Risk Impact Day

Wow, we spent from 8.30am through to 7pm today just working through impacts for what is now our 196 risks. Out of that we now know we have 11 critical risks that must have mitigation plans put to them, and I'm not even looking at the next level down from critical, serious risks yet. We were exhausted, so we've closed it off for tonight to revisit tomorrow if we get time. Tomorrow is a public holiday in Ghana, "Workers Day", so we are visiting another orphanage. We have however hit another milestone today, we needed impact/consequences finished today, and we've done it! Next comes categorising the risks into more manageable sets, and then writing up the triggers and mitigation plans.

Each one of our group is indispensable in this exercise, either asking questions which help all of us be sure our reasoning is sound, or adding insight based on our varied backgrounds. We have always practiced there are no dumb questions, only stupid answers, so I think everyone feels confident to have their say, and our group is high performing as a result. What is obvious to one person can often come unstuck very quickly with the right simple question, or is checked and clarified through needing to explain. If we can't explain it, that's a trigger we probably don't understand the risk enough yet, or we've worded the risk incorrectly. I think through this, our end result should be a very high quality product.

Outside of that, we had film crews filming our work again today, and interviewing us. It feels so cheesy talking to a camera when we're not used to it. And even performing our work felt practiced when the camera is rolling and a big boom mic hanging just cm's off your head. But there was no need to feel cheesy, as it was all genuine work! I hope it comes out good, or that they have a talented editor :)

Tonight we were treated to a North Indian banquet, prepared by the very talented Andal from IBM Singapore (Indian born). Andal has worked very hard to obtain permission to use the kitchen, and to solicit help from the local cooks, but under her supervision and instruction. We had a vegetable feast, and everyone went back for seconds and thirds it was so delicious. Cooking for 12 adults can not be easy, and Andal certainly out did herself. Her family must miss her terribly when this is what they enjoy at home! Thanks Andal!!

It was a nice day outside today for the few minutes we caught of it, but there is a raging storm bucketing down outside tonight. Good, it's been hot, so this will help bring the temperature down a little. I'm starting to climatise I think now, I'm going through less water than 2 weeks ago when we arrived :). The bad part of that is returning to the cold weather in Canberra! I see the zero degrees celsius overnight has started, and it's 26 degrees celsius here tonight by comparison!

OK, I admit I added that last sentence partly just to rub it in :)


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:7th Ave,Accra,Ghana

Sunday cruise

I was awoken by SMS at 3am today to learn my brother and his wife have just had a baby boy, Kai!! Congratulations to both of them! In Ghana, people are named after the day they were born on, so this newcomer would be named Kwame here, meaning Male born on Saturday. Or Kwasi for Sunday - I get confused as to what day it is back home, and the baby was born at 3:47am, but which morning?

Heading up to Volta region, I made sure I had the video camera ready this time as we passed through the Shia Hills, in case a chance to capture the baboons presented itself. And it did, so Ive a few seconds on video now, hooray!

We arrived at 8am to purchase our tickets, there is no online bookings out here :), then had a wander around a small market before boarding the ship for our 3 hour each way cruise on the lake. Volta is a big lake! An African band played heir tunes all the way up and back, and murdered a set of western songs, but that was all part of the fun :)




3 hours later we arrive at an island where there are dancers and drummers performing on our arrival. Quite obviously designed for tourists, it was still fun. I don't know what it is about me that attracts the kids, but everyone else got off and started walking around the island hassle free. I had 2 kids immediately grab either hand to guide me, and at one stage, another 3 or 4! Why me? Like the kids at the Orphanage they were fascinated with my hairy arms, I told them it's cold where I come from, not like Ghana, so it keeps me warm :)

They were also fascinated with the white patches on my skin. Probably because in some parts Albino's are considered to have magic powers - which could be concerning as historically, some tribes chopped up Albinos to make medicine :). Not here though :)

There really wasn't anything on the island, so after walking around it for 30 minutes, we boarded the ship to head back. As soon as we did, the kids jumped in canoes to go back to their own villages, no one actually lives on this island :). No one went for a swim in the lake, apparently there are all sorts of disease the locals are immune to that we would suffer from. Including nasties that cause all kinds of tumours/growths. We started the 3 hour journey back. Very peaceful and relaxing, passing by lots more islands dotted over the lake:




Dinner was spent at a local restaurant in Volta called Afrikiko. It's a holiday resort on a river, more alfresco dining, very pretty. There is an awful lot of chicken on menus in Ghana, it is clearly a favorite food next to fish, and occasionally goat and beef. The grilled chicken has a pepper spice to it, and is usually served with a black pepper dip called Shito To add a bit of variety, instead of chicken and rice, I tried a more traditional meal of chicken and Banku. Banku is made from maize, and is a white flour looking pillow. It has a sour flavor, and is dipped in either a tomato salsa type dip, or the Shito. It has the texture of soft play dough, and you break a piece off, dip and eat to consume it. Good to try once, but not a dish I'm going to miss back home.

Check out the "Weekend 2 pics" blog entry for pictures over the weekend.


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Volta Region

Weekend 2 pics

Dividing the toys for the kids:



School at the SOS Orphanage:



Kids playing with Cameras:







Chuppa-Chump Satisfaction Gauruantee:




Salsa Lessons with Thiago:


Volta lake Cruise destination island:


Dinner at Afrikiko:



Banku:







- Dwight!

Location:Tema and Volta

SOS Orphanage

Today we got to sleep in, which was just as well as I was chatting with Vanessa and Natasha until late last night via Apple Facetime - works well on the iPad but does need a WiFi connection to get enough bandwidth. Just after 9am we rolled out of the hotel to head to the SOS Orphanage in the neighboring city of Tema. It took just under an hour to arrive. SOS has a number of Orphanages around the world, and this one was the first, and now the biggest in Ghana. It has 15 houses, which is home for 8 to 10 children between 0 and and about 15 years in each home.

We visited a number of homes, at first the kids were shy, but it only took a few minutes for them to come out and play. They were fascinated by our camera gear, and we soon gave up trying to hold onto it. We handed them over to the kids who took hundreds, if not thousands of photos of EVERYTHING! Photos of photos, photos of the LCD on the back of cameras, photos of us, photos of them, photos of pictures in their house. One boy even turned on video mode and proceeded to interview each of us with a pop quiz :). If they didn't have a camera, they were taking our hand, or hugging our legs, or asking for piggy-back rides - they were all over us, but polite at the same time.

Now, I should explain, I'm the kind of guy that wives complain never show any affection in public. So the sudden onslaught of attention was personally quite intense. My personal real estate had been well and truly encroached and taken from me :). But it was for the right reasons, and they're kids.

We played a game of soccer with the kids, and then the team kindly let me hand out chuppa chumps that I had brought to all the kids. It didn't take long for the kids to catch on, and like circling sharks, I was soon set upon :). Kids are the same worldwide :). The team was great, they ensured everyone had one chuppa chump each, and that there was enough to go around for everyone. There were a lot of very satisfied faces sucking lollipops for a few minutes after that. We had lots of other gifts for the kids too, but we handed those in for the orphanage to hand out later as there was a chance there would not be enough to go around.

Next week we visit another orphanage, and we have more Chuppa-Chumps, so I'll share that experience with the team and we can all give them out. I was grateful to get to do it once as it meant I got to share something on the day too.

Thiago from Brazil has a natural affinity with kids, but he had the girls in hysterics and lining up for Salsa lessons with him. I don't think any one of them didn't line up for a dance and 5 minute lesson, yet every one of them was doubled over with laughter and squeals of delight watching.

I have photos, but Internet is not working too well tonight, so I may have to upload those separately.

After that we headed back to the markets, I was tough as nails this time around though, and paid a max of one third the initial asking price. I picked up a few souvenirs this time around, and politely ignored most sellers.

We arrived back at the hotel at 7pm, and need to leave the hotel at 6am tomorrow morning for the boat cruise on Lake Volta.

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight

Location:Accra - Tema Motorway,,Ghana

POETS Day arrives again

Wow, we are smack bang in the middle of the assignment now, no longer newbies, the expectation is we are high performing and delivering results as the business end of the assignment is here. The diligence everyone has applied to our pieces of work means we are ready for it, and the team is running on high octane - we all want the best result possible. It's very motivating to work in a team like this, you can see how great things could be and the only adversary is time. The SOW keeps us firmly grounded in reality.

It was a beautiful sunny day here, and the temperature felt like it had dropped back a bit, so maybe only 30 Celsius for a change, and less humidity too. Still doesn't drop below 26 Celsius at night though, so I keep the AC running all night on 22 - it also helps keep mozzies away, too cold for them here. Not that we spent much time outside, aside from traveling to a meeting and back, we locked ourselves into our room of risk once again.

We managed to assign consequences/impact to 107 of our now 199 risks by 6pm today. After that effort we were grateful for an end of week meeting with our sponsor before finishing up the day. You don't really want me to talk about how we assigned every one of those do you? It's just one of things you have to grind through, but the deep satisfaction comes at the end. Wax on, wax off for those old enough to know the 80's movie. So what else can I share with you instead...

One of our team, Thiago from Brazil, reports he has a special friend who visits him each morning. One of the local geckos, they range in size from about 10cm to 30cm from what we have seen. He's not getting rid of it however, they also keep the mozzies away :)

I tried to recover the photos from the Canon camera, which has come back to life. With the help of two of the team members, Gerrard and Petra, we tried recovery software, formatting, everything. Unfortunately, we recovered everything except the photos from Ghana. It turns out SD Cards are not as reliable as I had thought. Lessons here for travelers - don't use big cards and backup often. I had 32Gb card but it fails around the half way mark and can't read any data. Nothing writes out bad sectors on these cards, so if u get a problem like this, you just lose the data. The recommendation then is to throw away the card, don't format it - formatting will make it look ok, but as soon as it hits that bad spot again, "Holy smoke batman" no more photos. It's ok however, as we will all share our photos at the end of this, and I'll pickup the memories from other peoples shots.

Everyone brought down their gifts for kids this evening and we sorted them out into what we will take to the orphanage tomorrow, and the rest for another orphanage next week. We also planned our river cruise for Sunday, and a brief on what we needed to complete next week. I think everyone is feeling the butterflies now that work is in its home stretch before we need to finalize our presentations. There is a real buzz about. I have some pics, but will have to upload separately as wifi at the hotel is down again. There is no telling when it will be up and for how long for.



- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

Breaking the back of the risk log

A number of our team, including myself, woke to find we had no water or at most a dribble today. This made taking a shower, brushing teeth, having a shave, take quite a bit longer than usual. Lucky I have a stock of bottled water which got me around the essentials, and had enough of a dribble under the shower to eventually get the basics done there too. It was an exercise in patience, If it only would hurry up!

We visited the IBM office in Ghana today, hooray! It' a small office, with about 30 staff, hence we share a building with a number of other companies. Inside, it looks just like any other IBM office, with a reception, 2 meeting rooms, a conference room, the country manager's office, and a couple of open desk areas. It's very nice. They advised us that when IBMers are over here on IBM business, the preferred IBM hotel is the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel - 5 star luxury accommodation! It's got everything! Well, it's a few rungs up the rich list ladder from our hotel, however our hotel is still very nice and the staff couldn't be more helpful.





7th floor views:



Lunch was interesting today, we tried out a place called Papeye, which means something like 'for the good of it', or 'giving alms'. I had their grilled chicken and rice, a very popular dish over here, the chicken is spiced with green pepper and ginger. The fun was when we wanted to leave. We jumped in our car, but someone had decided to parallel park directly behind us, we were boxed in. That's ok in Ghana, there are no rules or road laws for this apparently, no fines needed. We just waited until the patron could be found to move his car, in the meantime another 2 cars had also parallel parked in front of him, boxing in another 3 patrons. No one got upset or angry, it's just another day :). Sitting in the air conditioned comfort of our car, we watched while our driver made the negotiations, and we were free about 15 minutes later.



Outside of that, we finally broke the back of logging our risks today, we now have nearly 200 risks, and have assessed a probability/likelihood number for each of them. We also came up with 7 key risk areas from our SOW to evaluate impact/consequence against, and have therefore also started evaluating consequences. We should finish this by tomorrow, but this stage of risk is more fun than the mental grind of researching and identifying risks. Either tomorrow or next week we will start looking at mitigation and a new round of interviews to confirm risks, analysis ratings, and how our clients suggest the risks should be mitigated.
Sorry, no more news for today - we've been working our brains to exhaustion and fingers to the bone, but it is very satisfying to start to see the art and science coming to life.


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

ANZAC Day

Left the hotel at 7.30am to attend the ANZAC Day service the High Commissioner has on, followed by brunch at the High Commissioner's residence. The three Australians from our group all went, Gerrard, Pipa, and I. The service was very nice, with a special visit from the Turkish ambassador in Ghana.

The brunch was spectacular, the best breakfast we have had since being here. Real bacon, beef and pork sausages, scrambled eggs, omlettes, baked beans, toast, and pancakes! Fresh watermelon or orange juice, lemon cake and of course, ANZAC biscuits in the shape of Australia. It was so good!

We met the French Ambassador who is looking forward to retiring soon and renovating a ruin he has purchased back in France. He was very interested in the IBM CSC program and whether it was also available in France, which of course it is. He thought this was a wonderful program that not only helped a developing nation, but would be very helpful in our careers as well.

We also met lady who started her work in Ghana 31 years ago as part of a Christian organization providing aid. Ghana today is nothing like what she landed in back then, and hearing her stories made me think how grateful I was that things had developed so far, and yet there is still so much more to be done. I also confirmed a number of risks and opportunities for our project through this conversation, so more data and references, yippee!

Back on the real work, more logging risks, will this never end? Looks like we will go into tomorrow as well, as long as we can start mitigation next week, we'll be alright. The room we had today only had an upright fan, no AC, so it was hot, hot, hot. Thankfully a storm came over and cooled things down for a few hours, it was another torrential downpour for an hour that then just stopped. Ghanaians are saying the weather is strange this year, it's usually not this hot, as it's usually raining all day, every day. It's been sunny nearly every day so far. At least with little rain, it keeps the mozzies at bay for a bit longer.

We made a visit to the Food and Drug Board today to keep gathering data for our risk plan, some great ideas came out of this.




To end the day, the seamstress/tailor came to the hotel to take our measurements and collect our fabric. I'm getting a tight little mini skirt that screams "tart", and a crop top so my mid riff can be all it can be, and free :). The seamstress thought a Ghanian shirt would probably make a bigger impression, and a dress for Natasha.

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

Volta Region Day Trip

Up and out early today, cars leave at 6am for our drive up to the Volta region, north of where we are in Accra. It took just over 3 hours to get there, but well worth the experience. On the way up to Volta we saw Baboons by the side of the road, rummaging and playing, unfortunately it happened so unexpectedly I didn't get a photo, but wow, real, wild Baboons.

Arriving at our destination we made a number of trips out to health facilities, but the stand out will be the Comunity-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) which we travelled for a number of kms off made roads and into the wilderness into what felt like a remote village with a single health clinic that provides service for villages miles around. These villages are mud and grass hut villages, the real deal. If someone is really ill and can't walk to the clinic, they have a motorbike they use to deliver supplies, and if it's more serious, they strap the patient to the rider of the bike, and motorbike them to the clinic. Forget ambulances, they couldn't get out here anyway! They have one small fridge out here to house certain medications, i.e. vaccines, powered by a gas cylinder. Outside that, no electricity and water comes from a manual hand pump. We were served water in little plastic pillows, which is filtered, easier to transport and less waste out here - no bottled water here folks. Mobile coverage is available, but has a habit of dropping out from 1 week to a month at a time. In those situations, when supplies need to be ordered they jump on the motorbike to take written orders into the district centre. You can see pics of all this on the "More Pics" Blog entry. I can't get the iPhone and iPad to sync photos on the blog app reliably, so I'm just uploading them separately. It's better than nothing though. The trip to the CHPS centre was a humbling experience.

I didn't know we were going out here or I would have brought lots of chuppa-chumps, as it is I handed the two I had over the the head nurse to do with what she pleased.

From here we headed back to the district health centre which you can see here:

The district Health centre in the Volta region



We managed to grab lunch at 4pm, so it became dinner as well, and was worth the wait for the views over the Volta region at the Sky Plus hotel and resort. Sky Plus sits on top of one of the taller hills where we were, hence the views and welcome breeze. See the 'More Pics' blog entry for a pic.

By 5.30pm we had finished our rounds, and it was time to start the journey home, once dusk settled and night came on, things got rather exciting, in part because there are no street or road lights out here, not even reflectors on the road. So when I say dark, I mean invisible! Excitement covered everything from the normal avoiding goats and chickens, to people just appearing in the middle of the road, walking home, or a broken down truck blocking our lane and requiring heavy breaking and swerving from us. But, the most exciting was the games of chicken! Maybe it's because they drive on the RHS of the road here, or that they drive in the middle of the road often to avoid pot holes, but I still have fingernails in the dash from watching a set of headlights coming straight at us, to only veer to the side in the last minute before contact. And believe me, we were hurtling down the road. Thank goodness one of our team members, Adaeze, made plenty of light conversation which was a welcome distraction from the high speed assault on the highway.

There are surprisingly few accidents on Ghanaian roads, and they are very tolerant drivers. The beeping of horns is used as a form of hello more often than a warning, and rarely (if ever) out of frustration. In fact, since being here I havn't seen anyone argue - maybe it's the heat, it's too hot to argue :)

We made it home by 9pm, phew, what a day! No one can complain we are not busy :)

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Volta Region, Ghana

More pics

A remote Village we visited, I should have brought more lollipops!





A remote Christian Health Services Clinic:


Water in a bag:


Mango tree, full of ripe fruit:



Lunch with a view:


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Volta region, Ghana

Meeting with the Australian High Commissioner

We started at 8am this morning, back to logging risks and marking probability, we will consequences/impact as a separate exercise for this as each needs to be carefully considered on it's own. We passed by the presidential palace today, so I gabbed a photo shot to show you, it's not open to the public, so this is as close as we get.





At 10.30am, I left the group to visit the Australian High Commission in Ghana, and to meet The Australian Ambassador, Mr Billy Williams. I've never done this before, so didn't know what to expect. At the entrance I had to hand over my mobile, computer, camera - they took everything! Except a small IBM gift, a leather folder for Mr. Williams, but even that was checked before I was scanned and then let through two security gates to reception. I was asked a further three times, I think, whether I had a mobile phone on my person, before I was introduced to Mr. Williams and invited into his office. The Australian High Commission in Accra is a well kept and modern building, not palatial, but like all the consulates back home, a big step beyond what the locals have.

Mr. Williams is a perfect gentleman, who tries to meet any Australian who wants to visit him. We had a discussion about the IBM CSC program, Australian business interest in Ghana, and Ghana's interest in Australia, mining and mining software are of main interest right now, but tourism is a big opportunity about to take off. Ghana's stable politics and relative safety for tourists, and it's people's deep seated values in peace and harmony are what help give Ghana it's title as the "Gateway to Africa". Mr. Williams actually represents Australia and flies between 9 African nations, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. I was lucky to be able to meet him! Mr. Williams had volunteered for this posting as he has an interest in developing nations, and is coming to the end of his current assignment now. Since being here however, Mr. Williams has setup a number of programs to help the Ghana economy and education. My 1 hour meeting flew by in a minute, just as I was getting used to be being called "Mr. Bonney", so I thanked Mr. Williams, and registered for the ANZAC Day ceremony to be held on Wednesday morning.

Wow!

The rest of the day was slogging it out with our risk log from the 7th layer of the abyss to hell, adding a probability/likelihood assessment, and planning our time for the week between interviews and content creation. Creating risk logs of this magnitude are not something you hurl yourself out of bed for, but done right, we are looking forward to watching how changes play out over the next 5 and 10 years in Ghana, as we are influencing that right now.

Ghanian's love proverbs, they have them everywhere, but today I saw one I'm bringing home with me - "Treat your guest as a guest for 2 days, but on the third day hand them a hoe". Well, look out any house guests at my place when I get back :). My wife would like another one they have, so best to leave this one here "It is the man's duty to make his wife beautiful". I have to pay how much???

We ended the day buying some material to get shirts made, since no one here is super-sized like me, I have to get one tailor made. So I bought a tent :). I bought 6 yards of Ghanian cloth with a wax pattern - should be enough to make a shirt and a dress for Natasha. They only sold it in 6 yard lots.

Tomorrow we start leave at 6am to travel out to the regions, this will hurt! Hence I'm hitting the bed early.

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

Some pics

Natasha at the airport - security checked :)


Breakfast area at the beach resort we stayed at over the weekend



A typical shopping opportunity in Ghana


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sunday week 1

Wow, a week already! I'm looking forward to next week actually, the first week was spent planning and starting the baseline, I'm hoping this week is when we explode the quality content.

Breakfast is at 8.30 today, leaving at 9am so we got a sleep in, yay! In Ghana-Time of course, breakfast came about 9.30am, which was fine by us, taking advantage of our last opportunity to sit by the beach.

Another of our group had a birthday today, Amy from the US, Happy Birthday, Amy! Amy kindly gave everyone a New York Yankees original merchandise cap. That's 2 continents now that give presents on their own birthdays! The caps were magnificently well timed to keep shaded in the sun for our tree walk adventure.

Next stop was the treetop walk at Kakuma national park. Walking up to the treetop walk through tropical rainforest, I was already sweating heavily, but when I stepped out onto the 200mm wide plank of timbers that were held up by rope and wire, the heart started beating very fast and pumping adrenaline like nobodies business. They assured us it has been rated to take 8,000 kilos, but as it bounced and swung above what felt like a perilous drop below, that 8k kgs was cold comfort. They don't get too many people my size on it after all. In fact I had sweated so much, my day backpack was soaked through, causing the camera to get moisture in it, and it stopped working too! Hopefully just temporary. It was great fun, and I've got hopefully some great photos I will try to upload to the blog if the camera comes back to life.

I also can't reply to comments on the blog, for some reason it accepts my reply and then just doesn't do anything, but be assured I read them all.

We had lunch in the forest, and feeling the after affects of the adrenaline surge, I opted for what I thought would be a safe option - Lasagne. Well, you can see in the picture below what came out, which they assured me was lasagne, but the one bite I had of it - It was more like a pastie. I couldn't bring myself to eat it however, the visual assault of what it looked like to me was just too real, and too adventurous from the safe dish I was looking for. So Ghana Lasagne:




Meals aside, the Ghana people must wonder how we get any shopping done by having to inefficiently visit shops all the time. Like mentioned in an earlier blog, almost everything can be bought in traffic in Ghana, need bread on the way home, no problem, need a freshly killed Grasscutter (bush rat), that's no problem either. A Grasscutter is a bit bigger than a small dog, and apparently they taste a bit like goat. I havn't been presented with an opportunity to try yet, and I wasn't going to cook my own.

Back to the reality of work tomorrow, roll on week 2!


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Liver Pool Rd,Elmina,Ghana

Part-Time Adventurers

Wow the sites and sounds today! Grass huts, smoked fish, castles, and the Atlantic sea. Where to begin!

Well aside from finally making contact with my wife (someone please show her how a mobile phone works, and how to answer it), it was great to talk to both her and my daughter who by the way is very busy and can't talk right now. It gave me a boost to kickoff this great weekend with.

We took about 3 hours to reach the Cape Coast, but I wasn't in a rush, there is something about being able to look out the window and let you mind unwind which is rejuvenating and peaceful. Coming this far from the capital, we we're fascinated watching homes transform and introduce a mix of grass huts and mud and grass huts, as well as the wood and tin roofed homes found on the outskirts of Accra, and some new concrete homes going up right in the middle of all this. We can see the transformation Accra is going through, happening right before our eyes.

The castles are the old slave forts, and the tours were fascinating, but a little depressing at the same time. The conditions the slaves were kept in we're worse than animals. I was surprised to learn that slaves were often sold to the Europeans by tribes that had just conquered another, and were looking for an easy way to get rid of left over enemies, and in the exchange, gain guns and alcohol. The whole world had gone mad at the time. I was once again conned at the drawbridge to the first castle, where a local boy asked me my name and where I was from, I didn't think much of it, but when we had finished at the castle, there he was waiting for me with a shell which he had written "To my dearest friend Dwight Bonney from John" and was asking for a donation for his school. I gave him $10 Cedi which is fair bit for them and certainly for a shell that Customs will probably confiscate on my return. So at the next stop, I kept my mouth shut. My mother always told me every time I open my mouth I get into trouble....

Then it was back to the hotel we are staying at for the night, and it is beautiful! This is where tourists come! Pool, right beside the Atlantic Ocean, dinner overlooking the ocean, listening the waves crash. Sipping coconut milk from a real coconut. We launched ourselves into the Atlantic, the water was warm, but oh so refreshing after a hot day. Rough seas threw a giant wave at us every so often that knocked everyone for six, it's exhausting work playing in sea like that, so we retired to the hotel pool which overlooks the ocean for a swim before dinner which would take 1.5 hours to be ready.

Dinner at the hotel is an alfresco affair, undercover and overlooking the ocean. With very little lighting around you couldn't see much of the sea at night of course, but you certainly hear the crashing of waves, unfortunately no sea breeze, it was a still night. So exhausted, I'm hitting the hay again as tomorrow we are off to do the tree top canopy walk and then back to Accra and risk management!


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Cape Coast - Sekondi Rd,Sekondi-Takoradi,Ghana

Trip to the next city

I think the team I'm in all the feel same way, we are looking forward to getting out of the room we've been locked away in and seeing sky and daylight again today, and to take a break from logging risks to jotting notes for new potential risks. There might even be an opportunity to buy credit for the iPad, something there has not been time for all week, and also to get to a supermarket as we're out of water bottles.

We left at 7.30am to visit a key site and interview more key stakeholders in the next city, Tema. Tema is noticeably less developed than Accra, but there is again a lot of new construction going up between the two cities, it won't take long before they are joined. A major highway moves traffic between the two cities, but like any big city, we inevitably end up sitting in traffic, crawling forward. Unlike a city at home however, there are people carrying everything you can think of on their heads or in arms for sale, walking up and down between the cars. We could have purchased power extension cables, tv antennas, phone credit, sunglasses, shoes, t-shirts, fruit, nuts, deep fried plaintin, magnets, flags, coffee tables - and the list goes on, you get the idea. This meeting was scheduled torun for 1 hour, but when Ghanians are interested, this is becomes a Ghana-time 1 hour, hence 5 hours later we left with a plethora of notes to work through. Phew! I may not complain when meetings go overtime back at home now....

Amy's presentation sounds like it went well, their meeting was also booked for 1 hour, and ran for 3, with lots of requests for increase in scope coming through, most of which we correct and advise we'd love too help, but we are only here for 4 weeks. One of the requests we may be able to accommodate, and so we'll consider that.

When shopping in Accra, shops are not what most people at home would recognize. It's like those vans that sell cherries, or a single market stall with a roof, and sometime a burnt out old car serves as shop and counter, and they line certain streets. Thats the ones with a shop front, as opposed to those selling goods from big bowls they rest on their heads. You would never think at home to go Into one of these to buy a TV, or a new Lounge. It still takes me by surprise to look into one of these to see brand new laptop computers, TVs, Home Theatre, Playstations etc. It just seems a surreal caravan of wonders.

Well this afternoon, the team took me to the mall. We had to get water for the weekend adventure we're heading out on anyway. I was beginning to think there was nothing like a modern shopping centre back home that would be found here in Accra, but I was wrong. Accra Mall is a buzzing shopping centre about half the size of Tuggeranong, or the old old Knox City for those who know it. People even dress differently at this mall, all dressed up in their best and fashionable gear (a mix of modern west and Kentish cloth). The mall itself kind of sits in what feels like the edge of the city, in the middle of a huge field, surrounded in a constant chaos of cars banked up around roundabouts in traffic. It felt like touching a little piece of home, and despite being over here for very different reasons, it was nice to spend a couple of hours in familiar surrounds and noises. I got my 3G credit at last, so I can get email anywhere in Ghana now, hooray! I still have trouble sending email however, something about the Optus network.

Ghana has a department store called Game that has to be mentioned. If Big W, Coles, and Bunnings all combined into one store, that would be Game - everything from power tools to groceries. A bit like Costco really, but in a mall, not its own super warehouse.

Weekends we fund ourselves, and this weekend we have selected to go see the Castles (old slave forts), the beach, and a treetop canopy walk. Stay tuned!

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Tema, Ghana

Initial document day

Hooray, I feel much better today! Managed to sweat the bug out last night, like a little mini fever, and this morning I feel great! Just shows if you act early enough you can recover much faster.

Our aim today is to finish logging risks from the doco we have so far and our interviews, to think about what we want our interview questions to be from here on, to get some hard copies for ourselves (we need to travel to a different office to get a printer), and then start booking interviews. Our aim is to qualify that the risks we have come up with are real risks, or that the premise for the risk does exist. When we publish our final product we need to be able to say "you told us this" even for new risks that we come up with, they need to be based on something we have collected through our interviews. In "Issue Based Consulting", this would be asking the Key Questions to prove or disprove a Hypothesis.

Two days straight of non-stop identifying and logging risks is not fun, by mid way through today we were all thoroughly sick of it, and our brains hurt. Battling through however, 152 risks later, and we're almost done with the first pass. That's not to say the project is high risk however, we haven't finished the analysis yet and we still need to categorize the risks.

This team is awesome, everyone started at 8.30am this morning and was happy to work through till after 10pm before getting so tired we had to stop. Adrenaline is probably what kept us working through lunch and dinner breaks, and the desperate need to end this part of the exercise.

Tomorrow we have to be out the door at 7.30am for a site visit. Amy will be presenting our progress to date to the sponsor in the morning, I hope they are impressed with what we've achieved already, I'll be sorely disappointed if they say otherwise :)



- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

Suck it up princess

Well, I haven't made it through the first week without getting a stomach upset, today is going to be a bit touch and go, but thank goodness we are working from the hotel today. All the travel guides have said its not a matter of if but when :). At least I wasn't the first one to catch something, I'm the second. It's not much of a problem, I'll mention it to the doc anyway though so he can keep records. No big breakfast for this brown cow today :)

One advantage of this is I am no longer sweating like I'm in a permanent sauna. The heat is quite welcome.

I feel privileged to be working in my team I'm in, these are very experienced IBM professionals, and experts in their fields. Amy from the US is a Marketing Manager, Peta from Germany runs the Daimler account, and Thiago (pronounced Jiago) from Brazil is a very experienced sales consultant. I might have brought some risk templates across, but that is nothing compared to how these people get the customer talking and opening up to us, and the targeted questions they ask that uncover all sorts of minefields.

Outside of work, it is encouraging to hear that worldwide everyone is having many of the same challenges as us, and I can tell you the focus on certification and reporting is no less than our own. But everyone also agrees, worldwide, IBM also are really good at looking after their people when needed.

Our day was spent going line by line through the master plan, identifying, and analyzing risks, building our risk plan. This was where the different backgrounds and perspectives we bring really outshine anything we could achieve as individuals. It's the same on any project, involving the team always comes up with a much better product. Unfortunately it's also the grind part of the job, like eating Brussels-sprouts, awful but very good for you. The team have come up with great risks, I hope our customer feels the same way. To ensure we are on the right path, we have developed a Work Breakdown Structure and mini schedule that gives us time to review a subset of risks with different stakeholders and set expectations before we publish our plan and perform our presentation, this will hopefully remove surprises.

I left the team early today to head straight to bed, I think I can kill this bug by sweating it out and getting plenty of rest. So I've taken a night time cold and flu tablet and am hitting the hay. I have Panadol, but I bought Panadol Extra which has caffeine in it - no good for night. Lesson learned - be wary of extra's, they my not be as usful as they claim to be.


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

First day in the office

The Ghana handshake is a national phenonemon. No matter how old or young a person is, they all do it! It starts as a regular handshake, but finishes with holding thumb and indexes together with your counterpart to make a snap sound at the finish. It's hard to describe, and takes some practice to get right, I'm still getting the hang of it. But the Ghanaians love us trying to use their language and their handshake. Yesterday, one of the officials heard me say thank you in Twi, (Medasee) and almost with disbelief, asked her counterpart "did he just say Medasee?" Followed by a surprised but approving look of acknowledgement. Makes you feel good for trying, and wipes away any self-conscious apprehension I started with.

This was an intense day of interviews and briefing. We had our early start, arrived 30 minutes early for our meeting before a torrential downpour hit. While this is considered a blessing and good omen for our project, it also wiped out our efforts to ensure we would be ontime when we discovered we needed to cross the road to get to the right office, but the road had been replaced with a small river. We had to call in our driver, who was battling his own flood and traffic issues, which resulted in starting the meeting 30 minutes late. Our host was very gracious with their time.

Today also happens to be one of our team members birthdays, Deiva from India! Happy Birthday Deiva! Even the ex CEO and current CEO of IBM signed his birthday card, wow! We celebrated in the evening by going out for a Chinese dinner, and then coming back for a cake the team secured without Deiva knowing. It was very cool to hear Happy Birthday sung in 5 or 6 languages. Deiva then handed out shoals for each team member to remember his birthday by - I think he got the raw end of the deal!

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

Briefing Day

No Plaintin this morning, but plenty of everything else, including pancakes and omelets to choose from. Everyone is in their business suits today, and we scrub up pretty nice!

The briefing scheduled start time was 9am - Ghana Time. That meant we kicked off at 9.40am with an opening prayer & Introduction which is the normal protocol in Ghana for important meetings. It feels very official, we are sitting at tables running horizontally from the front to the back of the room, every seat is allocated to a name and organisation. The room is full of government officials, doctors, professors, USAID representatives, and IBM country manager, Mr. Joe Mensah.

A Ghana film crew stayed with us all day today, as the Minister of Health made his presentation, introducing the IBM CSC team to the attendees and reiterating how important this project is to the future of Ghana health, and how important IBM is to their success. Our team was introduced as the future leaders in IBM, sent by IBM to assist Ghana's development today, and to build a relationship that would help with our future decisions that would impact Ghana. I was taken aback by just how highly regarded the IBM CSC is held, and the benchmark we are to live up too.
The film crew were very interested in this very diverse group of IBMers and what questions we would be asking about our assignment. Mr. Boateng, a senior official from the Ministry of Health, even joked that the world had come to Ghana given all the different countries our group is made up of. What strikes you is the amount of pride people have in themselves and in their country, it is common to hear people use words like "Our beautiful country, Ghana" in sentences, no matter who they are. I have heard Ghanaian's work overseas to earn money only long enough to reach goals they have set themselves, having sent enough money home to do that, they jump on the first plane back to Ghana. You can see the extra passion they have for any work or project related to progressing Ghana, and there is certainly a lot of new construction happening in the city showing material progress.

The afternoon was full of intense questioning, our sub-group was given a lot of attention, given the Risk Management Plan is currently considered the project with the most minefields to navigate and the most important covering Ghana's next 5 years on this project. More pressure!!

Anytime we want to go out in Accra, or anything we need, our liaison officer, Francis, is there to see we don't get ripped off, and that we are safe. Today Francis purchased on my behalf a SIM card for the iPad, brought it into the office and then cut it down to size, literally, to fit in the iPad! There is nothing he won't do to help us! Anyone want a Francis for their home? Tomorrow I'll purchase some credit for the 3G.

Today was exhausting, and our first meeting is already set for 8.30am tomorrow morning, first day in the Ministry of Health offices tomorrow. Our whole team is very highly motivated to bring about results, and hung back at the end of the day to plan what we wanted to complete for tomorrow given 4 weeks is not long. Our secret to success is to launch into planning, and then to work our plan.
We finished the day at a restaurant on the main street, Osu Oxford St where I ordered a Calzone (folded pizza). Osu Oxford St was still buzzing with vendors when we left even though it was Monday night 9pm! And by vendors, I mean complete, new home theatre systems and LCD/Plasma wall mounting kits being sold off the street if you needed them, along with what anyone would have normally expected to find.

It took a while for the my dinner, the Calzone to come out, but when it did, this monster was hanging over the plate by a quarter on each side! I couldn't finish it :).
You might think to get home, one would jump in a taxi, give an address or hotel name and go, but not so. The description to give here is "the big white building after the big roundabout" - the taxi drivers know exactly what that means, but anything else gets you circling around the city, lost. Trips to Osu Oxford street from here cost $4 Cedi, cheap!

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

It starts...

Morning number 1, up bright and early, ironed a pair of pants and a shirt on the bed as there is no ironing board. The hotel have a laundry and pressing service, the best value for money I have ever seen, most items are 1 cedi. Yeehaa, no washing or ironing for this little duck!

I met nearly the whole team at breakfast, everyone is excited to be here and so far only 1 persons luggage is still on its way. Being in a foreign country, it was almost like meeting friends you hadn't seen in a while. Breakfast was a full English breakfast, but also included plaintiff, the local produce. Yes! I was hanging out to try this stuff, our breakfast serving looked like wedges and taste just like sweet potato. Yummy!

It's Sunday, and we've missed going to church, but I see lots of big billboards advertising "Spectacular Event", "Out of this world evangelism", and "Amazing Prayer" so plenty of almost rock-star like opportunities apparently. We hit the market instead, and it was great! Please sir, come this way a minute, step into my office (a market table or store room), and then whispers a secret special price in my ear - "$85 Cedi for you, I don't want the others to know". Thankfully our hosts hard warned us, so we divided everything by three as a starting point, and worked up to half as a real price. I went to town, I bought a picture, a 'real' Ashanti idol, 3 Ghana shirts, some dresses (for Natasha, not me!) and a full traditional Ghana suit, narrowly getting away from purchases of jewelry, cow horns, fertility symbols, and shoes - thinking about it, the sandals would have been good. My market skills are rubbish though, as pointed out to me by my colleagues who managed to escape more purchases than I.

Of course, it turns out the full Ghana suit doesn't fit me, oh well, hopefully the shirts will be a bit better.

While I got some photos, I'm still sorting out net access, so it's going to take a bit longer sorry.

Orientation this afternoon was excellent, we now know where it is safe to eat and drink, the chat from the police officer who came to advise us of some do's and do not's will probably stick in everyone's mind for a while, but only just short of our personal Doctor and his advice on the nasties mosquito bites could bring, and the flaws of self-diagnosis. If we need money exchanged, due to our size, the bank will come to us here in the hotel - wow, I'd like to see that service back home!

Dinner tonight was accompanied by the favorite Ghanian beer -Star, which is an acronym for Sit Together And Relax. Still need to try Club and Stone beers before leaving. Star is a light colored lager, with a very slight malt taste - or the malt was residue of the Guiness Malta at lunch ( a non-alcoholic malt flavored soft drink, like marmite).

- keep on Rockin', Dwight.

Location:Accra, Ghana

Flying to Ghana

Watching Natasha burst into tears at the last minute at Canberra was heart breaking, but soon made a memory, having to bolt from one end of Sydney international to the other! Phew! Not pretty!

- Keep on, keeping on!

Location:Airport Dr,Mascot,Australia

Pre-Flight

All pigs fed and ready to fly. I've decided to not take my IBM laptop, and take just the iPad now loaded with a blogger app (Blogpress), Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. The iPad is a lot lighter than the laptop, and the battery life is chalk and cheese. I better the itinerary on it as well, or it could be interesting getting home.

Time is running out so fast now, I have to remind myself to not worry about what is not done, it's too late. Lucky I have great neighbors and family who put an African Survival Kit together for me and a brilliant last meal! :)

OK, there has been much chatter about whether or not I will come back any lighter than when I left, so I have made a final weigh-in and the result.....

I'm leaving with light clothing at a literally quite awesome, 130.5kg!! 287lbs of unstoppable force :). Even for me that's a new record. So, the next question is, will there be any difference when I return, personally I don't think so. Call the bookies, start the bets :)

Today was a beautiful day in Canberra, spent with the whole family, Natasha (my 3yr old daughter) has no idea what is happening, but knows that she needs to get rid of dad before he can come back with a present? It's like you can't come back into the country unless you've got proof of yellow fever vaccination!

Just a few minutes left now... I've forgotten business cards, hiking boots, and a haircut so far. Next update will be when I have WiFi access again, maybe Dubai airport.

Location:Canberra, Australia