Mozambique...

Oh Mozambique, I think you were a victim of circumstances out of your control.

Our original plan was to head out to Swaziland for the weekend, but we learned midweek that the Indians and the Taiwanese team member needed special visas or something from Pretoria, so we amended the plans to go to Mozambique for the day. Now, it turned out I was somehow responsible for dealing with the tour operator, who is really a representative of the CDC (our NGO) so I didn't think it would be too much of a big deal to expect him to arrange things. I was further comforted by the fact that the trip itself was going to be expensive, $100 a person to be precise. Now, of course for us, that isn't a big deal, but for some of the members from different economies around the world, that can be a lot of money.

I justified it by thinking, well, you pay for convenience. If it's $100, it's probably going to be a great trip with some unique insights and a wonderful experience. The trip itself was 1 for 3.

It didn't start off well. Our guide, Sertorio, was 30 minutes late to pick us up. This would have been fine, we all understand south africa time, but the fact that we were all ready at 6am further added to the problem. We could have all gotten an extra 30 mins sleep.

If I would have had a convenience clock that ticked away the extra money that I felt I was paying for the trip, this is when it would have started ticking money off.

We're picked up in a nice 18 person van, but Sertorio notices that we only have 13 people instead of 14. Our dear holy Mary came down with a case of Shingles the night before and it was decided she should stay and recover. Well, Sertorio says, we need to change vans so we can take a van that seats exactly 13 people, with less leg room, and less room for our stuff. We are now feeling like second class citizens, in particular when he tells us he needs to give the good van to another group. Ok, got it, fine....but! before switching vans, we head to the gas station to fill up the tank of the van that we're not even using! Are you kidding me? Then! we switch vans and have to lead the driver of the other van to a different lodge to drop the first van off. Mind you, this is all happening with 13 of us cramped in the car.

It's now approaching 7 or 7:30am (we were supposed to leave for Mozambique at 6am) and we haven't even filled up the gas for the actual van we're taking. Finally underway.

The border crossings here are an experience. You have to get out of your car and wait in line, not once, but twice, one at each country's border so you can pass through. The lines were long, and the people here don't pay particular attention to queue rules. This includes our guide, which at one point, caused some of the members to feel rather uncomfortable when essentially we moved straight to the front of the line and people started shouting at us that it was because we were white. This actually happened twice, at two different points. Most of us were really trying to wait in line but our dear guide kept trying to take us to the front. I'd rather spend five minutes in line than wake an angry mob.

But back to the trip, in our uncomfortable van for four freaking hours. In fact, here's what a lot of the trip felt like, and when I say a lot of the trip, we're talking probably 9 hours or more:

That's the view I had of Mozambique for a long time. Now, it's true it was probably too dangerous for us to get out of the car at this point, Mozam's a bit shady in a lot of parts, but it felt like a really long time in the car until we got to our first destination, a deserted train station:

The culture continued! We then went to an old fort, supposedly the oldest building or something or other in Mozambique. It was the saddest excuse for a building I have ever seen. It was basically stone walls around a courtyard. In fact, I don't even have pictures of it, it was that lame. Instead, I spent my time outside taking pictures of the locals. Oh wait, I can't post them either, because while I was taking photos, I took some of the police. Three minutes later, they were harassing me trying to extract a bribe while one of them held an AK-47. He made me show him all the photos and delete them. I think Mozam should create a new country slogan involving friendliness.

We drove around for another 30 mins or so, seeing a building made of steel, and aluminium plant and who knows what else. Then we hear that we're going to the market! Woohoo! a market! I would love to go through a market, see the locals, buy some nice souvenirs. As we roll up in our crowded clown car van, they tell us that the market has just closed, it closed early because it's Sunday.

....

....

I'd like to say this was the turning point of the trip, but there wasn't a person in that car that didn't immediately make the connection that if we hadn't messed around that morning, we'd have been able to go to the market and maybe salvage the whole snafu'd trip. In fact, this trip was an excellent time to teach some of our non-native speakers of english a new word, Cluster&%$*. It was used quite often throughout the entire day, whether it was borders, closed markets, police shakedowns, or van mishaps.

It was then time for lunch, which in the end wasn't all that bad. Mozambique is known for it's seafood so we went to a local seafood place (which really was probably a tourist place, not so local) and ate. My table ordered Octopus heads to start and then medium prawns for the main course. The Octopus heads were disappointingly like regular calamari; we were hoping to crunch some beaks and eyes, but oh well.

This was an ocean side restaurant so we waded across the street through the locals to the beach and hung out for about an hour. This was easily the best part of the whole day, which accounted for 1 hour of the 14 hour day. With that, here's some pictures from that precious hour.

Locals playing soccer on the beach with Mozambique in the background.

Yes, he's midair in this shot. He's basically a kung fu kid posing for the camera.

Why is it that chariots of fire breaks out anytime people are on a beach? As a tribute, here's a slow motion run from Craig and Ethan.

Thought it appropriate to dip my toe in the Indian Ocean, ever so gingerly.

Hidden treasures amongst the waves! I found myself a new pair of boxers, what a discovery!

I wasn't with the team at this point because I've learned my lesson far too often with incoming tides. I had retreated back to solid land at this point.

I like this shot, that's most of the CSC team, probably 12 our of the 14, plus 2 street kids with the Mozambique skyline in the background.

This is what I was able to avoid, everyone of course got stranded by the tide and had to wade back in, fun time had by all for that one hour.

It was quite a day, didn't get back to the lodge until 8pm (which I lost a bet on, I had guessed 7pm).

We are supposed to go with Sertorio next weekend to Swaziland, but I'd imagine that's not going to happen. Now, he could be the absolute best tour operator in all of South Africa, and we might even be lucky by comparison to what could have happened, but considering how much of a relatively expensive disaster the day was, I think I'm ready to take my chances with another tour operator.

"Three Seconds of free fall"

You get to four, there's a problem. That's what I heard during our activity on the panoramic road this afternoon, about two seconds later, this happened:

For those of you who can't see the face in the above shot, this is what sheer terror looks like:

While I know I promised I wouldn't do this, boys will certainly be boys. The good news is that I did make a pact with Ethan that we would take care of each other's significant others in the event of a gorge death. Comforting I'm sure for Terra, but I think you'd like him, dear.

For the statistics, it's a 68 meter drop, which is roughly 23 stories, 3 seconds of free fall, followed by a swing across the canyon, which is the third largest canyon in the world, and the largest green canyon in the world.

We did plenty of other things as well of course, including a visit to Chimp Eden, God's Window, and the Potholes. The Jane Goodall institute Chimp Eden was amazing. Seeing all of chimpanzees, especially the baby ones running around, tussling, spinning like kids, and just interacting with each other was quite special. I think the moment that struck me the most was when the guide was throwing food to the chimps and she threw a nut to the larger male. He saw the nut land in front of him, didn't want it, nudged the female next to him and pointed to where it landed on the ground so she could eat it. Such a gesture of intelligence, I don't understand how anyone who ever observes these creatures could possibly deny evolution.

Like I said, the babies were the cutest, especially the way they twirled around on the hillsides with their arms flailing and then fell down, rolling down the hill.

The guide was throwing them nuts so they would try and crack open the shells to eat them. They learn to crack the shells using rocks by watching either the other chimps, or even a human doing it outside of their enclosure, such intelligence.

Chimps use the buddy system, they watch each others backs, and a couple of the younger males, real young, would walk around arm in arm, it was adorable.

Incredible watching them move around through the jungle, our ancestors.

Looking in their eyes was quite intense.

We then went up to God's Window (not terribly impressive) and the Potholes (more impressive and like a big playground).

God's window:

Slow motion running at the gorge, me and Ethan (thanks to Zach for the touchup).

The potholes, with Ethan, Zach, and myself overlooking.

Fun shadows!

Shooting the potholes:

Zach, you should always look out for crazy people at tourist attractions.

This was right before the universe ended.

I had promised to post some of the videos when I finally had them loaded and edited (even if done by an amateur, me).

This first one is of a tribal dance that the kids did. It's a little bit long, 5 mins, but still very representative of the types of tribal dancing that they used to do.

The second video is beautiful, it's the Room 13 choir doing an african song for us. The voices on some of these children were unbelievable.

The group is led by a very charismatic young man named Maurice, who himself is an artist and runs the art program at the school.

School Visit, Day four

"IBM Corporate Service Corps visited South Africa and the Edwaleni School to bring gifts and share cultures creating a relationship that will last long into the future.

*Scott, Shutaro, Craig, Chris, Rebecca, Zach, Carolina, Veronica, Mirko, Joann, Mary, Sertorio"

-Message written in the Edwaleni Primary School visitor book.

...

That's about what sums up today, speechlessness. It was a day that literally brought tears to my teammate's eyes, and I'll admit, I was close myself.

We spent the day at the school as planned, the Edwaleni Primary School, about forty minutes (or one hour driving 30kph below the speed limit...just kidding Joann). I'll not go into the details of the school, that can be read on the other school visit, but instead I'll go through the program.

We started off gathering about a third of the kids in the school and sitting them in front of the stage where we were located. We started off introducing ourselves and the countries where we are from, with large applause from the kids when they recognized the country...which was every country but Uruguay.

And then the good stuff started, out came a group of talented art students dressed in traditional garb to perform a dance for us. We have amazing videos of this, and I don't think my adjectives are going to describe this adequately, so I'm going to hold off on this until the videos come. It was kind of like a tribal faux fighting or something, with girls rushing and feigning at each other kicking high up into the air.

They went through a couple of dance numbers and then the choir came out. It was at this point that it all kind of hit home. One of the most moving things I've ever seen, such beautiful singing and energy. Again, I am not with the right words to describe it, but don't worry, the videos will be coming.

Finally we had some more dancing and then went and saw the artwork that the kids had done in Room 13. Enough with the words, here are the photos, and I'm not going to caption them intentionally. Take a look and try and see them as we saw them today and understand what it all means.

And please visit Craig's facebook album and blog for the real photos, we're so lucky to have him on our team taking these photos. They're the closest thing to capturing the moment that we have.

Capitalism versus Social Responsibility

Before I start this discussion, let me first link to the official IBM corporate service corps blogs. If you're interested in doing some serious reading, here's the rest of the South Africa Team 2 Blog. Furthermore, you may not realize it, but we've sent probably 300 people outside of the country since the program's inception and most of them have blogged. You can get a list of all the team's blogs here.

Now with that out of the way, I want to thank Mr. Vogel for bringing up my next topic.

As most of you know who are reading this, I'm one of the biggest capitalists in the world, or atleast in my head, and it may seem like I've gone soft in my old age, being down here helping people. It's something I've often considered myself, "Where is the line between doing the right thing for the business and just doing the right thing?" Living my life trying to always do the right thing was the mantra that I adopted as a manager, and what I tried to use every time I dealt with one of my people. I struggle to understand when the social actions taken by business transcend the results and whether we as a company have surpassed that?

Let's be clear, for me it's not an issue, there are a million different ways that I could justify my being here that has nothing to do with helping people. It's good for my career, I get to travel, have new experiences, see other countries, meet new friends, etc. But beyond all that, there's something more here; I really do like helping people, typically when it's my choice with helping people. I'm a large fan of random acts of kindness, getting nothing in return for giving, it's when I'm expected to give that I immediately have a problem and pull everything in. I think that's where the selfishness comes into play and where it differentiates itself from altruism. I like seeing the results of my giving, because it makes me happy to see other people happy, but I will not sacrifice my personal happiness or freedom of choice for someone else's happiness. As to what I'm actually doing here, I can swing a hammer as much as the next guy, but there are some things that I do a lot better than that, and being able to leverage them here for such an important cause is a real treat.

There is not a single day that goes by that I am not more and more proud of the company for which I work. Do I think it's IBM's responsibility to do all of the things that it does for the communities around the world? Absolutely not (let's hope that statement doesn't get taken out of context and someday harm my potential to be a high level executive). Am I tremendously proud of IBM for doing them and would I make the same decisions given the choice someday? Absolutely 200%. It's because IBM does these things that I enjoy working there so much and have stayed with the company this long. I know that tomorrow, there's not going to be a news story about IBM doing bad business somewhere causing the whole company to collapse; that's not IBM and it's not the way IBM does business. It's the fact that the company has a reputation and a history to maintain and a place to play in humanity's struggle. A little overdramatic? Maybe, but consider the inventions and progress that IBM has brought with it in the past 100 years. Yes, the 100 year anniversary is coming up. Over those years we've always been ahead of the curve, whether it was discrimination policies, hiring minorities, creating amazing technology, or boycotting countries that were ruled by Apartheid, IBM is a world leader.

I think the capitalist with the freedom to do as he wishes, or the corporation with the choice, will 9 times out of 10, do the right thing. I think those odds dramatically decrease when you remove free will from the equation. You don't want someone following the law, you want them following their happiness (or profit from corporate image) because only then will you get the best results for everyone involved.

Day 3, Peripherally productive part 2

I mentioned in the earlier post that we got a bunch of IBM swag together as well, there's a picture of it below all gathered on the table.

Another look at the folks gathering around the table with all our stuff.

This is the area that we typically work in, notice all of the freaking laptops everywhere. At one point, there were eight of us around this table all with our thinkpads open, most of us blogging about our experiences. Also in this photo, those not blogging are in the back cooking dinner. We have some great "cooooookers" who made an amazing meal for us to eat. Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad. The rest of us either entertained them through pretending to help, and then really just taking pictures of them cougaring, or trying to rinse the dishes later.

We had a wonderful time shopping. As I also mentioned, we had over $500 dollars raised by ibmers, all of which went to school supplies, soccer balls, pastel paints, watercolors, calculators, colored pencils, hoola hoops, and english language posters. And yes, I look like a turtle in this photo, a crazy turtle.

A closer up look at the cart, we also got a whole volleyball set and of course an american football. They also play a game like netball, which is a cross between basketball, and ultimate frisbee (you have to put a ball through a hoop, but you can't move when you catch the ball.)

If anyone was curious what the meditation sessions look like, here they are below. I'm on the left, with Vero-chan next to me, Ethan about to sit down, Anil on the podium, and Craig hiding behind Anil.

One of the more interesting things here is the parking lots. Almost everywhere you go there are private security companies that have uniformed people in parking lots to watch the cars that expect a couple of rand (maybe fifty cents) to watch your car. There's a big problem here with smash and grab where people will just smash your window and take your stuff out and run away. It actually happened in a major parking lot the other day to one of our client's parents. Anyways, I love these folks, so I posed with this guy and told him to look strong with me.

For three of the days that we've been here, we had a nice Audi A4 to drive around, so here's the men of MEGA rocking it out, too cool for Nelspruit.

Technology here is entertaining. Here's our music set up, Ethan's Ipod attached to a boombox via a late 90's cassette adapter so we can have some tunes.

And since it's getting late here, I'll leave you with this, a beautiful moonrise off in the distance. This is the view off our deck with Nelspruit in the distance.

Also, I'd like to take a minute to thank everyone for reading the blog and sending me encouraging and passionate comments. It makes me want to share the experience all the more and work harder to find the real moments of south african life so that you can all be a part of it. Tomorrow is going to be a real big day, meeting with our client in the morning at 8 (after yoga) and then the school visit for the afternoon. I hope that we'll have some great videos, photos and memories to share.

Day 3, Peripherally productive part 1

Today was an interesting day. We're working into somewhat of a routine. Roll out of bed around seven or so and head down to the lower patio to meditate. This morning we had seven people including our Yogi Anil doing the meditation. The usual 10 minutes of silent breathing exercises and then 15 minutes of om chanting. Afterwards, we had our usual high five into the 50 degree pool water. I'll have more pictures of that later, Craig, our master photographer took some serious film footage of us jumping, you can view his blog here

I then accompanied the rest of the Mega team to the office where they had a meeting and I had hoped to change the rental car (we were getting a cheaper one today). I had figured the plan would be that the meeting would be short and then the team could drop me off back at the hotel, so I didn't bring anything other than a cell phone and my license etc. I had planned that as soon as I figured out the car, they'd be done, so no time wasted. I was wrong and should have brought my pc. 2.5 hours later, we left the office. I now know everything about my cell phone, memorized take out menus that I found in the office, and organized several meetings and trips by text. Oh well, such is south africa, gave me time to figure out the swaziland trip.

Speaking of, we will be heading there this weekend, on Sunday for a day trip to the country, seeing the cultural center and then also heading out into the local culture, sounds like our guide has something set up. It's actually surprisingly expensive in South African terms, but then again, $100 for a full day in Swaziland is fine with me really.

Still figuring out Saturday, we know the morning is occupied by the Chimpanzee farm at the Jane Goodall Institute or something, so that's going to be great. Might head to a cultural festival at the Mozambique, Swaziland border for the afternoon, there's some monument being erected.

In the afternoon, the five of us gathered the mighty envelope, the collection of all of the IBMers here on the program to go and buy things for the kids. All told, the 14 of us put together over $500 which bought lots of great stuff for the kids. We also had a bunch of gifts which we brought with us which you can see in the video below that we'll take to the kids, which kids?

Next up, the shopping trip...

Second day of work and school visit

An interesting and rather moving day today. I mentioned before that we were the only group with a flexible schedule and thus it was the job of Chris and myself this morning to head out to make the school visit. The Edswaleny school was about thirty five minutes out of town, and has 917 students, in 22 classrooms ranging in ages 5 (preschool) through 11 (end of primary school). Our plan was to meet with the educators, determine an appropriate program for a Thursday visit and then attempt to assess the needs of the school and children in the hopes that we would take up a collection amongst ourselves and then buy the school supplies and sports equipment.

The motto to the school, "To produce multi-skilled learners through effective teaching and learning involving all stakeholders".

While we were there we had the opportunity to witness one of the classroom activities in action. As part of the economics class, the children have to create a small business and do the economics of it. Here the children are selling little bits of candy and chips, and of course we were happy to buy some.

After meeting with the administrators of the school, we were led on a tour of the buildings. There are three buildings, two of which are connected by a room and brick floor which makes for kind of a general assembly area used both by the school and the community. It's in the right of the picture below, flanked on either side by classrooms.

Part of the school's education program is something called Room 13, started apparently in Scotland. It's an afterschool program that teaches kids about and encourages them to create art. We saw everything from drawing, to painting, to handicrafts, to poetry. This is, in fact, one of the larger demands for the school, art supplies to support the Room 13 project.

Below is a typical classroom that we saw while we were there. They have around 22 of these on-site and have between 35-40 in each classroom.

Below is the kitchen at the school which supplies all the food. The government provides the school weekly and monthly with the nourishment for the kids. They eat a rotating menu of cabbage, mealie meal, or other vegetables and beans. This meal at school is often the only meal that the kids eat each day so it's all the more important. Along these lines, it's also a significant problem for certain kids on weekends and especially holidays since they do not get food at home. There are times when a child will come back from the weekend break, having not eaten since Friday. The school has started trying to send food home with the children in the most need.

Below are the preschoolers who sang for us in English while we were there. The ages of the children are between 5 and 6 years old. There's a video of them singing at the bottom of the page.

I tried to capture it, but apparently missed. Turns out that pulling your pants up really high is humorous no matter where you are. I saw a couple of kids with their pants pulled up to their armpits walking around goofy. Always funny (especially when Terra does it).

Below is another example of a hands on learning experience. This is a vegetable garden tended by the children. They learn how to grow and rotate crops and then the harvest is incorporated into their diet for additional nourishment. While we were there, we saw lettuce and tomatoes growing.

This is an example of one of the larger shacks that the people in the area live in. It was hard to get good pictures of the living conditions, but the places were quite small, maybe 8'x10' and there could be 8 people living there, maybe a mother, father, and 6 children.

Before the video, here's a couple of other things to think about, and this is from the mouths of the teachers, unedited. Many of the children are orphans, often because their parents died from HIV/AIDS. The HIV infection percentage is around 40%, and there are several children at the school with HIV. Because of this, there are households headed by 11 year olds. Think about that for a second, being 11 years old, in fifth grade, having to be responsible for your brothers and sisters, the house, and trying to go to school. It's not a very good predicament.

Another thing that came up when we were talking about the school needs was improved transportation. Some of the children live up to 7 kilometers away (4.5 miles or so), and have to walk to school each day. There are criminals on the road who have in the past at times raped the children. Again, these are kids between the ages of 5-11.

Clearly a school in need. It's not all lost though, we've got 14 IBMers here determined to make a difference, and I'm not sure that there are many forces in the world that can stop that. It may be a little cliche to talk about it, but I do truly think that IBMers, and in particular those on this trip are cut from a different cloth than the every man.

Preschool kids singing in English for us: