Monday, final week.

We need to leave the Airport View Hotel this morning, and check progress at our original hotel, the Orchid. As well as that, I need to shave and get some work clothes - when we picked up essentials the dust was thick, and no one wanted to spend more time than necessary in that cloud. I will miss the shower though, small, but worked well. Breakfast this morning was baked beans on sour dough toast, I'm looking forward to the bread I'm used to again, the novelty is wearing off :)

There was no Internet available again last night, 3G or WiFi. Maybe Vodafone are doing some upgrades, or fixing whatever went wrong the other night. It's ok, we move on, but it is also frustrating, and I think everyone will appreciate how available our Internet is at home after this.

The big event today was our presentation to help train our key stakeholders in the specifics of the Risk Management we are implementing, and share with them an early view of our top risks. As part of our preparation, we met with the IBM Country Manager for Ghana, Mr Joe. Mensah. The advice was very valuable and will immensely help our final presentation - however, our workload just spiked! Agghhh, its more of that eating brussel-sprouts problem - very good for us, but I hate the taste!

My...that's a few seats!





The meeting was scheduled for 4pm, and we kicked off around 4:40pm once the key people had arrived (Ghana Time). If the level of engagement and questions and responses between the attendees is a sign of success, then the presentation was very successful. More brilliant feedback and tips, we need to update our presentation with a fix to one of the risks currently too wordy and confusing, to draw on more real life examples, and include a condensed method of identifying risks that anyone could use. This has been a key opportunity to learn what we can do better before our final presentation. We get another practice with a Working Group on Wednesday, and then final presentation Friday. We finished up at 7pm tonight, and that is probably indicative of this week. Thank goodness we are as prepared as we are, or we would have been in for a hell week this week.



- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Duade St,Accra,Ghana

The last Sunday

We start our last Sunday in Ghana Sitting on our bus, listening to one of the radio DJs explain how "Impossible" is just someone else's opinion. There is a lot of those sorts of messages over here, the whole country seems to be propping one another up to succeed and reach for more.

Our first stop this morning is James Town, the original port of Ghana built by the British, and today the poorest part of Accra. The group wanted to do a tour, but the locals were not pleased to see us, or have photos taken. I'll upload some photos from my iPhone once I get a chance. James Town is a fishing village today, but our guide advised the residents do not pay anything to the government, this town is a free home for anyone who wants to live here. Inside the village, a micro economy is at work, residents swapping or purchasing ocean catches from one another, and vegetables and condiments. On more than a few occasions a resident would call out to us with an unpleasant expression on their face, and our guide yelled back something followed by "Pretend to be nice"! Instantly, frowns turned to smiles and waves of hello. I was wondering what the reception would be like without our guide, and the guide's assistant following us from behind - was that just to ensure we didn't get lost, or was it for our protection?



Independence Square, Ghana became Independent from Britain in 1957:






Ghana sports stadium:


Ghana football stadium, seats 45,000 spectators:







Last stop for Sunday, Bojo beach, where half the fun is getting there. Our bus bounced, and rolled, and heaved and sighed on the unmade road to get there. It was worth it and the 8 cedi's to enter Bojo Resort, where we will take a canoe across to the beach island, and spend a glorious afternoon in the sun and calm sea. Sunday afternoon's don't come much better than this.















- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Castle Rd,Accra,Ghana

Makola Market Madness

Imagine an entire inner-city suburb is a market place. Now quadruple the number of stalls, narrow the streets to a little more than 2 people wide, and add 5 levels high of stalls as what might have been apartment blocks or offices have all been converted to market space. This is just the beginning of the Makola Market experience. This is where the locals go to shop, everything from mobile phones, clothes, imports, to smoked fish, and giant snails. The butcher is here too, bloody carcass lying sprawled across the stall, meat clever at the ready for any cut you want. But there is no refrigeration here, aside from what the shade offers. I bought shoe polish and a brush for 1 Cedi 20, which is about 70 cents. What an experience! It's like being in the world's biggest mosh-pit! The whole city is a market, you can truly get lost here, especially in the undercover rabbit warren of stalls.

We managed to get back to the bus for another visit to the art and cultural centre market for souvenirs. Now Internet in all of Ghana was down, and has been down since last night, broadband, wifi, 3G - all out. But just as we rock up here, internet comes back, complete with instructions from Vanessa for colored bead necklaces! There is a conspiracy going on here. I take a deep breath, grit my teeth, and dive into the melee of haggling and soliciting. Having successfully stalked my prey and returned with my bounty, I jump back into our bus expecting praise for my selfless bravery, but alas further instruction is waiting for me....."and earrings"!!! The nerve! The abuse!




Next stop is the natural history museum for a cultural experience. No cameras allowed in here. Lots of interesting artifacts for stone age man, articles on passage of rites, a necklace made of human teeth...no matching earings.

Last tourist destination for today, we head off to Arubi, the Hilltop area of the Eastern region to see the botanical gardens. This was a good way to chill out after a busy morning of haggling.

View from the hilltops:








The Botanic gardens:
















Finally we get back to the hotel, however there are renovations taking place and the air is so thick of dust from whatever is being ground off the walls, we can't see from one end of the hotel hallway to the other. They did give us a note to say they were doing some work, but the letter was a major understatement of what is happening. The rooms thankfully have avoided getting a lot of the dust in them, but it is slowly leeching through, so we've had to pack up and move to another hotel for 2 nights. This room is more expensive, but much smaller and less facilities, however much better shower water pressure!

My new little room:




Dinner was at a place called Buka that specializes in local cuisine. Tonight I tried Waakye, which is fried rice with beans in it, and of course, grilled chicken. The condiments were a chilli based sauce, very spicy, and Shito which seems to come with everything!

Waakye:





- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Fifth Avenue Extension,Accra,Ghana

Friday, week 3, oh my!

We had a fantastic storm at around 3:30 AM this morning. Thunder, sheet lightning, and a torrent of water came down, like a fire hose! An impressive show, and so considerate to rain at night so that our days continue to be fine :). Our driver told us everyone is happy today as that was the big rain, and now it would just rain lightly for the rest of the wet season.

Most of the team have had enough of cooked breakfasts now, opting for cereal and fruit instead. Personally, if I never see another Plaintin again, I won't be too upset. I'm all Plaintined out. By the way, I've since found out Plaintin is in the banana family, but you can't peel them and eat them, in fact they can't be eaten raw at all without really upsetting your innards. They are bigger than a banana, with a less strong flavor.

Today we head out of town to visit a teaching hospital and conduct more interviews and mine for more risk mitigations. The teaching hospital is a real hospital, people were lined up out the door to see a health professional. Sorry no pics, that would not be appropriate. The professor we interviewed today gave us a stern reality check regarding Malaria however. The advice was, whether or not we think we have been bitten by a mozzie, we will have been and will be carrying the Malaria parasite by now. If we stopped our medication, we would probably become sick at this point. So the advice was to stay on our meds, but take an anti-malaria anyway to ensure we get it out of our bloodstream before returning home. I might look into that next week, apparently it's a 3 day thing. Once home, I'll be getting a blood test to be sure! It's the only way to tell, aside from actually getting sick.

We had a very productive day, and got to see some parts of Accra that we had not seen before.


The old/original side of the city, heading to Korlebu:



Shops:



Old Accra:



Currently there is a rule in Ghana where no one is allowed to play music loud for 4 weeks leading up to a big festival (Independence Day) when music will be played very loudly. God needs peace to concentrate on the festival, so if authorities catch you playing loud they confiscate all your equipment, even if you are playing loud in church!

We started a 8am today, and finished at 7pm, and only then because the seamstress had returned with our new clothes. You'll have to wait till next week to see that! It's not so outrageous though, I don't want to talk it up too much.

We have finished the week with our risk mitigations completed, having made a start on the final plan document, and nearly completed a PowerPoint deck for a risk training workshop we are hosting on Monday afternoon. My head hurts! But it will be worth it by the end of next week.

Being Friday night, it's very exciting, I get to talk to Vanessa and Natasha again if WiFi holds out long enough! It is Saturday morning back in Canberra, and Friday night here in Ghana. WiFi is very unreliable :)

This weekend we'll be touring around Accra, visiting the Botanical Gardens, and going to another beach. It was a choice between waterfalls and Monkey sanctuary, and this. The consensus in the end was that we have been living in Accra but still didn't know much about it, so we would spend our last weekend together exploring what has been home for the last 3 weeks. It does not feel like 3 weeks already!

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Old Accra, Ghana

Thursday Risk Mitigation

Gosh, our assignment is certainly the big one, so much content to get through. We continued coming up with mitigation plans today for our 12 critical risks (increased by 1 today after one of our Interviews). We are also running a training session on Monday now to ensure our key stakeholders have expertise in the methodology we have used, and can continue assessing and logging risks after we have departed. That's another presentation to get ready for, on ptop of finalizing our deliverable and preparing our final presentation, so no chance of boredom for us :)

Our interviews today provided some reassurance that we are on the right track and that our final deliverable is going to meet expectations. That's welcome encouragement, as on such a short assignment, there is no time for mistakes or rework now. Our key stakeholders are relieved to hear our 196 risks can be sorted under just 5 categories, and that addressing the 12 critical risks will remove or dramatically reduce negative impacts on a large number of those other risks. Of course, this creates a little more work for us to show approx what percentage of risks disappear or reduce after addressing the big 12.

I needed something other than chicken and rice for lunch today, so I had a grilled chicken burger and Jollof rice. Jollof rice is very common in Ghana, it is a spicy sort of fried rice, with a red colour. The spices and I don't always get along, today was no exception. I wonder what my team mates must think :)




IBMers are a diverse lot, we're certainly not all IT evangelists from way back. Two of my team members here for example wanted to be vets. One went on to gain a CPA and is a very talented finance guru, the other achieved a doctorate in chemistry, yet both fell into a long career with IBM, the Dr now running the Daimler account (a car company)! So you just can't judge these amazing people. Bringing this talent together is what makes us great, my role is to bring everyone back down to humble peasant reality :). Actually, it's been a pleasure to bring the project management skill to bear for the team, and help/show everyone the path to risk management. In our first week, I was doing a lot of talking, but my team are now the masters, they are taking this further and making it better every day. In kind, I'm learning about global management from them, IBM, and about people and values. It might take a while for it to all sink in, but it is an incredible experience bringing all this together in one place.


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

Workers Day

Workers Day is a public holiday on 1st May each year in nGhana. It looks similar to our labour day, celebrating workers rights. So no one is at work today. We are using the time to visit another orphanage, and the Accra Beach.


First stop was Frafrah Orphanage, its not as well off as the SOS Orphanage, and a little more remote. You can see pics of the area around this place below (and more shops). Here is a pic:



This time it was us who were a bit more shy to start with, maybe everyone was a bit taken back by the difference in what SOS had compared with here. These 35 kids didn't have much, a school currently getting an extension, two dirt playfields, a mini bus donated by a German firm. It didn't take long however, until we were out on the dirt field playing kick to kick with the soccer ball, african dancing comps, and tickle-chasey. This time I joined in all the games and had a great time, but I didn't have my video camera with me. It was a hot day, sweat was pouring.







Next stop was the beach in Accra. Being a public holiday, we needed to pay 5 Cedi to get on the beach, and then I think most of Accra was there with us. The water was like warm bath water, incredible! The beach is lined with chairs and shelter from the sun, and no shortage of people asking us to follow them so they can have us sit in their area.


Once you choose a spot to sit, you need to purchase a drink, so I had a passion fruit/malt soda. Every drink seems to have malt in it here, like every restaurant serves grilled chicken and rice :). If anyone wanted, you could pay for a horse ride up and down the beach, but I had more fun relaxing in the sun, and having lots of people stare at the funny-looking white guy. Greenpeace doesn't seem big here, so no one came running down the beach singing "Save the whale" and trying to roll me back in to the ocean :)


Dinner was at a very nice hotel resort by the beach, and aside from losing Gary for a few minutes, the other highlight was Deiva's ice-juice purchase. Ice-juice is orange and pineapple juice with a scoop of ice-cream on top. But a spoon wasn't supplied to scoop the ice cream out with, however when the table suggested mixing it up, Deiva replied "...But I don't like them mixed"!? He's a funny guy - ordering a mix he doesn't like so he can separate them later :)


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Frafrah, Ghana

More Risk!

Wednesday was another full day of evaluating our risks. We have now divided them into 5 categories to help communicate the large volume to our audience, and have started putting mitigation against each of them. We should finish mitigation for our primary risks tomorrow, and will then start the final Risk Plan document, and our final presentation. Our mitigation looks at not only what could be done to prevent this risk, but also what could be done if this risk occurs and the government is forced to deal with the risk. Brainstorming mitigation actions with everything we have learned over the past 2.5 weeks takes lots of mental power, we finished up this day exhausted!

To ensure we end with a quality product, we are trying to organize second interviews with the key people we spoke with. In these second interviews we talk about each of the primary risks and what these key people would do to mitigate them. The work we have done on risk mitigation serves as a prompter to help get some people started, others already have ideas on how they would like to see the risks handled.

Today we had an interview setup for 10am, which got pushed to 11.30am, and then 12pm, and then not at all. Petra, on our group, however managed to convince our reluctant customer to meet with us tomorrow. It helps to have sales professionals in your group, used to working through what it is the customer wants so they will talk to us. We didn't lose time however, as we have an office on these premises and could continue our work from there. Unfortunately the AC was out, and while we got some relief from a ceiling fan, it was mental Olympics staying engaged and actively listening in the humid heat.

During our lunch break, we quickly jumped into a supermarket (Koala), which wouldn't be much to talk about, except they had Double Decker bars! We don't get them in Australia, it's a Cadbury invention in the UK, and they are just short of awesome! So I bought a whole box to bring back as my whole family will want them :). Baggage weight might be an issue at this point, my carry on bag is going to be heavier than my suitcase at this rate!


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana