Crocodiles and Underground Rivers

A long week of work preparing recommendations and training courses ended with a team decision to take a journey to the island o Palawan. The place was absolutely beautiful and re-fueled us with the energy needed to start this week in full force. This week is important to team “Santa Rosa Police” (yeah we gave our team a name) because it is the week we will give workshops.

 

On Palawan we started our trip by visiting the city. This allowed us to learn more of the recent Filipino history and the trip ended with a visit to the local crocodile farm. After seeing some of the biggest crocodiles in my life, I was actually allowed to hold a small one.

 

Our last visit of the trip was to an underground river. To be more specific, it was an enormous cave, very beautiful, through which an underground river runs. At this moment, a thank you is again in order to our in country manager, Waya, who helped book our flights, hotels and trips after we all (sometimes at the same time) expressed our hopes for the visit to this island. 

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Waterfalls and Volcanoes

Ok so it has been a while since my last post, as some of you have rightly reminded me. We’ve just had two of the most intensive weeks since we’ve got here. My team, composed of Luciana, Martin and myself, has been working very closely with the Santa Rosa Police department, our client, in order for us to deliver our recommendations and the trainings on time. While exhausting it has also been so far one of the most exciting projects of my professional life. However, when working hard one also gets to relax in some truly spectacular ways. And now we come to the title of my post. On the first weekend in Santa Rosa, our in country manager organized for us a trip a day.

 

On Saturday we went to Villa Escudero, a wonderful coconut plantation on the outskirts of San Pablo City. We had the opportunity to learn a lot more about Filipino culture, history and economy. We also had the opportunity to eat with our feet in the water, quite literally.

 

On Sunday, we visited the volcano, inside a volcano, inside a volcano…otherwise known as Taal Volcano Island. I could describe the absolute beauty of it, but I’d rather let the picture do the talking in this case.

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First days

Our team arrived in Santa Rosa, our destination, on Sunday. As expected, the first day we spent getting acquainted with our surroundings and having some food. On Monday we got to meet our clients and it has been extremely exciting. We arrived at town hall Monday morning and were immediately introduced to all the people we were going to work with, and as a bonus, the Mayor. We then got to have second breakfast and then we introduced ourselves to our clients. This was not to be a small group meeting though. We each stood up in front of all the people we would be working with (directly or indirectly) and present ourselves. Then we had some more food.

For me, all this has so far been an incredible experience. Often it has taken me out of my comfort zone, though not too far yet. It has allowed all of us to meet so many new people, people who have done their utter most to make us feel welcome.

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Arrival in Manila!

Well it was an adventure getting here. World events have meant that the flight I was on got delayed by several hours. But now I am here and it is great! Our wonderful in country manager took us for a visit in Manila to a modern art museum.
This museum was located in a hacienda style building and on top of the amazing artwork there was also beautiful architecture and stunning views. A wonderful first day!

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Hickup at departure

Well at this moment I am sitting in a cafe in Heathrow waiting. My flight has been delayed for some 5 hours, so I’ll be sitting here for a while. This is a good time to write another post, this time about airports. I like airports. They are lovely places where people come and go, meet their loved ones and wait. As I mentioned before, I am not the most patient person in the world, but there is something about waiting in an airport that makes it OK. Somehow time passes much faster in an airport than anywhere else. And, in the bigger picture of the chaos and devastation created by Typhoon Rammasun, waiting in the airport seems so completely insignificant.

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D-1! Almost there!

One day to go! I now have a long list of things to not forget and am slowly cross-checking each and every item. My suitcase is almost completely packed. Last time I weighed it, it was surprisingly at only 15kg. That bodes well as my limit is at 20kg.

But on to more serious things: I have completed all my trainings, printed all the necessary and very detailed documents that we received (thank you Jeanette, Dawn, Waya and Chris) and have read and re-read our in-country assignment. We’ve also had our last weekly call with Dawn and I feel the need to add a big “Thank you!” here for all she has done for us. In the sub-team for the in country assignment we’ve already had several calls and even have a chat group on WhatsApp. That last one was something new to me and I say thank you to Luciana and Martin for showing me how to do that.

As usual with IBM I am again a member of a team of highly passionate, dedicated, intelligent and hard working people. I’ve experienced this again and again over my 7 year career. It doesn’t matter who we are or where we are from, we strive to do the best possible job, and it feels awesome to be part of such a team again.

Oh, I’m getting a bit sentimental here, but it is a bit understandable as I am leaving for 4 weeks to a county I have never been to and leaving my husband and 15 month old daughter at home. I have to admit I will miss them quite a lot. But I’m doing this for them in a way too. Especially for my little girl, it will add to the examples I can give her to say: “You can do and be anything you want!”

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T-8 days! A backpack dilemma…

So yesterday was a historic day for me! No, I’m not talking about the World Cup. After 20 years of shoulder bags, purses and laptop bags, I have purchased a backpack. Under the strict guidance and supervision of my German husband, I selected an item with the appropriate number of compartments and the correct size. (Really last nights match result is not that surprising to me, the only surprise is that Brazil was on the receiving end and I did feel a pang of sadness for my Brazilian team mates). That being said I’m still in confusion about what to do shoe wise. It seems that it can get seriously wet in the Philippines and, while I do poses a pair of waterproof hiking shoes, I’m worried that I should have bought some Wellington boots, too. After much deliberation and consultation with my buddy, I decided to leave the wellies be and hope the two malls very near our hotel sell some in case of trouble.

Saying the above it becomes clear that this is the first time I mention my buddy. Let me explain: In order to have someone to discuss the kind of thing I mentioned above, we have all been assigned a buddy. A buddy is a team member who either resides in the same country or in one close enough to be in the same time zone. My buddy is James and he’s also from the UK. While we do chat with each other in the big team quite a lot, and discuss all sorts of fears and worries, it is very useful to have someone near by to chat about the more local challenges (what vaccines to get and where, how did it go at the Consulate, so what are you packing). This being said I’m also very grateful to Dawn and Waya who have mailed us on more female topics, such as appropriate clothing, beauty products, and jewelry. So thank you buddy and thank you Dawn and Waya for making things so much easier and organizing so much!

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One week to go

Ok so after a short break touring Scotland in search of the Loch Ness monster with my godson, I’m back. We haven’t found the monster ;-). I now have my visa, my flight and all my vaccines. I’m ready to go! One more week to wait however and I’m getting a little impatient (those that know me will laugh and say that that’s not new). I’m constantly thinking of what I need to pack, trying to make sure I don’t forget anything. All this had me up half the night last night.
A new thing for me, I’ve started keeping track of all my TO-DOs in my phone. This is new as I prefer to keep things on paper, but new tasks keep popping up at the oddest moments and the phone is the only place I can keep them all together.
Our hotel information is now also available and I breathe a sigh of relief. It is a brand new establishment and it looks great!
We now also have our Statements of Work and our sub-teams! I’m looking forward to meeting everyone.
With all this info coming in, it makes the trip so much more tangible. It finally feels real. I mean, obviously it is real, and I have know for months now that I am going and where I am going. But now that we have all the details and are about to leave I am struck by the reality of it all: I am going to the Philippines on a CSC project!!!

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Getting the visa

I’m currently sitting on a train back from London to Portsmouth. I live in Portsmouth and was just in London to get my visa for the Philippines. Given these circumstances I thought this would be a good moment to write my second post.

So, getting the visa. I got lost on the way to the Consulate and did a short tour of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in the aim of reaching my destination. An unnecessary detour as the Consulate was only 1 minute from the exit of the subway. Anyway I finally got there and felt that this exercise was the first preparation to the Philippines. It is a very warm day today, especially by UK standards, and in the little waiting room it was very hot and humid. I quickly decided to pack summer clothes. However, as our mentor Dawn told us, sleeveless is clearly a no-no. Not one single Filipino woman present was wearing sleeveless. I promptly put my jacket back on… I also decided some shopping may be necessary in preparation of this trip. One item I won’t need to buy: shoes. I generally wear high heeled shoes and spotted that they tend to be also very popular with the Filipino ladies. Of course I may be entirely wrong, but, like so many other things, I’ll find out on location.

Knowing how consulates work I had prepared with dread for the visa itself. It took my husband and I a whole year to get the documents prepared for our wedding, just because we are not of the same nationality and chose not to get married in either of our home countries. However my fears were unjustified. The process was swift and efficient, as I had brought all required documents and then some.

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My first post

This blog is dedicated to my experience participating in the Corporate Service Corps (CSC) program, and this is my first post. As such I’m making this one a little about me.

As an IBMer since 2007, I found out about the CSC when I received an e-mail informing me that the selection process was open and I could submit my candidature. The more I read about it the more I thought it a great idea and it added to the plethora of reasons why I think IBM is so great. So I decided to submit my candidature, and to my utter surprise got accepted! As nothing comes easy, I didn’t get to leave right away. A couple of weeks after being accepted I found out I was expecting my first child. So I had to delay my departure by a year. So, after coming back from maternity leave I informed the CSC representative that I’m ready, and a couple of months later I was informed that I am part of the Philippines team 14.

The preparation work thus began. Through a series of weekly calls (so far we are at call number 8) the team started to get to know each other. We are a wonderful mix: two people from India, three from the United States, two (myself and James) from the United Kingdom, one from Australia, one from Canada, two from Brazil (World Cup organizer this year) and one from Argentina. We also have a bunch of people supporting us, from the local NGO, represented by people from Australia and the Philippines, to IBMers who have been through the same experience and are helping us cope with all of it. A tribute must be paid to them as they are really organizing almost everything for us and are answering all our questions and fears. (Is there a risk of cockroaches in the room? No…– My little phobia)

But as it turns out these are not the only people that I met in the process of getting to the Philippines. I feel this blog would not be complete without mentioning the very friendly nurse that gave me my many vaccines. While waiting to see that none of the more nasty side effects materialize we discussed her life. She’s a lovely lady, soon to be married and kindly asked me for advice regarding how to manage work/life balance and more specifically having babies. So I’m still in my home country and this trip has already allowed me to meet wonderful new people. This bodes well for the months to come!

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