Goodbye Calabar, goodbye ICT

Yesterday we wrapped up our project and said goodbye to everyone at ICT. Here's Greg with the accountant and office-Ben outside or office:


Victoria and another lady from ICT surprised us at the hotel in the evening: they had gone shopping for farewell gifts. Got some nice traditional Nigerian clothing including the hats in the second picture:


Few other guys from ICT also dropped by at the office, they wanted to have a picture taken with us before we depart. The second guy from left is actually a tailor, Greg is wearing trying on his new outfit at the corridor:


This morning Hermann and I were surprised at the airport. Hermann's customer Edak, the Commissioner of Ministry of Social Welfare game to say goodby together with the CDS representative Ann Oden:


Sitting in my hotel room in Abuja I am feeling grateful I had the opportunity to participate in the CSC program. I will definatelly miss the warmth and hospitality of the people I met during the past month. I made great contacts across the globe within IBM. Lindsey, Greg, Juan Pablo, Kish, Ron, Hermann, Michele and Cynthia are not my colleagues, they are my friends. I learned so much in a month. About Africa & Nigeria in general, doing business in a developing country and the living conditions there. I admire how the Nigerians are so optimistic even though they would have all the right to lose their hope. I learned a lot of myself also, both personally and professionally. In deed, this is a month I will not forget.

Now it's time look forward and hand the project over to the second IBM team who will arrive in Calabar in just few weeks. I have already talked to Kristina from Canada and Yvonne from Germany, there's so much they can do to help ICT in their ambitious goals. Looking forward to reading their blogs and hearing about their experiences.

Thank you IBM, Sosóŋ Calabar!

Rewards Nigerian style

Staff motivation and retention is one of the biggest challenges in the local government. We once suggested them to recognise staff with the right attitude in the monthly department meetings. Given the fact that budget for awards is non-existent we encouraged them just to acknowledge the high performers with a simple "thank you".

Yesterday we were participating in this months townhall meeting. The meeting started with a prayer followed by an Enterprise Architecture presentation by Greg and myself. We started in a class room but as more and more staff crowded in we ended up moving the meeting to the hallway. At the end there were maybe 60-70 ICT employees listening to us.

After a three-hour meeting before the closing prayer our customer mentioned that he will from now on reward the ICT staff on a quarterly basis. He nominated an employee from each unit and gave them prizes which included a microwave owen, a printer, a flat screen 21 inch TV, an a stereo system. He had bought these with his own money.



Patience, the office barbie girl got an iron.


Sad thing is that people were not necessarily rewarded based on their performance, but on how long hours they are working or at what time they answer their phones. One staff member stood up and claimed he would answer his phone in the middle of the night if the Special Adviser would just call him.

Safety first

Our drivers have not been around that much lately, so a couple of times we took a taxi from work back to the hotel. Taxis are blue cars with a white stripe painted at the side and they drive the main roads. You just stop the car, jump in and jump out for about 0,25 € per person. They take other passangers along the road. If you want a "special route" i.e. off the main roads, you'll need to pay 1€ per person and then the taxi is reserved exclusively for yourself.



Most of the taxis are old, wrecked cars, types you would not fnd in the Western countries anymore. There might not be side windows or the doors will not open from inside. What's funny though, is that if you st in the front seet the driver will tell you to fasten the seat belt. I mean, so far I haven't seen anyone using a seat belt in Nigeria! The first week we went for a dinner with our client, his wife and a seven-months-old baby. I was sitting at the back seat of the clients car holding the baby on my laps, feeling terrified. Yesterday we took a taxi again. Greg sat at the front seat and was told to fasten his seat belt. Taking a closer look at the picture below you'll see that the way it was fastened was probably not the safest one.

Last couple of days ahead

I haven’t had access to internet for about a week now, so haven't been able to update the blog either :( Now the end of Ramadan celebrations are over and we're back to the office with internet connection. Wohoooo!

Our team has now spent three and half weeks in Calabar. Often times we have discussed would some of us be willing to work in a developing country for several years. Personally I feel that the work here could be so much more rewarding than back home. Here the challenges are so fundamental, that solving them could really make a diffrence. But would we be able to cope with the frustration, the slow pace, the poor living and working conditions? And, an especially tough one for myself, the not-so-healthy-nor-delicious food. Aren’t we lucky that we that choice.

Last week we collaborated a bit more with the other IBM teams. Some of us worked in the other teams’ premises and consulted their customers on their own expertise areas. I have actually learned a lot about IBM offerings myself this week, listening to Greg’s Asset Management and Juan Pablo’s hardware presentations.

The past couple of days we have been finalizing our work and recommendations, which we presented to His Excellency and the whole Executive Council of the State Government this morning. The feedback we got was excellent. Now there are still a few trainings and presentations that we want to deliver before the project wrap-up.

I truly hope that the work we have done here will make a diffrence, no matter how small.

No diesel, no internet

Today was the third day in a row we didn't have power at the office. The generator was not working either. We found out that there was no diesel for the generator and no one could go and buy it, because the accountant was not there to release the money! Oh wow wow. We were seriously thinking of going and buying two litres of diesel just to keep the generator going for our workshop. Luckily, they found the accountant, the money was released, the diesel was bought and we got our workshop running with our slides projected to the screen. We wanted to use the whiteboard as well, but IBM team who is working for the Social Welfare Department borrowed it on Thursday - haven't seen it since. Maybe we'll go whiteboard hunting tomorrow.



Six men wondering how to get the generator working. This is actually an old generator. The department had a brand new one, but that was stolen.

Two weeks gone, two weeks left

On Friday we held a presentation on Enterprise Architecture for the management team of the ICT Development department. We got very good feedback and the audience seemed interested. In my opinion we succeeded in presenting quite complicated topics in an easily understandable way. We used a lot of pictures, examples and analogues. Tomorrow is our third workshop on EA maturity and targeted communications planning, looking forward to it. I'm actually surprised that we are still on schedule and have been able to hold all the planned workshops and presentations despite the drawbacks.

Meanwhile, during the weekend we saw a bit more of the city.

Around Watt's Market

Donkey's head at the meat section of the Watt's Market (the sellers tried to assure us it was a cow's head).

Lovely ladies at the food section of Watt's Market

Kids at Watt's Market

Calabar Museum is housed in a beautifully restored old colonial building prefabricated and shipped from England.

This cutie was the daughter of the Museum tour guide.

Nigerians are so good at balancing stuff on their head.

German team member Hermann in his new Nigerian outfit.

During our morning walk we saw so many kids walking with buckets to the water point. Majority of the residences have no electricity or running water.

Shots from work and Marian Market

Our driver Edja


The office barbie girl Patience


Cutting the crass manually (the park behind our office is the size of a football field.

Me and a pizza slice yesterday at our lebanese dinner (it was only 10 of us and there was food for least 20... yummy)

Greg brought 20 small koalas from Australia and made three little girls so happy yesterday at the market. He also scared to little boys - white man trying to give a koala was probably the scariest thing ever happened to them. At least judging by their reaction.

This is the shop where Greg bought those post-it note, markers and scotch tape the other day.


Saw so many colours yestereday when we went shopping for fabrics. This big mama was so nice and gave me some discount after some friendly bargaining.

Working in Africa

The pace is definately slower here. Way slower.

Whenever you ask someone how they are doing, they always tell you “busy busy busy”. To me everyting seems inefficient here compared to home. For example, the way meeting invites are sent. You are supposed to send a printed meeting invite about one week ahead of the suggested time. You will then get the invite back signed by the person who received it. This, however, will not yet mean that the person will be available to join the meeting. It only confirmes that the invitation has been received. I surely hope that the intranet and the mail/calendar system will be up and running soon.

Last Friday, at the ICT Department meeting the Head of Administraion was asking if any of the department staff have any issues. At first no one said anything. When she insisted a couple of times, people finally started to come up with issues that probably have been mentioned in each monthly meeting. One guy from the Networking unit said his issue is that he doesn’t have access to internet.. When analysing the problem in more detail they found out this guy doesn’t even have a computer or a table. Imagine that! It seems that at least at the government level the Nigerians are somewhat reactive rather than proactive… Anyway we have now proposed that they will start collecting all the issues in an issue log and publish it at the notice board so that the department management has visibility to the issues and the staff can see who is taking care of them and by when.

We had scheduled our first workshop on current situation analysis for Friady at 12:00. We managed to get everyone in the meeting room at around 15:00 and that’s just when we started to find a projector, look for whiteboard and markers etc. We had asked the team to have those at hand, but you know asking isn’t the same as getting. In the middle of the workshop someone brought us few markers that we were happy to start using immediately just to find afterwards that they were permanent ones… Had a pretty productive workshop though regardless of all the drawbacks.

Yesterday was our second workshop on stakeholder analysis. 15 minutes before we were supposed to start we found out that there are still no markers or post-its. Greg took our driver and one of the girls from the office to Marian Market to buy the stationery while I organised the cleaning of the whiteboard and finding & setting up the screen for the projector. This time we started only 40 minutes late, but when I was in a middle of the presentation the power went off and the generator refused to start going. So we ended up having a casual converstation for a bit less than half an hour before being able to continue. The post-its didn’t quite stick to the still slightly wet whiteboard, but otherwise we were able to run the workshop as planned.

Today we have been documenting our findings and preparing ourselves for the next workshops. On Friday we should actually deliver our first awareness session on Enterprise Architecture. We prepared and printed homework to the team hoping to get them more involved. There’s only so much we can do in one month so we really want the local team to start taking ownership. I hope that by the end of the month they feel that they have learnt something valuable and that we have provided them with tools that can utilise in the future.

Weekend trip to Obudu ranch @ Mount Afi

His Excellency, the Governor of Cross River States is pampering us. This weekend he invited us to enjoy the Obudu Ranch at the Afi mountains. The most beutiful place I've seen for a long time! We spent 7 hours on bumpy roads in a small bus driving there on Saturday, but it was so worth it. Along the way there were several check points, some more official than others. Luckily the Governor had send four escorts with their AK47's with us - have never felt safer in my life. I feel refreshed and happy having seen a more beutiful side of this country asides all the poverty (70% of the people in the state live with a less than 1$ for day).

Passing through a village - the kids were so delighted to see a bus driving by.

This picture is taken from a cable cart on our way to the 1600 meter high mountain. The road is called Devil's Elbow.

Our bus didn't get through this muddy spot - had to make a few journeys with the escorts' pickup.

Our bodyguards and Lindsey & Kish.

It hasn't just been all fun and pleasure, will write a bit about work tomorrow (or whenever I will have access to the internet the next time - you never know).

First week done

This girl was selling cell phone battery charging services for 50 Naira (about 25 cents) at the street. How smart!
































The office of myself and Greg is located at the second floor of the ICT Development Department of the Government of Cross River State.

The view from our windows is to a big training hall, where the department staff trains e.g. school teachers in ICT literary. We can't move the curtains, but peeking from the small holes we saw that one course was on basic MS Word and how to use the mouse for example.















We saw this sign at the Ministry of education where we went to observe an eGovernment needs assessment workshop yesterday.






The first thing we saw when entering the Ministry of Education was these two fellows changing a light bulb...

The lunch and dinner portions are huge around here. Today we only wanted something small, so we bought a doughnat filled with a boiled egg from the POPULARBOY around the block.