A trip with a policeboat....

On Sunday Eyo Ekbo (Leader of the Special Projects Department) invited us for a trip on the police boat.

We actually left Cross River State and we went to Akwa Ibom which is an hour boat drive away. The trip was great fun and we got wet as it was raining on our way to our destination. But the sceneary along the river was breathtaking.

This is a picture of the river where people live in small huts and live of fishing.

When we arrived we had lunch in the 4 Star Hotel "Le Meridien Ibom". This hotel is a great venue.

This the entrance (hall left and way to entrance right).

On Monday and Tuesday (our last week in Calabar) there was a public holiday as Ramadan ended.

The second half starts ....

The second week started after an eventful Sunday in the water park in Tinapa.

Guess, who is underdressed here.. :-)

And not everything was all about work. The team knew how to relax as well....

On Monday and Tuesday we prepared a presentation for a workshop in which we presented a "Change Management" session.

This workshop was on Thursday and we presented in front of 85 participants. The topic was "Change Management" and meant to support Project Hope and Project Comfort.

We basically trained the Leadership Team.

This is the group in the State Library (left) and this is me presenting to the group (right).

Overall a very good week for us and the feedback for the workshop was great.

Half-time in Calabar…

The week was as amazing as the first week. We are more and more adjusting to the African life, their lifestyle and the society Nigerian live in.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world, and with a population of over 150 million it is the most populous 'black' country in the world. One in four African is Nigerian.
The economy of Nigeria is one of the fastest growing in the world, with the International Monetary Fund projecting a growth of 8.3% in 2009.

In Nigeria religion plays a very important role. Nigeria is home to a variety of religions which tend to vary regionally. The main religions are Islam, Christianity (Roman Catholic, Prostestant and Anglican) and a variety of smaller churches (Redeemed Christians, Jehova’s witnesses, Apostolic etc).

We prepared our first official meeting where we presented our approach how the IBM Team can support the launch of the Free Health Care and Conditional Cash Transfer in Cross River State.

That's me in the meeting and I wear traditonal Nigerian clothes. I chose a neutral grey colour. I really have to say that the clothes are so light and nice to wear which helps in the hot and humid climate.

It was a successful meeting and our support is hugely welcome.

We will work in our fancy new office (new computers, new desks and chairs but no Internet) the next two weeks to set up a reporting framework and we will support change management efforts.

On Saturday we went to the Calabar museum where we got more details about the history of Nigeria, Cross River State and Calabar. Very interesting tour.

Nigerian kitchen is supposed to be very rich – but most of the time people seem to eat chicken and rice and fast food. We now found a place where we can eat Tilapia fish which is made to order as a kind of barbeque fish. It is very spicy but very nice. Unfortunately Nigerians hardly eat many vegetables. Plantains however are usually on the menu.

You actually can see the fish before it is prepared. It is really fresh fish and it really tastes great.

Near our hotel is the Krab Krab which is a bar and car wash at the same time. Why not go for drink and something to eat why someone washes your car??? :-)

Calabar has two main markets - Marrian and Watt Market where you can get EVERYTHING what you need. Fruit, living chicken, chicken meat, just slaughtered goats, CD's, washing powder, clothes etc. etc. etc. For us something we have to get used to .. for Nigerians the daily shopping.

When going to a market on Saturday afternoon we saw a carnival parade where people wanted to collect money for Calabar. In my opinion it was too aggressive when they insisted that you have to donate – or it was just us being overwhelmed by the Nigerian culture.

Again .. the second week proved to be amazing again and I suppose the team here can make a difference in fighting poverty. We won’t change the world in four weeks but it can be done in a long run…. I am definitely able to improve my leadership skills here as I work in an environment which is outside my normal scope and I work with a hugely diverse team of IBMers from all over the world.

An amazing week in Calabar (Nigeria)…

An amazing week in Calabar (Nigeria)…

After our first week on the IBM CSC Programme in Calabar, I can say it is amazing.

On Monday we had our security, health and team briefing. All details what to do (and what not to do) were provided by local Calabar officials.
On Tuesday we had the official meeting with the Cross River State Governor in the newly developed Tinapa business center (picture) which is about 20 min outside Calabar city. It was a very informative meeting where CDS, IBM and the Cross River State government departments welcomed us and informed everybody about the programmes. After the meeting my American colleague Lindsey Blumenthal and I went with our client Edak Iwutschuku to her office to go through details how we can support her. Lindsey and I will work with the Cross River State Social Welfare Office to assist its short and long term target. Our main focus will be Change Management and Reporting. We met the entire team of directors reporting into Edak who are our stakeholders.

Our client Edak Iwuchukwu (front) and Ann Oden (CDS Calabar) (back)

On Wednesday we had our first “field day”. We visited with Iquo (Director Social Protection) 3 Primary Health Care Centers in Calabar South. All of the visited centers were set up to electronically process and support the new roll out of Project Hope (free health care for children under 5) and Project Comfort (Cash Transfer to poor families to support them and encourage them to send their children to public schools).
It was a very interesting time where we already picked up some issues where Team IBM can assist.

Picture: Primary Health Center in Calabar South

On Thursday we had an experience which was priceless!!! In the morning we visited one more health center in Calabar south. From there we went for a trip to health centers which were outside Calabar. The journey could be done in about 45 min but due to very very very bad road conditions it took us more than 3 hours to reach our first destination. On the way we experienced what driving a car in Nigeria can mean (“survival of the fittest”). Along the way on very bad streets with big potholes, we saw a lot of children selling food (bananas, garden eggs, snails, boiled eggs, etc etc.).

Our journey finally brought us to an area in the African rainforest. The area was very nice and the health centers faced the same issues as we found already in Calabar City. Iquo showed us as well the home where Mary Slessor (Presbyterian missionary in Nigeria) lived before we visited a second health center. The way back proved again that Nigerian traffic can be bad and the street conditions even worse.

On Friday we had an office day where Lindsey and did a briefing on how we can present our findings to Edak. In the evening we followed an invitation from His Exellency the Govenour of Cross River State (picture). The event was a pre meeting for the official launch of the Christmas 2009 Carnival Season.
On Saturday and Sunday we went to Obuku in the north of Cross River State. With barely any expectations we went for a 6 hours drive (again in Nigerian traffic) and found a breathing and state-of-the-art ranch. We went up by an ultra modern cable car and stayed in nice mountain view houses. On the way to Obuku we stopped in Agbikom where we saw a very nice waterfall and on the way back we stopped at the Afi Monkey resort. Again it was breathtaking and extremely interesting to walk through the African rain forest and see drill monkeys and chimps, walk on canopies and experience the humidity.

Overall for me the first week was extremely interesting and I had time to adjust myself to the Nigerian life. A life in a warm and humid environment with high pollution due to a lot of cars and diesel driven power generators, a life where power cut is normal and therefore everybody has small or big power generators, and a life where everybody is treating us as celebreties while being very friendly.

A photo of a "patchwork" family ... :-)

Day 1 - Flight....

My flight schedule was Dublin - London - Abuja (Captial of Nigeria). In London I met up with Jenni, a Finnish CSC colleague. Early in the morning at 4:30 am, we arrived in Abuja. I had 3 hours of sleep and a nice shower at a Sheraton hotel before we met up with 4 other team members (Ron, Lindsey, Michele and Cynthia from the US) at the Abuja airport. The rest of our Nigeria 1 Team (Juan Pablo from Venezuela, Kish from India and Greg, a French guy living in Australia) landed in Lagos (the biggest city in Nigeria). The flight from Abuja to Lagos took just one hour but we had a clear and amazing view from our plane. Nigeria is a VERY VERY green country with a lot of woods. When we finally arrived in Calabar, we met the entire team and Ann Oden as well who is the CDC DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS (formerly Citizens Development Corps) country representative for Nigeria. We're just up north from the equator, the climate is tropical here. I just hope we expeerience the beginning of the dry season as well as it raining, raining, raining.

Nigeria here I come....

My first blog ever.. :-)

Today is the day. I am heading of to Nigeria as part of the IBM Corporate Service Corp (CSC) programme... My flight is tonight at 7:15 pm from Dublin to London and at 10:15 pm from London to Abuja - the capital of Nigeria. Arriving at 4:35 am (gosh that's early) we will fly later on Friday afternoon to Calabar (River State) where we will be based for the next four weeks.

We arrived in Calabar and it was a very very warm welcome!!!!

You already can read in the news about the CSC programme itself....

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/IBM-Expands-Corporate-Service-prnews-4010035348.html?x=0&.v=1

More details on this blog....