Weekend 2

This weekend we spent around Recife to explore the surrounding areas. I mainly did Old Recife and the town of Olinda. Both were just gorgeous, as I love all of the historical buildings and the character of the areas. So rather than bore you with words, here are a few pictures (plus some catch up pictures that I could not post before because of wifi issues).

OLD RECIFE

 

Town of Olinda (about 15-20 min outside of Recife). Amazing little town that sits on a hill top overlooking the ocean. 

City of Recife (in front of our hotel)

This is the beach on weekends - a sea of people, umbrellas, and beach chairs:

This is the SAME beach at night (amazing how they clean up!):

This is why you DONT swim in the Recife beaches and are only allowed in the water at low tide behind the reefs (see the brown barrier in the picture below - those are natural reefs of the city, which is what the city is named after)

And this is why I am in heaven every day for breakfast (even though I am missing my lattes :-)

End of Week 2

Wow, week 2 is over! It’s a little scary that we only have 2 weeks left to complete our projects, but a little happy that I am that much closer to seeing my family again. So rather than update you on every little bit this week, I was collecting the major events of the week into one entry as we are mostly working on researching and documenting our project deliverables this week.

The good news is that our client, NACC, is 100% on the same page as us in terms of what we can delivery in 4 weeks. Most of the time the clients want the moon and stars and it’s our job to show them that we may not be able to get them to the moon and stars in 4 weeks, but we can steer them in the right direction of how to get there. Part of our challenge on these CSC projects is making sure we have realistic expectations on what we can deliver in 4 weeks to our clients that will have long term value for them. We don’t want to do some research that we document in a presentation that the client will then just shelve and collect dust.

Our job at NACC is to deliver a long term roadmap for them on how they can go about implementing a financial management system. Thankfully my team is a well-oiled machine :-) We have split up our tasks for the week so we can get more coverage and are right on schedule for our deliverables.

My team: Rue (from Malaysia), Marina (from Spain), and me.

On the fun side, we got to spend one afternoon with the children at NACC. If you recall, NACC is the equivalent of the Ronald McDonald house for children with cancer. So our office is actually in the NACC building that houses the families. As part of the NACC services, there is a common/ rec room area that the kids gather in during the afternoons for afternoon snacks. NACC actually provides 6 meals a day for the families staying there. The NACC staff was kind enough to also invite volunteers from the “Dr. Happiness” support group, which is essentially medical students that provide entertainment for sick kids (songs, dancing, magic, etc.).

It was so much fun and so very special spending time with these children. Many of the kids watched from the sidelines as they were too sick or too weak to participate, but they were entertained by at least watching. For those did participate in the songs and games, you could see the physical effects of their treatments, but nothing was stopping them from having a little fun. It was humbling to see that despite the difficulties facing these young children, there was so much life and mischief in their eyes.

The funny part was that when we first went to the rec room, there were about half a dozen kids there. My team brought chocolate for the kids and after announcing on the loud speaker that there was chocolate for the kids, we had over a dozen kids show up. Nothing like chocolate as an incentive for kids - no matter what country you are in :-)

Hands down the best day of our assignment so far!!

Weekend 1

Where do I even begin to describe the weekend? In one word – fabulous. In two words – really fabulous :-) Friday night the whole team plus a few extras took a 1 hour bus ride to Porto de Galinhas. For all of you none Portuguese and Spanish speakers that would be Port of Chickens. Weird name right? The story goes that when the slave trade was outlawed in Brazil, there were still some people who did slave trading illegally and specifically at this particular port. Whenever a ship load of illegal slaves arrived at the port, the people would say that a shipload of chickens had arrived; therefore, the port was known as Porto de Galinhas.

As with everywhere that we have been to so far, there is just an amazing breeze coming off the ocean side. When we arrived at Porto de Galinhas, it definitely was not what I had expected. First, we stayed at a very ‘cozy’ posada (think of it as a big guest house, but not quite like a hostel). It definitely made you feel like you were 20 again and backpacking! We had all the basics, which is really all you needed as we spent most of our time on the beach or out in general. The town of Porto de Galinhas and the beach had a very artsy, hippie-kind of feel to it. We definitely stood out as the tourists! The views (as usual) were amazing with a full moon shining over the water and little boats dotting the coastline when we arrived. Everyone on the team let loose and relaxed on Friday night and into the wee hours of the morning on Saturday after a long week of information overload and traveling.

Our Posada

Saturday was mostly spent on the beach of Porto de Galinhas and it was quite the experience! The water is crystal clear with reefs starting about 50 yards past the coastline, creating natural pools of fishes that you can see swimming clear as day. The most popular fish is a ‘bee fish’ as it has yellow and black strips. There are hundreds of them in these natural pools that swim all around you. I tried to catch one but was unsuccessful. Slippery little devils!

You will not believe the number of vendors that walk around the beach with their little carts selling every type of drink and food imaginable. You basically don’t have to leave the comfort of your towel/chair/umbrella since everything is brought to you. They had FRESH shrimp, lobsters, fishes, fruits, and drinks – every one of them more mouthwatering than the other. The amazing part is that all of this activity and commotion is pretty much centered to one spot of the beach and then you walk down about 5 minutes north or south from this central spot and you find completely pristine and isolated beaches. We wandered there after lunch and it was just total heaven. The water is calm, completely clear, and warm. It’s funny, but the quietness of this side of the beach after all the business from the central part made the waves sound almost deafening. We watched the sunset and it was quite a sight to behold.  

Some local dishes from Porto - fish with fried yucca and AMAZING pina coladas (has to be amazing when they dump a whole can of condensed milk, mash up the pineapple chunks inside, and add a healthy dose of alcohol).

On Sunday we took the more adventurous route and took a buggy (a mix between a dune buggy and a four wheeler) through the country side and other, out of the way beaches near Porto de Galinhas. The natural beauty of the country side and the peacefulness of the deserted beaches were just amazing. Aside from our buggy breaking down and having three girls push the buggy while our guide tried to jump start the buggy, it was quite the experience.

 And of course it would not be a weekend without some mishap on the part of Queen Klutz over here. Never fails!! Lets just say that somehow, the sidewalk decided to move and caused me to trip oh-so-very gracefully as per my usual habit, to the point that several people came up to ask if I was OK and help me about. I have to say that the Brazilians were very nice in making sure I was OK and offering assistance, even though I could not stop laughing (as usual also) on how badly I fell. Not badly as in I hurt myself (all bones are in tact and not a scratch on me), but more so on how badly the fall looked :-)

Very impressive weekend and definitely looking forward to exploring more!!

Day 7 - Survived!

So my first week on the job is over and we all survived...barely. It's been pretty long days with lots of information to take in and decipher, but it's been very productive. We've had a couple of set backs where we think we can move forward one minute and then the next minute we find out we understood and/or translated something the wrong way and we are back to square one. But that's all part of the process I guess. The work that NACC does is just unbelievable and incredibly inspiring. The operations of the facility in order to feed, house, and transport the underprivileged children undergoing cancer treatment is just astounding. They run like a well oiled machine. On the back office side it's a different story, but then again that's why we are here to consult and help them.

So on the home front, I received a Skype call at about 5PM U.S. time, which I found odd as my husband usually doesn't get home until later. I thought maybe he got home early and just wanted to chat. Imagine my surprise when I answer the call and it's my 3 year old son, Jackson. So apparently, Jackson somehow got a hold of the iPad, tapped on Skype and saw that mommy was 'green' and pressed the call button! Just unbelievable how these kids can manage technology today! It was quite the treat to get to chat with them! When I called last night, I could not talk past the total chaos that was bedtime - I asked my husband if he gave them each a shot of sugar or something because it sounded like a Super Bowl stadium at the house (which is how it is 99% of the time)!

The entire CSC group is off to a team weekend trip, so I will (hopefully) get to actually post pictures and tell you all about it on our return on Sunday.

Have a good weekend!

Day 6 - Lost In Translation.

I have a whole new appreciation for "lost in translation." As part of our deal here, we have an assigned translator. Most of the NACC team do not speak English except for the director and the marketing/communications person (figures). So language and communication are definitely a challenge to say the least. In my group I speak Spanish and then there is Marina, who is from Spain, who speaks Spanish also, and then we have Rue, who is from Malaysia and he speaks English and Malay (I think I spelled that right). These last few days of interviews with the clients have been insanely funny with the hand gestures, half Portuguese/half Spanish that Marina and I try to get by on, and then broken English translations. I just want to film one interview to see how insane it can be but somehow we get through what we need to communicate and vice versa with the client. At one point the client kept saying "Who, Who, Who" and it was several minutes until we realized they were calling "Rue" - the 'r" has somewhat of an 'h' sound. Ooops... :-)

We have done little exploring around the city other than trying out the local cuisine around our office for lunch and the hotel for dinner. Brazilian food reminds me a lot of the Paraguayan food, so I am in total heaven. It is quite the change for me in my working environment to have the whole "lets stop and go out for lunch" as I am usually working at home and eating a quick bite at my computer. It's nice to have the face-to-face time again. My only complaint about the work is the morning and evening traffic - that part also feels just like home, but it's one part I would be happy without.

I am trying to make the most of my location by taking a walk on the beach every day (and working on my tan - I am getting more freckles than color!). So far I have stuck to my plan (shocker), however, I have noticed that the weather in Recife is a little schizophrenic. One second I am walking on the beach with a bright (and HOT!) sun at 7am with no cloud in sight and the next thing I know it is pouring rain for about 5 min. I have to say though - it even rains pretty here...it's this gentle mist that feels cooling on your skin and has that fresh rain smell. Lets just say I was a tad bit drenched by the time I got back to the hotel and just as I stepped into the hotel it stopped raining. Just my kind of luck!

Lesson of the day: Don't leave without your umbrella!

Day 3 - Official Work Day Start

(day 3 posting is delayed to day 4 as wi-fi is not being cooperative).

Today was the official start of our assignment with our CSC/NGO client kickoff meeting. Essentially, all the CSC team member and all the NGO clients came together to introduce the projects and the team members on both sides. So just a 2 sec background – there are 14 IBM CSC team members and we are all broken up into subgroups of 3s (with one group having 2). Each subgroup is paired up with one NGO to complete a project in the next 4 weeks. So essentially, we are doing 5 projects simultaneously in the next 4 weeks.  No pressure right?! I guess that’s why they pick the smartest and brightest :-)

The projects are all just so impressive – spanning from financial systems, data management, project management, and IT management – with organizations that do amazing work in support of social and economic development in Recife. You just had such a sense of pride of working for these NGOs and that you can truly have a lasting impact on the work you leave behind after 4 weeks. The level of motivation, excitement, and anticipation could really be felt in the room.

I am will be working on recommending a financial systems for the Núcleo de Apoio a Criança com Câncer (NACC) – and translated that is Support Center for Children with Cancer (think of the Ronald McDonald House for kids with cancer). We met our clients today for the first time, and I remember during my assignment in China there was a very apt term for how I feel right now – cultural fatigue. There is just so much information and so much data thrown at you at once in a different language/style that you are just so focused and concentrating so hard to understand everything for such a long period of time. We have English translator, but it’s still hard focusing on making out the correct terms, phrases, and accents. Your brain is just on overload essentially. 

NACC gave us a tour of their facilities where the children and families are housed – it was very inspiring, but emotional too. Seeing the children with cancer was very emotional for me – being a parent, I just wanted to run home and hug my boys tight. I am truly blessed in having my two healthy boys. I can’t imagine going through what these families do, but it’s amazing that there are organizations like NACC to provide support and assistance. I just hope we can make a difference for them…

Lesson of the day: hug and kiss your loved ones every chance you get.