Ek'aro!!! (Good Morning)
Oh, what a weekend!!! It’s has been a crazy, exciting, exhausting weekend. I’m loving it! So let’s start from the beginning, flight to Madrid at Thursday afternoon, 9.5 hours in the air. It was a good flight, but I think for the first time I got the worse place possible in the plane, right at the bathroom door, where people come and go all the time and the noisy flushing never stops, so I got only a little sleep and arrived at 6:30 am local time and had to wait until 4:00 pm to take my other flight to Lagos, so what to do with all that time? Let’s explore Madrid! I’ve left my luggage in the airport lockers and took a bus to downtown, got in Atocha (one of the places of the terrorist attacks in March 2004) station about 8:00 am. Man, that’s big! Zero degrees Celsius. After asking around I start my walk heading to city center. What a beautiful city! Got a ham sandwich at the Museo del Jamon along with some coffee and then I went to the Almudena Cathedral and the Royal Palace. Both huge buildings and very pretty. It’s hard to think someone actually lived in there at the past. How rich can some people be? And how can this people be so rich while almost everyone else is totally poor (worse than how it is today), just because they are the “chosen ones”…. Anyway, I’m not here to discuss Monarchy, and not also to talk about how nice it is to finally been in Europe, something that I wanted to do for so long, so let’s continue and just say it was amazing and totally worth it! After eating some paella I got back to the airport and got my plane to Lagos at 4 pm. Tired.
Ek’abo!!! (Welcome)
10 pm, Lagos Nigeria…Toyin, from Nigeria Government was waiting for me and took me to the hotel where I met all my IBM colleagues that arrived earlier and where finishing dinner. They were along with Daniel and Ann from CDS and as nice as they are (found that later) they all offered me part of their meals, as the kitchen was closed. Ate a bit, went to the room and got back to the lobby bar, where Christina, Daniel, Bouke, Peter, Rodney and I had a few beers. Was really nice to know the guys a little better.
Morning in Lagos and after breakfast we had a little security briefing with an IBM official in Nigeria and we met Remi, from Nigeria IBM as well. Traded some US Dollars to Nairas and left to Ado Ekiti in a small bus. This was something very different, because the traffic is chaotic and we have a private security car going with us with 2 guys with AK47’s who were opening our path and on any sign of stopping because of the traffic they left the car with the guns and open the way. Really felt like a state chief getting somewhere …. lol The drive was long, but we could see parts of Nigeria and got information from the CDS representative who will stay with us the whole trip, Ayo. There are people everywhere! Nigeria is the 7th largest country in population and as it is not so big in land there is no place empty here.
Got to Ado at night and after getting to our rooms, setting our bed nets (Malaria is a real danger here and a bed net is very important to avoid it, as the mosquitoes attack mainly at night) we went down to have dinner and chat a bit more. By know we know each other a bit better and I can tell that everyone is very interesting and nice. Here is our team:
Ann Oden, CDS representative in Nigeria
Bhuvana Natarajan, IBM India
Bianka Bognar, IBM Hungary
Bouke van der Voet, IBM Netherlands
Christina Hu, IBM USA
Cinthia Vega, IBM Costa Rica
Daniel Elliot, CDS program manager for our IBM Nigeria team 6 (son of Brazilian mom, speaks Portuguese fluently)
Kelsen, you know this one
Laura Sharp, IBM Canada
Leslie Turner, IBM USA
Mariana Salvarredi, IBM Argentina
Minh-Hai Nguyen, IBM Finland
Mithilesh Pandey, IBM India
Peter Thompson, IBM USA
Robert Ellis, IBM USA
Rodney Cornelius, IBM Sweden
Sundar Rao, IBM India
Suddenly Toyin comes in with a surprise: the Governor of Ekiti, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, invited us to his birthday party and we had to leave soon. The governor, received us and after formal introductions he order some drinks and we got to talk a little bit informally with him and other government members that were there. The governor impressed me, as he told us the state of Ekiti is know to be one of the most well educated in Nigeria and that he wanted to keep and improve that, providing besides education, also skills to his people. One could tell he is all for development, just from this small conversation we had, what I really think is a good start to fulfill Ekiti’s needs. We had dinner again, lol, and had back to the hotel. (I’ll post more about Nigerian food later, as I get to know it).
-Sunday
After a late breakfast we had some more briefing with a local doctor and security officer and also some group dynamics to know each other better. It was very nice and also funny. It’s weird as in just a couple of days we are all very close and comfortable with each other. I believe this kind of experiences can cause this unique response in people. I gave out some Senhor do Bonfim wrist band and explained to them the meaning and everybody seems to like it.
After this meeting we headed out on the bus to know a bit of the city of Ado and had a stop and a local private university where received by the dean who showed us around and then we got back to the hotel for the real big event of the day: African Cup final match between Nigeria and Burkina Faso. Nigerians, like Brazilians, are crazy about football (the real one, played with the foot lol ) so, I can really relate to them and they are very surprised to know someone from another country who knows their players and is excited as they are about this game.
GO SUPER EAGLES!!!!
We won and the people here are very happy! It was pretty cool to watch with them and see them really happy and now they are expecting for the Confederations and World Cup in Brazil. I hope they do well, as long as they do not meet Brazil during the competitions, lol.
Dinner, some more drinks and conversation by the pool and now I’m here, going to sleep under my net and expecting a long day tomorrow, which will be our first business day, where we’ll participate in a press conference with the local media, the governor, our clients and other local officials.
This first weekend was great and I promise my posts will be shorter from now one, so you guys don’t get tired….
No comments:
Post a Comment