More Than I Could Have Imagined

This morning was by far the most amazing day of the trip, and something I will always remember. After months of planning by me and my teammate Claire, we visited a local primary school in the rural village of Clau Clau, about an hour outside of Nelpruit. The entire region is a former "homeland" settlement, where natives were forced to during apartheid. Many of the people still remain here, where there is little opportunity for jobs (roughly 80% unemployment), poor land for farming, and many live in houses that are not much more than a room or two with a metal roof held down by bricks, and "facilities" are pits in an outhouse. HIV/AIDS, rampant drug use and a general communal hopelessness greet the children everyday, and most families cannot even afford the roughly $10/year of school fees.

Despite the challenges, the school principal, teachers and local officials are doing everything they can to provide the best education possible. In return, the children very clearly have the utmost respect of their elders, with "yes, ma'ams" and "thank yous" in unison whenever they are addressed.

Our day started at morning assembly, with roughly 700 children singing morning prayers and dancing. I will never forget the faces of the children singing to us, and of my teammates, all of whom were soaking in the amazing welcome that we were being given.

After assembly we met with two classes of about 100 kids each, 6th and 7th graders who were about 11 - 12 years old. We showed them a video that I had made of kids in New York asking questions of them, and the kids here asking questions back. The question from the New York kids asking "what are your favorite foods?" seemed to have the most overwhelming response --- at least 15 kids excitedly answered the question, and I can only guess that it is because food is probably something they appreciate given its scarcity in their daily lives (some rely only on the school for their daily meals).

The kids then asked us many questions, some of them very tough --- "What are your hopes and dreams?" "Do you want to have children?" and the awkward "Do you have money?" They also asked us to show off some of our talents --- Roland sang a verse of his church music, Shweta sang and showed a Bollywood dance, and Jen T hopped like a kangeroo across the front of the classroom! In between classes, a group of the girls dressed in traditional tribal dress and performed a song and dance in honor of the local king of their tribe. The singing and dancing were truly beautiful, although it did take us "westerners" some time to adjust to the revealing clothing of the tribal outfits.

It was an amazing experience to be around kids that have so many challenges ahead of them yet try their best as the teachers give every bit of energy to provide them with a quality education. We were all touched, and I know that I personally will go to bed tonight dreaming of ways to help make their lives just a little bit easier in the future.....





The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Ellies

Elephants!!!! While driving around Kruger, we decided to stop for a break to stretch our legs and go to the bathroom (you can't get out of your cars while driving around, but they do have sporadic rest areas every couple of hours that have some facilities). When we arrived at the rest area it was very crowded and there were no parking spaces, so our client's husband (who was driving) pulled very close next to a tree and brushed up against it. When he did so I noticed that the very top branches were moving, and I thought it was strange that the car could have swayed the branches at the top, but I shook it off and got out of the car. So the 7 of us are all just milling around the car, stretching, talking about what we had seen on the drive, when ---- helllloooooo?????? OMG there is an ellie (do you like the slang I picked up) right in the tree that we basically drove into. It was crazy -- we didn't even know he was there! It was a lone male, best guess by others smarter than me was 15 - 20 years old, but alone, and single males tend to be quite aggressive. We're all standing around taking pictures, when we realize that maybe it's not such a good idea to be so close. So everyone starts to back away and as we are moving back I'm talking with Mark (our client's husband) about the elephant, how amazing it is, etc., and I start filming him (the elephant, not Mark). You can see in the video if you watch to the end how very close we are, when suddenly the ellie starts moving towards us. I started to get a bit nervous and turned to Mark to say maybe we should move further back when ---- oopsies : ) it turns out that everyone else took "moving back" to mean waaaaaay back --- they were like 30 feet away, and only Mark and I were left less than 10 feet away basically holding hands with him. I was so busy filming and taking pictures I hadn't realized that everyone else had left. And, Mark is crouching behind the car watching it it while I'm just out in the open in my own world, in complete awe. You have to watch the video to see how close we are, and you start to see him moving towards us. Ooooopsies, got a little too close : ) The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

You take the good you take the bad

OMG it's been a rough few days...

First the good --- we went to Kruger last weekend!!!!!! What a wonderful day, starting at 6 in the morning, arriving at Kruger at 7 and driving all day through the park until 5:30 (barely getting out of the park before they shut the doors - we were one of the last cars to leave!). We saw everything but kitties - rhinos, hippos, baboons, giraffe, zebra, hyenas, wild dogs, impala, crazy birds, buffalo, crockodiles, warthogs (I think my favorite) and lots and lots of elephants (subject of a separate blog I'll post later). The five on my team went with our client and her husband who were wonderful guides and very patient as we kept asking the car to move up, back, up again until we could all get our pictures. So that's the good.

The bad was bad. On the way home, we were going through a tiny teeny town with no streetlights and our client's husband (who was driving) did not see the massive speed bump in the road and hit it going just a little too fast (insert sarcasm on "little"). I was in the back of the safari van with one of the other girls (Jen) on my team without seatbelts, and we both went flying and hit our heads on the metal grates on the top of the car. And not just a little bump --- I was really out of it in a lot of pain, and feared I might have a concussion (although I never lost consciousness) (I was very very scared). It turns out that I don't (no symptoms of a concussion and my deep, deep forehead bruise is now healing), but Jen ended up getting worse and worse and eventually went to the hospital the next day for pain meds, and we think she did have a concussion. It was an awful way to ruin an otherwise great day.

To top it all off, we were moving lodges on the evening of the head incident. I blogged earlier about how the larger team of 12 unfortunately had to be split into two lodges when we arrived due to some shady logistical problems. So, we have been staying for the first week at temporary accomodations until we could all be moved together to one place. The move happened about an hour after we hit our heads and we came back to a really terrible lodge. Granted that my team had been totally spoiled because of the great B&B we had stayed at during the first week. And maybe we wouldn't have been so disappointed had we come here from the beginning. But, even by my low standards the place is gross. One person got put in a room with dirty sheets (we all have inexplicable stains on all of our linens, shower curtains and towels), another person got bit by a flea in her bed, another person only has pipes in their bathroom (no showerhead), and it is generally just filthy. I know we are not supposed to be living in luxury, but "clean" sheets should be a minimum standard.

Not to be a crybaby, but my room was the worst. It was so horrible I actually slept with the lights on (I'm not sure why, somehow it made me feel better) and I felt dirty just walking into the room. The room is off of the lobby on the bottom floor of the lodge and I had a suspicion that it was being used as a public bathroom when not occupied. After talking with the team, one of the girls, Claire, was so excellent and let me move in with her (she has a bigger space with some common areas). So I moved in last night and am much more comfortable and actually feel clean now. One afternote: after I moved in with Claire, I realized I had left something in the first room and went in to get it to find that...someone had just taken a shower there! I think the room was used as a general sleeping / bathing / bathroom for the hotel staff which is why it is so nasty. ick ick ick ick

So that's the quick update for now. I'll spare you from the work updates for now, but we are all working very very hard and are all tired and feeling the pressure of looming deadlines (I worked almost long enough to catch the start of the Mets game last night --- with a six hour time difference!). I'll have more posting soon now that the head is recovering.

Lata : )


The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Working Holiday

Today is Friday May 1, and can you believe that it is another national holiday in South Africa? Today, this past Monday and last Wednesday were all holidays, and most of the schools were closed for two weeks around Easter. It’s no wonder things get done so slowly around here. But, I think this is the last holiday during our stay here.

Although the rest of the country has the day off, the IBM teams are working on each of our projects. Right now I am working from the deck of our lodge, looking over a lush, tropical backyard listening to the dozens of neighborhood dogs barking, birds singing songs I’ve never heard before and swatting away some funky red bee thing (they keep finding me). What’s amazing is how hot it is – and supposedly it’s the fall going into winter! I am in the shade and the thermometer says its 85 but I would bet its 95 in the sun. It’s the kind of hot that makes you not want to move, yet we see hundreds of people walking to work everyday because they don’t have cars and the buses are too crowded. Most have on layers of clothes nd full length pants or dresses and are carrying bags or supplies or kids. I don’t know how they do it.

Oh yeah, and the humidity is making me look like Monica from that episode of Friends when they go to Jamaica. One of my teammates is having her hair done tomorrow local-style, so maybe I should do the same??? : )

For your enjoyment I’ve posted the view of the sun setting from my room that I get to enjoy every night : )



The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Ewwwwwww

Finally got down to work today by moving to a new office that actually has good internet access and had a productive day. Am continuing work tonight but this nasty nasty dirty gross bug started flying around me. I can only describe it as a massive fly on A-Rod steroids that has a worm for a body, and when you swat it it falls on the ground and uses its worm tail to flip itself right side up. It's probably four inches long and did I mention nasty? Luckily one of my teammates captured it in a cup but the cup is sitting next to me and I can hear it banging around. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww how is a girl supposed to concentrate on labor statistics with The Fly hanging out next to me like its my best friend? I suppose I haven't seen anything yet, although the mantis that landed on someones head while we were in the middle of a conversation the other night was something to remember.

On a lighter note, here's another pic from some of my adventures last weekend to the Bourne's Potholes.




The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

First Day of Work

Finally after months of preparing and planning and after several wonderful days sightseeing we were ready to start work today. The meeting with all of the clients and IBM consultants started bright and early at 11(ish), with the first presentation lasting about 30 minutes. After that it was time for a break (no joke). Three more presentations lasting about an hour and it was time for…lunch.

When we finally arrived at our new offices to get down to some real business my four team members and I wasted no time to pop open our laptops and dig in. Our client, Sam, had a stunned look on her face when we all just started chattering away about our assignments and started getting into some heavy conversations. With all this pent up energy you could actually feel the momentum in the room starting to build until…wait for it….wait for it….no internet, which (personally for my assignment) is absolutely critical to getting our analysis done. After another hour or so fumbling around trying to get things working we had enough connectivity to get started when….wait for it….wait for it…we were informed that it was 4:30 and we were the last ones in the building and they had to lock it up. So much for making a dent in the workload. I guess this is all part of the experience, right?

Before I go on I just have to say that everyone from all three teams are quite overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs to get done. We keep talking about it amongst ourselves and everyone is genuinely excited to dive in. So, with the concern for our workload weighing heavy we all got together and….went to a gorgeous reception in our honor under the African night. The reception was held in a beautiful open outdoor hall with music and food. There were several speakers, members of the press, IBM-SA, all of the clients and other members of the community. The people that we are meeting are so genuinely happy to see us, excited about the work that we are doing and grateful for us to be here. Speaking to many of them (not just tonight but throughout all of our nights here) has brought the many books I have read about the country’s history and struggle to life. Most everyone we meet seems to be moving away from the past and excited about the future, and it really is amazing to see first hand how much this country has overcome and what a bright future it has.

Now that the night is over I think it is finally time to get down to business. Most of the teams are going out tomorrow to do field work and interviews, while my partner and I will be online (hopefully) getting through some research before our interviews start next week. .

And – for the record – we have no more formal social events planned for the rest of the stay, so I think the hard work starts now.


The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Since I Last Left You

Much has happened, not sure where to start. We left Johannesburg on Sunday morning for the 4+ hour trek to Nelspruit via 2 vans. After sleeping through the first hour via my magic powers to sleep anywhere anytime anyhow I awoke to beautiful scenery, littered with paper mills and coal factories dotting the land. Fast forward to our arrival in Nelspruit where we were met with some bad news --- the lodge that we were supposed to stay in for the next month (that had been vetted by IBM security and where bookings were confirmed as of three days earlier) had inexplicably sold our rooms to another party. There’s still something shady about the whole story that we haven’t yet figured out, but nonetheless we were left with 15 people needing rooms in Nelspruit for a month at 6:00 on a Sunday night of a holiday weekend. With so much to worry about our team promptly….went to the bar!!!! With not a care in the world we drank beers and ciders (!!!) and ate apps, listened to fun live music and had a jolly ol’ time while the poor guys representing the agency charged with our care scrambled around like madmen. Several rounds later they had come up with a temporary solution which required our group to split into two --- not ideal, but everyone took it in stride. Personally, I have landed along with four of my teammates at an absolutely lovely B&B with wonderful hosts (but no internet). Luckily one of the reps has been able to give me baseball updates…

So, with our first crisis of the trip temporarily solved (but only temporarily --- we will be moving locations again by the end of the week), we went on a fanstastic excursion today to see some amazing sites, including a few waterfalls, God’s Window (aptly named as you can see for endless miles into the amazing scenery), and my personal favorite the Bourke Luck Potholes. After 10 hours touring the region we came back to a traditional South African braae (barbeque) of round roast, beef sausage, ostrich sausage and a terrific array of salads and breads, all homemade. We all had a great time under the stars with the whole team and some wine and beers. And – oh yeah – I have become the source of the biggest joke thus far on the trip. Something about an alleged engagement to a street vendor, it’s all a little shady and I wouldn’t believe a word of what gets blogged by my teammates. As I keep telling them, trouble keeps finding me, not the other way around : )

Before I leave you thinking that it is all play around these parts, I need to confirm that work officially starts tomorrow as we will be meeting with all of our clients and the clock starts to tick on the immense workload we all have. So far we have been lulled into a happy place full of relaxation, good food, good wine and lots of laughs, but I think it all comes crashing to reality tomorrow. Back to the real world, South African style, I guess.




The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.