Sunday, March 3, 2013

School for the Blind and Deaf, Oshogbo and of course work too



Hi everyone,

It has been a full work week. As we get close to the final of our assignment we really needed to put ourselves into that and we made good advances on our final recommendation paper and now we are about ready to present to Ekiti State government and ICT department. Our main focus is in establishing a new smart card that will carry biometrics into and will be used by the elderly citizens to identify them and receive their monthly payments. The expectation is that later this will be used by all Ekiti population.

School for the blind and deaf

On Saturday we went to the School for the blind and deaf in Ikere-Ekiti to do volunteer work out of our consulting assignment. It was a blast!!!  We divided our 15 team members into 5 teams of 3 to perform different tasks that would help the school and leave something concrete after our passage. Setting up computers and printers (Braille) adapted for visually disable, talking about personal hygiene, washing clothes, fixing the bedrooms and my team, which was responsible digging a gutter to help on erosion control and help the rain water flow to go around the school and not pass thru its complex. The team was me, Bob and Bouke and besides being really hard to dig in a 35o C weather we did our part really well and all of us got some blisters in our hands to remind us of how hard we worked. After that we went talking to the kids and that was very pleasant. They were all excited about our visit and wanted to know all about us and we sure wanted the same. The communication was hard, but we managed thru sign language and writing. We could tell they really loved the songs some of our girls taught them and all the time we spent there. We even had to force them to go to lunch as they wanted to be around us as much as they could. After some time talking a football game was settled and me, as the Brazilian guy, had to participate and correspond to the expectations.. Gladly and surprisingly I scored twice (I've celebrated pointing up my finger like Ronaldo…LOL) and the game between the IBM team and the school kids ended in a tie (2 x 2). Before the game something happened and it really touched me, so I have a special section below for that:

Samuel, Gabriel, football, CBDV…going from a sad to a happy story

Before the football game between IBM and the deaf kids, two of the blind kids approached me in the middle of the field (they have spectacular other senses that compensate the visual disability) and asked if I was the Brazilian guy. As I said yes, they them asked me: Sir, do you think that visually disable people could play football? I immediately responded that sure they could and that there are special ball with bells inside and special rules for the game. I then explained the little bit I knew about that and told them that it’s even a Paralympics official sport and Brazil was champion in more than one occasion. Bottom line, yes guys, you can play and you should be playing!!!
Suddenly they started smiling and anyone could tell they were happy about the good news. They never ever heard about that before (remember, we are in a remote location within Nigeria). Then I’ve promised them that I would find those balls and the rules needed for the blind to play football and I would send this to them, even if that means sending later from Brazil. Later I talked to the school’s Principal. That was now a matter of honor to me. These kids have being listening to their deaf friends playing football every day and they should have the same opportunities for having fun as any other kid.

Got back and started thinking on how could I get that material for the kids and then I founded the CBDV (Brazil’s confederation of sports for the visually disable) website and send out a note to them, telling this story and asking them if they could donate at least 2 balls to us and if not, if they could tell me where I could find them, so I could buy it myself. This was Saturday.

Monday, got to the office and logged on to the internet and my email account and there it was: email from Sandro Laina, president of CBDV. Sandro told me that he read my email and was happy and emotional about it - specially being him blind and a former national team football player - and that he and the confederation would be very glad of helping us, sending the balls, rules, videos and 2 Brazil’s 3 times Paralympics champion’s team shirts, signed by all the players. YEAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!  At this point my heart was filled with joy!!!!
Now I’m working with Sandro and my IBM manager, Thiago - who offered his help for getting this done -  to ship this box to the school. Sandro also asked me for help in getting in touch with IBM Corporate affairs for a sponsorship to bring/promote football for visually disable people to Africa, which he told me was the only continent where nobody plays this sport. I’ve already started the contacts with IBM with help from Thiago.

Well, if from all of the things I came here to do, I get only this one done, I’ll be amazingly happy and felling that I really accomplish something important!

Thank you Sandro and Thiago for all the help!

Oshogbo

This Saturday we went to Oshogbo, a place with a lot of African/Nigerian culture and art. In Oshogbo we visited local artist Nike’s gallery, workshop and her house, where she offered a nice Nigerian lunch (tried lizard meat) and a taste of music. They also gave us some Nigerian names and mine is now Olusegun, which mean victorious. After lunch we went to the Osun Groove, which is a sacred forest for the Yoruba people and we did some site seeing of both the forest and art sculptures that are in the forest. Then we had a group of local dancers and acrobatics doing a presentation to us that reminded me of Capoeira. It was a cool but tiring day.

Talk to you soon!!!




Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Thanks for the Pics

Special Thanks to Rodney and Christina for letting me steal their pictures and post it here.

All other will have their chance to help me too!!!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Weekend and Monday work and trips



Hi All,

The past weekend was pretty great. We where taken to the Ikogosi Spring Water resort, which still under development and its planned to be open in about a month. The main activity they have in there is to see nature (forest and so) and the 2 water sources, “gift from nature” as they say, that come out within the park. One is hot (40o C) and the other cold and it meet at a certain point making it nice and warm. The water we’ve being drinking is taken from there and is called Gossy water. We walked thru the enterprise and talked to the director who is coming back this week to meet us at the hotel and gather suggestions. After that we went to another park in Ipole-Iloro, and hiked to Arita waterfall and took some pictures. A very nice Saturday.

On Sunday, a couple tailors came to the hotel to take our measurements and the fabric we bought at the market the other day so we could have our custom made Nigerian/Yoruba suits. The hard thing in this for me was as I wanted to have one made for my wife I had to combine the measurements from the other girls to try to make if fit her well. I hope I got it right, because if not, I’m in trouble… LOL.

Monday.






After coming to the office we worked a bit and then we where taken to a village in another town so we could meet the elderly and ask questions about how the process of social welfare payments work for them and their expectations on how could it be improved. I loved it! First of all, what a nice clothing they had. All different patterns and colors. When we got there, the plan was to talk to 5 of them, but as time went thru, others started to come in and we had a full house, actually front yard. Every time one of them started to talk they prayed for us, which was very nice, and then gave their opinion.  They were so respectful with each other’s opinion and always waited for their turn. All of this in Yoruba language, which was later translated by our guide and partner Yemi, from ICT. The moment I really liked was when we talked about our thoughts on biometrics for identification and they really cheered up, so we knew we where going in the right direction on our solution to avoid fraud on the payments. Thank you Babas and Mamas!!!

Well, being able to meet the people that will be helped by our project has put a more human face to the job and made me really happy about our work and this whole program. This is my ultimate goal here. Helping this people that really need our help! J

On the way back we stopped by a Senator’s house, so we could check out some local art, which was also pretty cool and then got back to the office, and then to the hotel a little later. But work was not done.

During my research about biometrics I was able to contact Anand Paul, who sent us some links to good documentation on that matter and Dennis Carlton who referred us to Bill Willis, a biometrics/smartcard solution expert consultant. So we met with Bill and gladly he cleared out some of our questions and also told us that what we need done is totally doable! UHUUUU!!!

It’s great to work in a company that even when you never met a person and they are far, far away from you, they are always willing to help and making their best. Go Big Blue!!! 

Thank you Anand, Denny and Bill!!! You’re now part of the CSC Nigeria 6 team efforts and we really appreciate it!

Boa noite a todos!!! (today its in Portuguese as I’m homesick)

Friday, February 15, 2013

Work, Valentines Day, Fabric Market and Bar






Friday!!!

This week has been great....lots of work at ICT and lots of fun too.

The Nigerian people are very friendly and all of them seems to really like me more when I say I'm from Brazil...we seem to have a good connection and they laugh a lot when I speak my real bad Yoruba, especially when I tell them that their Yoruba is good, in poor Yoruba......LOL

Mr. Fatai Rolling Dollar
At ICT we have reviewed our SOW and defined what we are really going to deliver. We are going to provide them with and roadmap to implement a identification system for the elderly citizens and some kind of smartcard payment scheme for the same elderly. Now we are working on finding suitable solutions for their needs.

On Tuesday that was a Valentines day party at the hotel and was a lot of fun. Most of us went to the party and danced with our Nigerian colleagues and amongst ourselves. How good is to meet new and interesting people? I love it!

Me, Bouke, Christina and Mithilesh stayed a little later than the others and our friend Ayo, who is our concierge here introduced us to Fatai Rolling Dollar, Nigerian Music Legend, who also played a couple of songs. He was very nice to us and we could see why he is so famous....the guy is 87, but you could not tell by looking at him. During the party I've danced with lots of Nigerian and made all of them say: VAI CORINTHIANS! as I was dressed with my Corinthians shirt and they were all asking about it. Nice nite.

We went to the market to buy fabric for our Nigerian style suites.
Folks from our group around and Ojo, our driver laughing at us...


The kids really liked us
Tonight we went to a bar and listen to some more Nigerian music and I was able to get a CD from the artist, Queen Roseline Iyabode, who was singing just for us.


 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihWHL9yp-c9pBKtFQYmKs8owYPPJtDiOuMXLXkIB3w-BOxhzL94LE6hOOF6bhAopV544eEzPCczFXO8RVJVYgkELSf8BSf7dlLfpzkVJLRSEPNxmlKi7_hpdMbp8b2_UBFxLd-Y0bFmZk/s1600/IMG_2960-2+(Medium).jpg
The Yoruba Talking Drums

After dinner with the team, where I ate a whole fish, I came to the room, chatted with my lovely wife for more than 50 min. on Skype (I miss her) and now I'm writing for you guys.

Tomorrow we are going to a warm springs and I believe will be fun.

Od'aro kosi la ala to da (Good night and have and sweet dreams)

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Let's work!!!



Tuesday

Ek'asan! (Good afternoon)

Today we have woken up and came directly to the Ekiti State ICT department to start the real work. After a introduction of the Organization layout by the ICT director, Mr. Toyin Oloniteru, who has been with us all these days, we split into our sub-teams, so me, Leslie and Rodney talked to the head of the Ministry of Labor, Productivity and Capital Development, who is responsible for the Social Security payments, Mrs Olabisi Fatoba, who explained to us how things work today and provided some material that we asked for. We have also talked to Yemi Ojudu, ICT Senior Tech Assistant who also cleared a lot of their expectations and then we worked among ourselves on updating the SOW we received, document the answers provided and establish a to do list.

Now we are heading back to the hotel, will have dinner and discuss a little bit more the project with the whole team to get some insights. A productive day!

Mari e ni'gba mi!!! (See you later!!!)

PS: my man Daniel, from CDC, left today...good trip my friend!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Press Conf, King's Palace, Gov's meeting, Café Pilão and Yoruba boy from Brazil



Monday
Remi Abere (IBM) in the spotlight
Remi, from IBM Nigeria Corporate talking to the press
Press conference in the morning. All the press from the state was here and we all introduced ourselves to them. It’s funny to be a star, with all the cameras and microphones.... LOL --- photos later....
After the press conference we went to a very special visit. We went to the Ado Ekiti King’s palace – they have a lot of old tribal royalty throughout Nigeria – It was a surreal experience and very interesting! I promise to post pics and film later. When I bowed to him and said a word in Yoruba, he and all of the tribal council really laughed hardly....cool!
Kelsen, Bob, Bianka and Rodney at the Governor's Office - They have a White House/ Agent -look, don't they?
After that we met again with the Governor, but this time at the main government building – very nice and big office – where he talked about his expectations regarding our projects and again I was very impressed by his very great communication and knowledge about everything that is going on in the world….he was even talking about Embrapa and how Brazil is a big agriculture power and how they want to implement the agriculture technology we have in Nigeria, especially in the Ekiti State….I’m really start thinking he will be president some day. Very bright man and it seems he is really trying to make something of his mandate.
Minni and the AKs :)
We got back to the hotel and after a quick sub team’s meeting we went to the supermarket – always escorted by AK47’s security – and both some stuff we needed. I wanted to buy some coffee paper filters, but they don’t have such thing in here, so I both a t-shirt and made myself an old school filter and after dinner me and some of the guys drank the real coffee, Brazilian Café Pilão special Intense blend!

A couple of beers, listening from some Marcelo D2 from Christina’s iPod (Brazil is really out there) and now I’m here writing back to you guys….tomorrow will be the meeting with our clients and then me, Leslie and Rodney will start the real work for CIMS project. 

Ah, and last but not least, my Nigerian friends from both the hotel and the government are giving me some nicknames like: Neymar (don’t like it – LOL), Brazil 2014 and the one I really liked: Yoruba boy from Brazil!!! hahahahahah

Thank you Mr President!



Something that I forgot to tell....

During our dinner we were talking that one of the girls should sing Happy Birthday Mr. Governor, just like Marilyn Monroe sang to Kennedy and then when we where leaving the Governor’s residence we were all saying: Thanks Mr Governor, happy birthday, and then when was Mariana turn she said: Thank you Mr President and he answered: Not yet, not yet! Big laugh from everybody    LOL