Chill'n out in Bacolod

I was too tired to blog last night: after dinner a group of us went to the pool for a dip in the unheated pool. The pool probably feels great during the hot day but at night after a rainy day it was fairly chilly: it was the first time I felt cold since arriving. The pool was cool but it was nice relaxing with members of the team.

Transportation around town is always an adventure. Traffic is quite heavy and very few intersections in town have traffic lights. I asked our friends what the rules were for unmarked intersections and they confirmed it’s basically a free-for-all. I guess the one saving grace is that no one can go fast enough to do too much damage. Somehow it all works.

On the way home from the restaurant we tried to take a Jeepney but found there wasn’t a direct route back to our hotel area. So, instead we hopped onto the motorcycle with sidecar cab (three of us on each). It was a fun alternative to the taxi.

Jaydip and I have been busy with La Salle University. Yesterday we both spent the bulk of the day creating presentations: I prepared an introduction to project management for the CS and IT facility. Additionally, we drafted our project scope and schedule: this was key since we have many contacts at the university, each with different requests. We were literally on our last plan item when Jaydip noticed an incoming email from a couple of our key contacts with several new requests: that figures.

Today we had a couple more reviews and I think the plan is now basically sorted out. I also gave the project management course: it was well attended (about 30 people—six from other universities) and seemed to be well received.

After our busy day, I joined Guillermo (Spaniard living in Ireland) and his client another local university for a basketball game: it was the championship game for the neighboring islands. Hoops is definitely the national sport and the crowd really gets into it. What they lack in height they make up in quickness: the speed of the game is entertaining to watch. The local team, Negros Occidental University, won the game and will advance to the next round of Philippines championship in Cebu.

Namit

The streets are quieting down here in Bacolod. I'm sure in a few days when the MassKara festival is in full swing the streets will be anything but quiet. I'm wrapping things up after an evening at a welcome dinner for our team put on by a local organization that is working to attract more IT jobs in the city. They treated us to a meal at a restaurant named "Time Out"--as usual the food was "namit" (delicious). The specialty of the house was a dish made from pig cheek and ear: put in those terms it doesn't sound too enticing but it was very tasty. We enjoyed fish, fried pork, beef marrow and chicken dishes.

The feast was on the tails of a fantastic seafood lunch: shrimp soup, scallops and grilled marlin--all excellent. Our coordinator from Australian Business Volunteers (the NGO IBM is partnering with) told us we can count on coming back a few "kilos" heavier: based on the kindness and generosity displayed by our Filipino friends, I'm sure that will be the case.

Teaming Up

Our Service Corps work has finally lifted off the ground: after a few months of preparation activities and the long travel to Bacolod City, today began with the introductory meeting with our clients. Jaydip and I have been paired up to work with the University of St. La Salle who also happened to host the event. In addition to the University, the team is working with a handful of local government agencies.

It was nice to associate the faces with each of the organizations as they provided background information and a summary of their objectives. Bacolod City is known as the "city of smiles" and the clients all lived up to that nickname.

Our team also spent some time with introductions. We are a team of 10 IBMers from all over the globe: US, Brazil, China, India, Finland, Spain, Belgium and Russia. I've worked on 'virtual' global teams for most of the years spent at IBM; however, this is really a great learning experience to have everyone together at the same location. This is definitely one of the big bonus' of the assignment.

St. La Salle University is a non-profit, private school that covers all educational bases for approximately 13,000 students: elementary, high school, undergraduate, and graduate classes. The school is looking to improve their IT support: they provide several basic IT but do have a ways to go to have mature services. We spent the afternoon reviewing a laundry list of potential projects and narrowing that down to a reasonable set. It was encouraging to that the experience Jaydip and I bring match well to several of their key needs. My key concern is that I only have two weeks before I head back to Manila to help with a Disaster Response project: so time will be very limited--especially since the city is about to begin their major festival of the year: MassKara....more on that later.

Another World

"Toto, I have the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." On the drive from the airport to our latest hotel in Bacolod City it was clear I'm a long ways from home: 7,454 miles to be exact. Out the window were fields of sugar cane, with lush mountains in the background. Every few miles you'd see a farmer using a water buffalo to help with the work. On the outskirts of town we started seeing trucks being piled 15 feet high with stacks of the sugar canes. The closer we got into the city, the more our driver weaved around motorcycles and bikes with sidecars filed with passengers.




I've done a fair amount of traveling in the west, but this is a different adventure and I enjoyed soaking in the sights. I arrived in Manila late Friday night and took a short taxi ride to Makati City were our team of IBMers would meet. Makati City is the financial hub of Manila and it was clear from the luxury stores nearby, that this is where people with money like to hang out.

Jaydip and I spent Saturday morning getting familiar with Makati City before the bulk of our team arrived. When they arrived, we enjoyed lunch together at a Filipino restaurant (Ebun). We were glad they had a picture book to go along with the menu or we would have no idea what we were ordering. We shared a mix of fish, prawns, chicken dishes to go along with our Filipino rice: it was a nice meal. I had the bright idea of ordering a mango shake and most of the team followed the suggestion. I thought it would be milk based but quickly learned it was mango and ice. So, it took about an hour for most of us to break the rule of avoiding ice in our drink (luckily no one is sick yet).

After lunch we headed off for a very quick tour of downtown Manila. We had six of us crammed in the hotel's SUV and only two hours to get a feel for the city: so we only had a brief taste of the sites of Manila. We saw the San Agustin Church (the oldest in the Philippines), drove by the old Fort Santiago, and got a feel for life outside of the financial district. To be honest, my favorite sites on the trip were the Jeepney driving by. Jeepnies must be the inspiration for the "pimp my ride" series because many of these war jeeps turned mini-buses are truly works of art.

We also stopped briefly at Manila Bay and the first thing we saw were enormous piles of trash in the bay. In one section, the trash pile must have gone out 50 feet. It took me a minute to realize most of this came from the recent typhoon/flooding. On the piles, were people rummaging for anything worth salvaging in the trash. Throughout the drive in Manila we saw many signs of severe poverty but this touched me the most. This truly is another world from my normal environment. I hope our limited efforts can have some impact on those suffering in this area.