more responsibility than us, they served as an inspiration instead of bringing feelings of envy.

The articles also had some unique and interesting events and incidents. Some of them were very funny. Shortly after joining Deloitte, I was assigned to the audit team of Landbank. There was a young, good looking Afrikaans girl, working there, and she assisted the audit team with the sourcing of relevant information and other documents, required for the audit. One day, on a Friday, I told her that she was good looking and jokingly said that I would love to take her out. She just laughed at my comment, as we used to joke around. Surprisingly, the following Monday, I got very concerned when, out of the blue, she looked very upset with me. I later learned that she was upset because I had said that I would love to take her out. I was shocked! I just could not understand why it had taken her that long to get angry at my comment.

Another interesting incident happened when we were in Durban at another assignment. The audit team was composed mainly of white guys and girls, and one evening we went to have dinner in a restaurant which had mainly white waiters and waitresses. A very good looking white waitress came to our table to introduce herself as our waitress. My white colleagues wanted to do something funny, so they told me that next time the waitress came to our table, I should say to her "Ek smaak jou stukkend." When I asked what that meant, they were not willing to tell me, insisting that I should just say it. Given what had happened to me at Landbank, I was very careful about joking with white girls. When the girl approached our table, I told my colleagues that I was not comfortable with the joke. I asked why those words had to be said by me, yet they did not want to explain what they meant. They told me that the joke would not work if one of the white guys was involved. I was very skeptical, given my previous encounter at Landbank.

When the girl came back to our table, my lady colleague, told her that I had something to say to her. I was still very reluctant and my lady colleague said "C'mon Bheks, the lady is waiting" and the other guys joined her in begging me. The waitress looked at me and smile, and I also smiled and said "Ek smaak jou stukkend" much to my other colleagues' amusement. The girl just smiled and left our table. Since I was surrounded by a bunch of white colleagues who were giggling, she knew it was a joke. I was later told that what I said meant "I like you very much." That's when I understood why the joke would not work if it came from one of the white guys. When we finished our dinner and on our way out, the waitress was standing by the door and as I went past her she smiled at me and said "Ek smaak jou stukkend." My colleagues just burst out laughing. I was happy to see that she had also enjoyed the joke.

Another funny incident that happened at the office, was when we were doing our third and final year of training. It involved a friend, who was leading a team that was auditing a diamond mining company in Kimberly. The team was going to fly to Kimberly, and instead of driving a number of cars and parking them at the airport, my friend arranged for the team members to leave their cars in the office, and be transported to the airport in the VW kombi, which belonged to the office. My friend asked me to drive them to the airport in the kombi and bring it back to the office. I agreed.

When my friend was asked who would drive the kombi to and from the airport, he mentioned my name, and the lady responsible for the kombi keys, told him that the kombi could only be given to third year clerks. My colleague was a third year and I was also a third year clerk. When he told the lady that I was a third year, she said it was going to be too risky because I could be hijacked. My friend was angry. I was angry. What was this lady implying? Was I going to be intentionally hijacked? There I was, volunteering to forsake my sleep in order to take my fellow colleagues to the airport very early in the morning, and still go to my own client – and someone had the nerve to imply that I was going to be "hijacked". I just told my friend to drop the issue as I was not desperate to drive the kombi. They ended up getting another young man to transport the team to the airport. He was a second year clerk but fitted the profile of someone who would not be "hijacked."

These incidents do not mean that doing articles at Deloitte were all doom and gloom. There were also many funny incidents. As I have already said before, one of the people that I got very close to, was Lufuno Ravhuhali, we ended up sharing a flat, at Silverton, east of Pretoria. We subscribed to common values and we came from families that were not well off. Also, our views on the need to transform the accounting profession were aligned. There was a time when we decided to go for a movie, and a few minutes after the movie started, we realized that it was loaded with the foul language. We looked at each other, and no one said a word but we both stood up and left the cinema. When were outside, we laughed about what had just happened. That's how we lost the money that we used to buy tickets.

Shortly after moving into our flat, we had bought inferior quality sofas because we were saving costs, but unfortunately we wasted our money. In no time, we started feeling the springs when we sat on them. We ended up turning them upside down.

At Deloitte I also participated in some of the sporting events, and our motto was "Work Hard, Play Hard". I played hockey briefly, and the reason I chose hockey, was because I had been a member of the hockey team at university. I also took part in the 21km marathon in 2000, without even preparing for it. When the 42km winner touched the finish line, I was

finishing my 21km, and my legs and feet were sore for the whole week.

The Pretoria Office also had a programme where articled clerks were assigned senior managers for mentorship purposes. These managers would then have a pool of clerks to mentor, black and white, from first years to third years. If a clerk felt any frustration in his or her professional space, the mentor was there guide. Also, if the clerk felt that he needed exposure to certain types of audit assignments, the mentor would then try to engage his or her counterparts who could provide exposure to the mentee. My mentor was Wally Louw. A very soft spoken gentleman. Amongst Wally's group of mentees, I do not recall clearly who the other black clerks were, at the time that he was my mentor, but I suspect Ruth might have been one of them. As part of fostering team spirit, Wally used to take his mentees out of town for a few days. At one point he took us out to timeshare house, in a complex of some sort, somewhere towards Polokwane, but deep in the bushes. The day of our departure coincided with the day when I was taking delivery of my first car from the dealership. I therefore had to rush to fetch my car take it to the apartment before travelling with the team.

Our trip went very well and we had fun together, until one after when I had an encounter with a not so friendly neighbor of Wally's. The place where Wally's house was in the bushes, was in a form of estate which had a number of houses. So, one afternoon I took one of Wally's bicycle and cycled around the complex, riding through a pathway which passed through other houses. My other white colleagues had actually done before. As I was still having fun and enjoying the fresh air from the bushy surroundings, less than a kilometer from Wally's house, I was stopped in my tracks by a stern looking middle aged Afrikaans guy next to one house. The guy asked me what I was doing there, and I explained that I was just cycling and that I was staying at Wally Louw's house. The said "Then if you are visiting Wally Louw, I suggest that you go and ride your bicycle next Wally Louw's house". I was so shocked. As much as I tried to brush off the incident as minor, I just could not brush off the feeling that the targeted me because I was black. After all, I was the only black person around in this secluded hideaway belonging to white people. When I got to Wally's house, the team could see that I was a bit disturbed, and no longer as excited as when I some time earlier. They wanted to know what had happened and I told them. Everyone was infuriated, and some suggested that Wally confronts the guy immediately. How could someone be rude like that to someone else's visitor, he does not even know? After some deliberation and venting, the matter was dropped, but I was happy that my colleagues were all very disgusted by what that guy had done.

Earlier, I spoke about an incident where I boycotted a client because I felt ill-treated by the audit manager responsible for the audit, and also the HR Manager's intervention made the matter worse. My reaction on that matter caused a stir and I found myself not in good books of most managers. Because I used to Mr Nice Guy who was always jolly and fun to talk to, I started feeling that some of my white counterparts were offended by it and no longer knew how to relate to me. Before I decided to boycott the client, I had already been moved from Wally's group of mentees, and had been assigned to Solly, my former classmate at varsity, who earlier had given space to squat in their flat, when I joined Deloitte. When I wanted to boycott the client, I knew that they would put pressure on Solly to deal with as my mentor. So, I said to Solly "When top management tells you to deal with me as your mentee, just tell them that you have tried everything and I am unwilling to listen to you".

After the client boycott, one of the days, a Friday afternoon I think, when I was still waiting to be planned on another client, a manager came into the open clerks office and asked if there was someone who could go to the Deloitte office, in Woodmead, Johannesburg, to deliver something. The good thing with those trips was that they provided an opportunity for a travel claim, which was not too bad those days. I said I could to it, and with everyone in the open plan office listening, the manager asked "Do you have a drivers licence Bheki?". I was so angry. And I could see that the other people who were listening did not like the sound of that question. In that split second I thought of an answer. "I have a car" I said.

If I were to write more about the experiences of some of my fellow black articled clerks, that I have mentioned earlier, then this book would have four more chapters. However, I do not want to put them on the spot, as some of them are now married, and they may be in trouble with their spouses (just kidding). There is a lady colleague who once made a joke about the fact that I was still celibate. She said that I would not even know where to start when it came to intimacy. She also said that I would not know where 'certain things' were located. I was however able to laugh at those jokes because being celibate was a personal choice.

One very interesting thing I remember about Joshua Rashopola, was that he and his girlfriend were very good with the slot machines (if recall well, that is what they were called), where one would insert a coin and then attempt to grab a teddy bear. Joshua and girlfriend were able to grab those teddy bears. I also remember the trips where Joshua and myself were part of the audit team which audited some municipalities in the Free State. That team was led by Zuleka Jasper, an Afrikaans young lady, who started articles at the same time as us. Because our audit firm was based in Pretoria, we would spend a week at a time in the Free State and then go to Pretoria for the weekend.

What was very interesting about Zuleka was that she was so focused just work, to a point where she was aloof, when it came to engaging with the team on general discussions. She also seemed to be a bit shy which added to her reserved nature. When driving through the relatively flat Free State roads, enjoying the fields full of sunflower and mealies, we discovered something strange about Zuleka. Whenever there were birds on the road, she would hoot for them to move away in order to avoid killing them. The first time that happened, we just burst out laughing, and Zuleka did not understand why her action was so funny.

One of the audit steps that the audit team had to conduct when auditing, was employee verification, and due to the sensitivity of the payroll audits, they were usually assigned to the more senior audit team members. Therefore, at one of the municipalities, I recall that Zuleka decided to do parts of the payroll audit herself. In order to do the employee verification, which was one of the audit steps in the payroll audit, all the employees who had had been selected for verification as part of the sample, were told to bring their ID books, so their existence could be confirmed. Most of the sample, consisted of blue collar workers who were not very learned, and they seemed to be scared of white people. As they were sitting, waiting to be verified, they looked very frightened.

When they were finally attended to, their details were verified against the employee listing and the ID books, as well as confirming that their faces looked the same as those on the ID photos. After all that was completed for every employee, and they were told to go, the employees were very much relieved. Later, the audit team heard that the reason most of the guys were scared, was because they thought they were being fired. And the fact that the verification was conducted by team led by a stern looking Afrikaans woman, did also not help the situation.

I remember a time when I audited the fixed assets of the South African National Defence Force and had to drive around Thaba Tshwane and Valhalla, conducting physical asset verification. One day, I had a meeting with a General to understand some of their processes, and thereafter he walked with me through a courtyard where a number of soldiers were standing having a chatting. The moment the General and me got into the courtyard, all the soldiers stood on alert and saluted the General. Because we were talking and walking slowly in the courtyard, stopping now and then, as the General explained certain things, the soldiers who needed to leave the courtyard had to march until they were out of the sight of the General. I asked him what would happen if the soldiers did not stand on alert or march when leaving his sight, he said there were forms of punishment that could be administered.

During the articles, there were also audits known as 'box audits'. These were very small audits of sole proprietors or start-ups, where one would be given all the relevant documents, literally in a box, to be used construct the financial statements and audit them without even going to the actual operations. I also had the opportunity to do such audits. It was an audit of a small mining operation and I went to an estate at Centurion to engage with the audit client, a middle aged man.

Somewhere at the beginning of the year 2000, I went to audit a client in Rustenburg, with my colleague, Paul Stedall. We spent a week there and stayed in a chalet, some kilometres away from the client premises. The client was in the business of manufacturing furniture. One morning, as we were preparing to go to the client, I heard Paul complaining that he was struggling to see. Everything seemed fuzzy and he was not sure what was happening. Later on, the penny dropped and Paul remembered that he had slept wearing his contact lenses. Surprisingly, when he was dressing up in the morning, he put on a new set contact lenses on top of the ones that were already in his eyes. Frustration and worry turned into laughter as we laughed about the incident. In fact, I joked that Paul was supposed to have had even a clearer vision, as he was wearing double lenses!

Another amusing incident took place before I moved from Sunnyside to stay in Silverton. Two of my colleagues, I will call them Jeff and Julius (not their real names) came up with a plan to deal with a girl who liked materialistic things. Jeff had studied at the university in Durban and he had a crush on a beautiful girl but she girl was just not interested him. Both Jeff and the girl came from Limpopo province. Jeff's crush on that girl was so strong and he was convinced that she would change her mind one day, but she did not budge. When Jeff started working for Deloitte and it was clear that he would become a Chartered Accountant, the girl started showing interest in him but by that time, he had realized that she was just a materialistic person. Consequently, he no longer wanted her as a girlfriend, but still kept in touch. The tables had turned. She enjoyed talking to him because she thought that he would still pursue her.

Since the girl was now fascinated about having a Chartered Accountant as a boyfriend, Jeff told her about his colleague, Julius who supposedly owned an Opel Kadett 200is, and his own apartment. Those days, a 200is was a very appealing car, and that drove the girl crazy. When Jeff introduced Julius to the girl, all this happened over phone, whilst the girl was still at university in Durban, and that is how their relationship started and grew, as they phoned each other frequently. Julius was not shy to use the office phone, and he spoke softly. When the holidays approached and the girl was due to go home in Limpopo, Julius arranged with the girl for both of them to spend a weekend together, in "his apartment" in Pretoria, before proceeding home. What the girl did not know however, was that her newly found boyfriend did not own a 200is or car for that matter, and he still lived at home.

Now, in order to complete this rosy picture that the girl had of Julius, another colleague who had an apartment (I will call him Tim), was asked to make the apartment available to Julius for the weekend when the girl would be around. Tim reluctantly agreed, having been told about the whole story. Because Julius did not actually have a car, he told the girl beforehand, that the 200is had gone for repairs. He did however still want to show the girl that he was a big shot with connections so, through Jeff, I was asked to give Julius a lift to Bosman station, to fetch his newly found girlfriend and take them to 'his' apartment. As someone who did not believe in casual love relationships, I must say I was very uncomfortable with the idea. However, after much begging from my colleagues, I ultimately agreed, reluctantly so. I was told something like, "Zungu, all you need to do is give them a lift, nothing more." Ultimately, I agreed with a heavy heart!

To cut the long story short, the weekend came, and afterwards Tim was not impressed with at all because of the burnt pots and just chaos in his apartment. The girl had allowed herself to be taken for a ride all because she was so fixated on material things, and lost out on a great guy who loved her. She never even saw the 200is which had attracted her to Julius in the first place.

There were also very unfortunate incidents during our time at Deloitte. For instance, Seth passed away in a car accident. Joshua also had an accident which left him paralysed. What I like about Joshua though, is that he is one of the brave and motivational men I know. He did not let his new condition confine his mind. He instead focused his attention to his business ventures, and it is always such a pleasure to engage with him.

Unlike the white counterparts who would start articles already having cars, some of the black clerks had to work a few months or even two years before buying cars. That meant they had to find a way of getting to office early, where the colleagues with cars would give them lifts to the clients. The fortunate part though, was that audit teams used to drive to the clients in groups and the meeting place would normally be the firm's office or any other identified spot along the way to the client. Only allocated cars could claim the travelling to and from the client.

Not having cars was therefore a challenge for some of the black articled clerks. That was because they had to carry laptops and it was easy to get robbed as a pedestrian walking to the taxi rank. One guy was robbed of the laptop at knife point, as he was walking to his flat. The other guy was walking through Pretoria CBD when he realized that he was being followed. He immediately ran into the nearest shop and phoned his audit team members, asking them to fetch him from the shop. When I was narrating these stories to another ex-audit clerk, who did his training in Durban, he said that was happening in Durban as well. He said one guy that worked at one of the black audit firms was walking through the crowds in the afternoon during rush hour, carrying a big audit file and a laptop on one shoulder. The tsotsi tripped his feet, causing him to lose balance and fall to the ground. With lightning speed, his laptop was gone.

I bought my first car in May 1998, five months after starting my articles, and few weeks after obtaining my drivers licence from Silverton Testing Station. When I finished my drivers test, the examiner, a very stern looking Afrikaans man simply told me to drive back to the admin building and never said a word after that as I drove. I thought I had failed. When we got to the parking lot, we got off the car and I followed him into the building. It was only at that point that he turned to me and said "Congratulations". Whilst I was still shocked with excitement he said to me "Are you going to drive taxis?"

The car that I bought in May 1998 was a green Ford Meteor and its registration was FNS776GP. I had seen it at one of the car dealerships in the Pretoria CBD. When I saw it, it was on a stand and looked very immaculate, so I thought to myself "it must be very expensive!" Also, its price was not displayed. I could not believe my ears when the salesman said the price was R27 000. That price was however still high for me, as I had just started working and earning a low trainee salary. I told the salesman that I was interested in the car but I could only take it if he dropped the price to R25 000. He consulted with his manager and accepted my offer. That car served me so well over a period of five years.

During holidays I would drive from Pretoria to Ulundi, Ladysmith, Durban, Empangeni and Escourt. When the excitement of having a car was still high, I would sometimes remove the seats and clean it thoroughly inside out. I loved that car and I only sold it to my brother Sam the day following my wedding. By that time I also had an Isuzu Double Cab. Sam later sold the car and the last time I saw it, it was in Dundee, and still going strong, but the crack on the roof paint had become worse. It had started as a small crack when it was still my car.

In the five years that I had that car, it was involved in two accidents. The first one happened on a Saturday morning within a week of buying it, when my driver's licence was still new. I failed to stop at a red robot and scratched a car in which an elderly woman was taking her ill husband to hospital. The second accident happened just a few weeks after I completed of my articles at Deloitte. The car was bumped from behind when it was parked on the side of the road, at a curve just at the beginning of a steep hill of Mthonjaneni, on the road towards the Melmoth direction. The weather was not very good that day as it had been drizzling from the morning and it was misty. That part of Mthonjaneni is always misty at certain times of the year, more especially in summer. On bad days, the mist becomes so thick you can hardly see a few meters ahead.

When the accident happened, I had parked the car on the side of road and I was busy assisting people who had been involved in an accident. Their car was on the side towards the Danny Dalton direction, and it was not far from a truck that they had collided with from behind. By they look of things, they had lost control of their car and crashed into truck. Given the thickness of the mist, it was clear that as they cruised down the steep slippery road, coming from a sharp curve up the road and approaching another curve further down, they suddenly found themselves in close proximity of a slow moving truck which had significantly slow down, in order properly negotiate the slippery downward curves.

When I got to the accident scene, I realized that most people in the sedan vehicle had some injuries but there was one person who was lying down and seemed to be in a lot pain and bleeding. I immediately focused my attention to him ensuring that he was lying in a comfortable position, and balancing his back with my hands. As I was busy doing that, I was asking the others if they had called the ambulance and I looked like everyone was still in a state of confusion. As I was still holding the other person I found myself worrying about the fact that I was wearing no gloves. "What is if I got infected or something?". But I quickly brushed that thought aside consoling myself that I had no cuts on my hands.

Still in that state of confusion, I heard one of the people from vehicle mumbling something, and when I listened closely I heard him complaining that he could not find his shoe. He added that if you lose a shoe in an accident then you die, and I found that to be just nonsensical. There we were, worried about the ambulance and the seriously injured, and this guy comes up with fairy tales. Just as I was still processing what was happening, I heard the screeching of tyres from a vehicle which was coming from down the hill facing the Melmoth direction. The vehicle, a white mini bus kombi, had just entered the misty part of the hill when the driver realized that there was an accident scene, and saw some vehicles on the road. Because the driver was not able to see the rest of road clearly, when he saw stationery vehicles he tried to make a dead stop but the road so he ended up bumping my car from behind and his kombi came to a halt.

The moment that kombi bumped into my car, I immediately dropped the injured person that I was holding and ran across the road, towards my car. My first thought was that it was a normal mini bus taxi but as I got closer I realized that the kombi had a Transnet logo, and I immediately turned back and returned to injured person I had dropped. Somehow, I was so relieved that it was Transnet vehicle that had bumped me as opposed to a taxi. With a company vehicle, I did not have to worry about insurance. Interestingly, the week following the accident, I was due to start my employment at Transnet, and therefore when I finally joined the company, I already had a claim against it, and it was easy to follow up on my claim. When there was no progress on my claim and I followed up, I discovered that the driver of the kombi had registered a different story of what happened. He had said that I had reversed onto his kombi. Unfortunately for him, I was already part of Transnet so I found his number and called him. He was so shocked as he had thought I was just some random person.

Earlier, I spoke about the travel claims that we were able to make when travelling on business. Having a car really helped me as I was able to supplement my meagre salary with the travel claims.

A lot of other exciting things happened whilst I was at Deloitte. For instance, I played a big part in the running of Project Siyakhula which was formed as a corporate social investment initiative, that provided extra Accounting lessons to learners from high schools around Atteridgeville. The lessons were provided on Saturdays by the audit clerks, managers and in some cases partners who would drive to the township during their turns as per the roster. Given the period in which the project took place, it was still a big deal to have a number of white people (mostly young) drive into the township on Saturday mornings, to provide the lessons. Most of them had already qualified as chartered accountants, something that some of the learners wanted to pursue. My colleagues were all very proud to be 'giving back' to the community. I was also very proud and it was such an honour to be part of the organizing committee.

I would be failing in my duty if I do not highlight the fact that the partners (directors) of Deloitte Pretoria were fully behind the project and they availed all the resources required without complaining. The project required stationery (pens, printing paper, staples, etc.) and most importantly time to prepare. The arrangement was that everyone who would be in the clerk's office, and not very busy with client work, could volunteer their time to the project and that time would then be charged to the project. The project just grew and grew and the other Deloitte offices started adopting the concept. It was just awesome. In June 1999, I was nominated as the chief co-ordinator for Project Siyakhula, and I remember it was Anashuya Gounden who informed me of that decision. During my last year of articles, I was nominated as the chairperson, and for my role there I was nominated as one the Millenium Stars, a Deloitte programme aim at promoting dedication and excellence. I received a certificate of which I am still very proud and later I won a prize, which was a beautiful red and yellow bicycle. This is the same bicycle that I used to cycle from Pretoria to Hartebeespoort Dam and back (about 80km). I also wanted to use that bicycle to cycle from Pretoria to Ulundi which is approximately 600km!

When the idea of cycling from Pretoria to Ulundi, I just had a strong desire to do something that none of my friends or people close to me had done before, and I got the idea from a white chap whom I met at one of Deloitte annual training workshops. He said that he and his friends once cycled from Durban to Johannesburg. Before I told my friends about my dream, I cycled for about 80km from Sunnyside (Pretoria) to Hartebeespoort Dam and back. Just to cover myself though, I left my car with a friend so he could fetch me if I struggled to make it back. Mind you, I had not done any preparation what so ever for that trip. The journey was quite tough but I was determined to complete it. Some of my friends and colleagues did not believe when I told them that I had undertaken that cycling trip.

I had actually underestimated the time it would take me to finish the whole trip and I did not leave early. I also forgot to take into account the fact that it would be dark earlier than usual because of winter. On my way back I had to cycle in the dark and I chose a different route which went through the farms and it was dark and a bit scary. There were moments where I thought of calling my friend but my pride would not allow it. I wanted to prove that I could complete the trip, and I succeeded. However, it was more the fear of failure and darkness that propelled me on my way back. Had I asked my friend to come and fetch me, I would have to live with the fact that I wanted to be different and failed!

Sometime after that trip, I decided that it was then time to try the Pretoria – Ulundi trip and I wanted to get friends who could do it with me. At that time, I was sharing a flat with Lufuno Ravhuhali, who was also my colleague at Deloitte. Lufuno was also someone who loved challenges and he agreed immediately (after completing articles he worked in New York, for a few years). He also bought himself a bicycle, and we started preparing for our trip, but nothing hectic. We told our close friends and colleagues about our plan, and our idea was ruled out as ridiculous from the beginning. We were told it was a "crazy idea". Because we both loved to laugh, when our colleagues laughed at us, we laughed back at them, and used our broad smiles to defuse their cynicism. Some of the questions that we were asked were, amongst others, the following:

"Do you know anyone who has done this kind of thing before?"

"How long is it going to take you?"

"How many kilometres are you going to do per day?"

"How long have you been preparing?"

"If you fail, who will come and pick you up?"

"Where are you going to sleep?"

"What will you do when it rains?"

"Will there be someone following by car?"

We had not done this sort of thing before, so we did not have proper answers to all these questions, and our answers included, amongst others, the following:

"We are going to take it one day at a time"

"We'll take our credit cards and bank cards along and sleep at the B&Bs."

"We are not going to fail but in case we fail to complete the trip, we will get lifts from trucks"

We were planning to have our trip around September / October and it started raining heavily in KZN. I remember some of our colleagues asking us if we were still going ahead with the trip, and telling us that we were going to drown. When some of our friends realized that we were dead serious about cycling down they intensified their discouragement, and it worked. We changed our minds but we had enjoyed the fun of seeing our friends and colleagues, worried sick about our challenge. The downside though, is that we will never know how far we could have gone.

In the midst of those exciting times though, there were other unfortunate incidents, which happened at Deloitte Pretoria, and when I look back at them, I see that they were just informed by the times we were living in. The country's transformation project was still new. We were still tip-toeing around some of the black versus white issues, but they had a way of showing up now and then, yet the some of the people involved would be very quick to brush them aside.

In order not to be left out of the country's transformation project, the Pretoria Office also organized sessions which were facilitated by external people and they were aimed at fostering unity amongst the different races. My biggest challenge with one particular session that was organized was that it was facilitated by an old white man, and I got the feeling that he had his own pre-conceived ideas, and would quickly brush off issues raised by black professionals. This was of course my personal feeling. For instance, if as a black person you tried to give an example of instances where you felt victimized because you were black, and reacted accordingly, that facilitator's interrogation would leave you feeling like you were overreacting and reading too much into white people's actions. You would be asked "Now, how would you react differently?" to the same situation. It is for this reason that such sessions did not add much value to me. I saw them as a tick box.

There was also a time when, as the black trainees, we started becoming very sensitive to issues where some of our fellow black trainees were not treated fairly. Acting purely on instinct, when those issues came to the fore, we spoke about them and some of them were then taken up with management. At some point, we reminded that we employed as individuals and not as a collective. One significant incident that comes to mind is that of a trainee that I will call Thami (not his real name). Thami had started his articles in 1997, a before me, and he was therefore supposed to complete his articles at the end of 1999. Completing articles meant that the office would be expected to sign-off, to confirm that a trainee has fulfilled all the requirements of South African Institute Chartered Accountants (SAICA), relating to the minimum hours to be worked during his or her period of articles. In that case of Thami, the firm wanted to release him but they were not willing to sign off. He would therefore leave the firm as someone who had not completed his articles, and that was because he had not done enough charge-able work.

Now, the big problem with Thami's articles not being signed-off, was that if he still needed to fulfill that requirement, he would need to find another firm of Chartered Accountants to that or go the Auditor-General. Those days, having completed articles, especially for black people, was a big deal. Even if one had not attained the CA (SA) qualification, one would still be able to get a job which required a chartered accountant and get paid accordingly. That was because there were still very few black chartered accountants in South Africa. Therefore, what was being done to Thami had huge implications for him. It would deny him opportunities to get better paying jobs, yet it was not his fault that he was not assigned enough work, for him to meet the hour requirements.

A short-lived love life

In the beginning of 1999, a major development happened in my love life. One day I met a girl who was a younger sister to my former high school English teacher, and we connected immediately. From then on we started phoning each other frequently, and it felt as though we had been friends for some time. That was not the case at all. When I was a senior student in high school, I only knew her from the distance, as just our teacher's younger sister, and by that time she was a little chubby and had a charming smile. When I met her in Pretoria, she was no longer chubby and she was a student at the University of Pretoria. The girl's name was Lungi and her sister, Dumisile, was by then a lecturer at Unisa, and they lived at a flat in Arcadia. Lungi was a student at the University of Pretoria.

By mid-January the frequency of calls increased, and those days I used to be planned on out of town audits i.e. De Beers in Kimberley and National Sorghum Breweries in Welkom. Being out of town was a lonely affair, therefore every opportunity I got to call, I would call Lungi and she would also call to check on me. The out of town assignments were arranged such that we would go back to Pretoria on Fridays and then go away on Sundays.

On the last Friday of January 1999, I took the girl to Union Buildings and later declared my love for her. She just smiled and did not give me a direct answer. From the following Monday, I was planned on the National Sorghum Breweries audit in Welkom, and that week felt very long. Every chance I got I would call Lungi and I wanted to know the answer to my love proposal. She would just laugh and change the conversation but I kept pushing until one day she ended the conversation with the words "Je taime" but did not want to explain what it meant. Then for the rest of week, I called to ask for the meaning but she wouldn't give me the explanation. The following Thursday, we left Welkom for Pretoria and in the evening I took Lungi to Union Buildings, our usual meeting place. That is where she told me the meaning of "Je taime", French for "I Love You". The matter was then settled. I formally had a girlfriend and I was overjoyed. Some of my fellow colleagues used to dispute the fact that I had not had a girlfriend until then but it was true. There were times before then, when I was still at university and when I started working, whereby I started looking and had an interest in some sisters, but nothing became of it. I cannot even count the incident where I was severely punished by the school principal for writing a letter to a very bright girl named Silungile, at Mabedlana Primary School.

When Lungi finally became my girlfriend, I was on cloud nine. People who were very close to me then can tell you more. Because Lungi's eldest sister was my former teacher, out of respect for that, we did not tell her about the relationship right away, but I am sure she could tell something was going on. After work and during weekends, I spent most of the time with Lungi, strolling or just relaxing around at the Union Buildings beautiful and well-maintained garden. At that time, the Union Buildings complex was not yet fenced off, so we could also walk about around the building yard and passages. We would also take drives and eat out. However, because Lungi did not want the relationship to be known by her sister, who was basically her guardian, our movements were limited. When I took time off from work for study purposes, there were occasions when I went to study at University of Pretoria, so I could meet Lungi.

Regrettably, our relationship only lasted for about five months. I ended it in June 1999, after carefully examining my marriage checklist. It was not really her fault. I was the one who had not considered my own checklist before committing to love her. She just could not believe it and I could not believe it either. What had gone wrong was that the relationship started so quickly and progressed very fast, but after the excitement of falling in love had subsided, I started asking my girlfriend about things that were in my marriage checklist and some of the critical issues made me uneasy. When that happened, I felt stuck and did not know how to extricate myself out of the relationship, as the sticking points were not really tangible things. Even my friends did not understand what my real my real problem was.

At some point after the break-up, I needed help to prepare for Project Siyakhula. This was a Deloitte CSI project, through which we provided career guidance and extra lessons to high school learners. I therefore asked my ex-girlfriend to come with her friends to the Deloitte offices one Saturday, to help me prepare the material. As we were busy photocopying and arranging project material, one of my lady seemed very disgusted with the fact that I had broken up with her friend and yet I carried on as if nothing had happened. I talk more about this in my book titled 'Why Are You Getting Married', in a chapter called 'The Checklist'.

After I had broken up with my first girlfriend, there was a lady in church who really liked me to a point where she did everything possible to get my attention. Because we were both part of the Praise and Worship Team in church, it was very difficult to ignore her but I tried my best. The challenge was that she was actually very attractive and as much I did not see her as a perfect match for me, her attempts to get me to like her, did work in the background even though I could not admit it. She did not want to give up.

There was a time when she insisted on going with me to visit my aunt in Ladysmith and I found myself unable to say 'no', yet I didn't know how I was going to introduce her. It was actually my friend Collins Mashishi, who saved me from that awkward situation. Collins tried a lot to reason with me but somehow I had allowed myself to be hypnotized, by the feelings of getting so much attention from a lady. Collins realized that I was no longer thinking straight, and put his foot down. He threatened to inform our pastor about my lack of judgement, and also said our friendship would end right there, if I continued with my plan. Collins is a Pedi guy and he had his way of speaking when emphasizing a point. He had a look of a young boy so he struggled to project a really angry look, but you would know when he was dead serious. In his Sepedi tone, he would say "Auwa motho wa modimo! You can't do that", whilst shaking his head. His persistence worked and I was able to control of my feelings again.

I told the girl that going with her to my home just would not work. Also, sometime later, after gathering enough courage, I made up my mind that I would break the girl's interest in me. So, one day I took her out to Hartebeespoort Dam. I do not recall the exact details of the conversation, but I explained to her that she was an attractive young woman and that she would not struggle to get a man who would love her. I later played her the song "Let's just kiss and say goodbye" but I don't remember if I kissed her! When I tell people about these stories of girls who showed a lot of interest in me, the reaction of most guys is disbelief and yet others think I was just plain stupid. Perhaps you also feel the same way. Well, looking at it at face value, yes I could have just agreed and enjoyed what was on offer, knowing full well that it was just for fun. Nevertheless, in honour of my faith, I could not defile my body. So, my faith saved me.

As an articled clerk, it was a second time I had to deal with something like the one I have just described. Way before that, my friend Joseph Ndlovu shared an apartment with his CSIR lady colleague and his younger sister. After visiting them, Joseph later informed me that his colleague, Happy, told him she really liked me. I just laughed about it but Joseph said the matter was very serious. He said the lady just wouldn't stop begging him to speak to me. In order to end the matter, he asked me to at least meet the lady and tell her myself that I was not interested. As crazy as that suggestion sounded, I agreed for the sake of taking my friend out of his quagmire. I took the lady out for dinner and as we were eating, I asked her to tell me what was in her heart. She said that she liked me a lot and she was wondering if we could be an item. I just had to be bold and tell her that I was not interested.

As a village boy, such developments were a new phenomenon for me. When I left home for university, I had been warned about the girls who were very forward and declared their love without being approached by boys. When leaving the village for university, my mother and her friend Elizabeth Mdluli, had sat me down and reminded me of a story that my father used to tell when preaching. As a young man, living in a compound at his workplace, a girl who was interested in him, asked him to lend her his comb. From then on, every time he asked for his comb back, the lady would simply look down, avoiding eye contact with him and use her big toe to write on the ground. In the Zulu culture, that was a way for a lady to communicate her feelings for the guy. So, my father just stopped asking for his comb back. Therefore, in reminding me about the story, my mother and her friend were cautioning me to be careful of the girls' intentions.