Day 30 – Goodbye Calabar (Sep 26)

Sadly this trip has come to an end … I accompanied Lindsey, Michelle and Cynthia to the airport for their morning to Abuja, and I will be leaving after lunch to Lagos. Kish, Juan Pablo, Ron, Hermann and Jenni left over the last few days and most should be home by now.

All project teams are meant to go through what Tuckman described as ‘forming, storming, norming and performing’ but interestingly enough in team discussions we realised the second stage did not stand out at all … storming does not always involved conflict though, I guess all team members were mature in their approach towards the CSC assignment and open to each other’s perspectives and ideas. All I am saying is that I feel privileged to have worked with such a team of IBM professionals who may have joined the program as colleagues but whom I consider now as friends above all.

I believe that at one point the team development model above was updated to include a mourning phase … to account for the sense of loss and separation at the end of a project when everyone moves on, in our case back to Australia, Finland, India, Ireland, Venezuela and the US … I am not looking forward to that phase at all !

Before I close out I would recommend you read the following blogs for another angle to this adventure … everyone sees things in a different light and I hope you will enjoy views from some of my travelling companions:

www.favali.net
http://jenninigeriassa.blogspot.com
http://lindseynigeria.blogspot.com/
http://hermannnigeria.blogspot.com/
http://michellekelfkens.blogspot.com/

Day 29 – Farewell ICT (Sep 25)

Project work is wrapped up and Jenni flew home to Finland this morning. So it is now time to go around town one last time to bid everyone farewell.
Lindsey was kind enough to be my photographer and here are a few shots from my last visit at the Information, Communication and Technology Development Department of the Cross River State Government (should I refer to is as the ICTDD of the CRSG?):

Day 27 – Executive Council Presentation (Sep 23)

Bid day today, the IBM team is presenting its findings and recommendations to the Cross River State Executive Council, chaired by the Governor – Senator Liyel Imoke. I’d say the ExCo is about 50-strong and we may have had an additional 30 people sitting at the back.
Most important meetings start with a prayer but official ones actually run the Cross River anthem, Nigerian anthem, and then the prayer told by a member of staff… quite a protocol that surely reminds everyone that they are working towards the greater good of the State and its people.

IBM and CDS focused their efforts on the following projects:
- Tinapa: strategy and roadmap for a Management Information System
- Enterprise Architecture for the Cross River State government
- Planning support for the Calabar Data Center with the Department of Special Projects
- Strategic assessment for the Ministry of Social Welfare and Community Development
- Tempo: Tourism Supply Chain development

The presentations were well received, it was rewarding to hear the governor articulate the value that he thought his State had received and exciting to hear other ministries requesting IBM support!

Day 26 – Radioactive Periwinkle (Sep 22)

Brrr … even as a French man who enjoy snails, frogs and all good things in live I have chills going down my spine just thinking about this …
Periwinkles are local snails found in thin black conic spiky shells … they actually sell at the Watt and Marian markets I described earlier though I never came across them in a local dish … until today.
Our protocol officer Jane took Lindsey and I out on a lunch expedition at House 4, a local restaurant where we order banga soup with goat meat. The soup is made from grinded palm fruits, and the goat meat usually has as much meat as skin which helps digestion. Ten little periwinkles also found their way in the soup …
Always up for trying new things I tried to suck the snail out of its shell, got the bitter juice out, but couldn’t get the little sucker out. On the second attempt I managed to bite a bit of flesh and pulled the rest out … at which point I had a temporary loss of hearing thanks to Lindsey’s master scream :) I spat it out on my plate and realised the rest of the snail was a mix of fluorescent green and turquoise blue … oh wow wow as the hotel front desk boy would say … was I just holding this between my teeth. It took a few minutes for both of us to settle back down and proceed with the rest of the meal. Minus the rest of the periwinkles :)

Day 24 – Boat trip to Akwa Ibom (Sep 20)

Apologies for the lack of updates … I shall blame it in the lack of internet access, though I am also partly to blame for enjoying being offline for a little while. It helps me enjoy the moment and be more aware of all that’s happening around me.

One of our project sponsors offered to arrange a boat ride to Akwa Ibom for the day and the whole IBM team (minus Jenni unfortunately as she wasn’t feeling well) jumped on a police boat at the Calabar marina.

We mingled with the rich and famous as we were accompanied by a few VIPs on jetskis and speedboats … quite exhilarating as we picked up speed and rain hit us hard, though it seemed a bit out of place as we zigzagged through a pristine jungle speckled with fishermen huts.

Akwa Ibom is the neighbouring state to the south west of Cross River, it was hard to tell its level of economic development compared to Cross River given the little we saw but my understanding from official publications is that they derive serious money from oil revenue allocations.

Day 20 – Time for a feast (Sep 16)

Memories of Tinapa are that of sunburns at the moment but the drawing power of good food and shopping for fabrics is irresistible! So on this fine day Jenni and I joined Kish and Juan Pablo in their Tinapa offices, headquarters of the Management Information Systems project they are looking after.

Tinapa is a free trade zone and a major investment for Cross River State … it includes emporiums (large shopping complexes), movie theatres, a hotel, a casino, many more shops, a water park and the Nollywood movie studio. Unfortunately at the moment not much if it is under operation, only the water park, hotel, and 4 shops seem to be running. The ‘build it and they will come’ approach seems to fall short of expectations and business tourists are yet to invade the place. Nevertheless it is a flagship project, has great facilities and great potential.

Now on to the best part of the day … lunch at the Amber Sun hotel! Alright I’ll tell you what was on the menu but please understand this was a reward and not our every day meal :) Mushroom cream soup, grilled prawns and chocolate mousse. Yummy.

Day 18 – I would give anything for Biafine (Sep 14)

Sunburns hurt even more today … aaargh ! I tried a few pharmacies in Calabar but couldn’t find Biafine, so I’ll have to stick to the second treatment option which is moisturiser and ice :(

Day 17 – Tinapa (Sep 13)

Sundays are usually fairly quiet in Calabar, most people go to church in the morning and spend the rest of the day with family. All shops are closed.

Thankfully Juan Pablo and Kish pulled a couple of strings to get us access into the Tinapa Water Park in the Tinapa Free Trade Zone and we spent a couple of hours running down water slides, enjoying the wave pool and the Jacuzzi, or doing a couple of laps.
To put things into context, it has been grey and rainy for the last 2 weeks, so we all got excited when the sun came out. We were already in the water without sun screen, and we didn’t feel how strong the Nigerian sun was at mid-day … I got pretty impressive sunburns on my face, shoulders and upped back, and I hate myself for not having thought of applying the basic slip, slap, slop rule I told you about.

Day 16 – Deeper in the Watt Market (Sep 12)

Today is Saturday so the IBM team is in full exploration mode … unfortunely the Cultural centre was closed so we headed to the Calabar Museum which was next on the list. We learnt about the first interactions between Europeans and Calabar residents which led to the establishment of trading ports for British ships en-route for India. The museum provided great insights, many pictures and a few artefacts of the triangle of trade between Europe, Africa and the New World, slavery, colonialism and the Berlin conference where European countries agreed on territory allocation in the African continent.

I then spent two hours roaming around the Watt market looking for ready-made Nigerian clothing and wax fabrics … I didn’t find any of the former and there was too much of the latter to choose from ! The main highlight for me was to walk through the central part of the market where all things edible are traded: nuts, vegetables, fruits, palm oil, fish and meat in a suffocating mix of heat, smells and humidity. Meat, tripes, stomachs and intestines were particularly appetizing lying raw on wooden plancks … we were told by a couple of stalls attendants that they were all cow products, not entirely convincing if you saw the donkey head that was smiling at us nearby !

Another important discovery ... what I thought was chargrilled black fish is actually the smoked catfish we have in edikang ikong and other soups. Doesn't look too appetizing in a ratan basket but it's actually very tasty once at the table !

Day 14 – Watt Market (Sep 10)

No power in the office today, the national power grid is down and the backup generator is playing tricks on the maintenance team. The main generator apparently isn’t working either as an unscrupulous civil servant borrowed core parts and never returned. Jenni and I couldn’t bear the heat in our upstairs closet so we setup temporary desks in the main hall.
We had a good workshop and awareness session today on Enterprise Architecture, our purpose was to introduce key concepts and establish a framework that will make a real difference on how the Information, Communication and Technology department and the Cross River State Ministries, Departments and Agencies will work on their IT roadmap and technology decisions together.

Ended the workday earlier than usual with a long nap, the IBM team is constantly solicited and we have very little time for ourselves… after two weeks here I am pretty exhausted.

This was then followed by a quick visit to the Watt market where I came across a packed liquor stores (see top left) and a couple more smily kids :)