Scribbles

I woke at 3 am today.
An ideal quiet time to connect to the wireless network here in the hotel in Santo Domingo, to catch up with my backlog of Email, and to catch the first Emails coming in from our HQ in Rome.
In the Emails, there is a series of exchanges on call-forwards of staff on standby for deployment. Unblocked the deployment of two staff due to arrive asap to help us set up the communications here in the office, and updated the list of another four staff the buro is sending in. Wrote some quick terms of reference for them and just worked my way through some outstanding issues.

8 am: Quick shower and down to the office which is installed in two conference rooms downstairs in the hotel. The usual suspects are already present: the people from aviation are already up and running. The ICT guys start their usual shift at 7:30. The finance and HR people are already at their desks.
Breakfast with some of the staff and we are ready for another day.

8:30: the room is full and buzzing. We are squeezed with about 40 people in one small conference room. Staff come in and out, talking on their mobiles, working on their laptops. All tables we work on are make shift conference room tables filled with files, wires, computers, and stuff. There is laughter and a buzz of activity all around.

9:30: A quick brief with Brenda who just arrived and who will assist our project manager in finding a permanent location for our office.

10:00: Time for a short meeting with our security officer, trying to make some sense of the new security arrangements at the border with Haiti.
We agree it is time to beef up the security arrangements for our border operations.

10:30: Georges, our procurement officer, who normally works in Afghanistan, rings the alarm bell that the food shipment for our base camp in Port-au-Prince is not ready for the afternoon flight.

11:00 meeting with the heads of finance, supplies and logistics of our supplier for the base camp food for Haiti. Agreed on the line of credit and the way we will work to call forward the food next week. We stress the importance of the shipment we had scheduled for today, as it has to be on the plane taking off at 14:00. We have now two and a half hours left. The supplier leaves with Cecelia, our assistant procurement officer (normally based in Ecuador), to the wholesale food shop, to buy one and a half ton of food for our staff in Haiti, in one hour.
Georges winks at me “we will make it, but it will be ‘just in time’”

11:45 Meeting on the ICT requirements for the pending move to the new temporary location of our office, with Dane, who coordinates the ICT deployment in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Another wink: “All will be ok!”

12:00 Catching up with my emails again. More debugging. Some releases in our ERP system. Saying hi to more new staff who arrived last night.

13:00 Anisa, who normally works in Dubai, is our office manager (or ‘mama’ as we call her) and the admin crew, have arranged someone to bring in food every day. A quick bite, sitting outside the office. I walk around for a bit of fresh air. We have a dozen of our staff sitting around in the parking lot, eating their lunch.

13:30 Agreed how we will pay travel advances for our staff passing through Santo Domingo, inbound to Haiti. Gwyn, our travel guru from Rome works overtime. Ximena and Beverley, our HR team, come to tell me, proud as a peacock, we just processed our local payroll. Hurray…! A first!

14:00 Mario, who normally works in Indonesia, Tony (from HQ) and Alex (from Panama) form our finance crew. They have me sign off on our monthly bank reconciliation. Once again a first, as before the earthquake, the office here did not have a bank account, had no access to the ERP system… We are processing all transactions online now, set up in less than one week. Another first…. HURRAY! The balance shows our office processed about US$700,000 in payments, in the past three weeks.

14:30: George tells me the food for the basecamp made it in time for today’s flight. Cecilia bought 1.5 tons of food in less than two hours. She reports even the managers of the wholesale store ran around the huge warehouse with shopping carts for her. Good going guys!

15:30 Time for a nap. Unicef calls twice. A VIP is flying using one of our planes in two days. Final arrangements on the schedules.

16:25: a quick shower. Walking out of my room, I cross Henrik, my head of operations. There is a problem in Fond Parisien, just across the border.

16:30 I do my daily briefing with the newly arrived staff. Something I do religiously so newcomers know what we do, how we organise ourselves, and understand what a pain the boss is over here (me!). But I get sidetracked for a meeting with the hotel manager who wants to speak with us.
We desperately need to firm up the agreement we have with them. Jane, our “Head of Support Services With A Friendly Smile” from Panama, Michael (from our Dubai office) and Luigi stress: Yes, we want 70 rooms blocked, with a block allocation of 100 rooms, and priority booking for 150 rooms. Yes, we want to have the locks replaced on the doors of our new offices, and floodlights on the back of the office is a must, thankyouverymuch.

17:45: for the first time, I miss the 17:00 all staff meeting. We needed to firm up the agreement with the hotel, otherwise we would never be able to cater for the 50 local staff we are recruiting in the next two weeks. So instead of walking through our two office-slash-conference rooms shouting “5 o’clock – meeting!!!”, I now shout “Quarter to Six, meeting!” which causes a collective “Booh, you are late” tease from the staff. We use these daily briefs to streamline any issues that need to be discussed, announcements to be made, and short briefs. It is also the ideal moment to introduce all new staff who arrived in the past 24 hours.

18:05 We are ending the brief, and Henrik gives me a sign. I can see there in his eyes there is trouble. “The situation we discussed this morning might run out of hand, we need to act now” is his short message. I call the head of one of our implementing partners in Port-au-Prince via his satellite telephone and we discuss briefly to the head of IOM at the border. It is clear, we need to move fast.

18:30 We call the head of UNICEF and cochair of the nutrition cluster in the Dominican Republic. She confirms the dire need of food in two small camps. I call Carlos in Haiti to clear the upcoming distribution. He gives us the go-ahead.

18:45 Jose (from Rome) and Sam (from our Sudan office) our newly arrived head of aviation confirm I can have a helicopter for tomorrow, take off at 9:30 to fly to the border, to meet with our programme staff there. We assemble a team of 6, file our security clearances online, and fill in a local travel authorization which Gwyn processes.

19:15: We get confirmation for the helicopter. All set. Luigi goes around and gets the names and UNLP numbers of the staff who will fly with us, so we can file a flight manifest.

19:30: a session of signing local purchase orders and finance papers, catching up with email.

20:00 the head of our implementing partner in Haiti calls me back. His team will drive from Port-au-Prince tomorrow to meet us in Jimani. We prepare the food logistics.

20:15 for two weeks in a row, I have been cross with the admin staff, normally working in our Panama office, as they are always staying up to 11 pm in the office. They can not keep that rythm, so I am happy to see them packing up their laptops. I hope they won’t cheat and go to their rooms to work!

21:00 More emails, signing papers. WINGS releases. A debrief with a PI person coming back from Haiti.

22:00 I remember Tine, my wife, asked me to book a flight for her to Rome. We were supposed to meet there, but I won’t be there, so she will stay in my apartment. Last financial releases, cleaning up of my emails.

23:00 I am happy to see my bitching on the staff to leave earlier worked… They all left before 11 PM.. Maybe there is some authority left in me, hahaha… I call the front desk and ask them to lock up the office. As I walk to the reception, one more staff walks to the office “Sorry boss, I have one more email I forgot to send”.. Darned.

24:00 End of the day. Maybe 3 am is not a good idea for tomorrow morning. Good night everyone!

00:15: Darned my authority has failed on me. In my last Email replication of the day, I get more mails from our staff here in Santo Domingo. They are still working. They cheated… They left the office, but are working from their rooms.

I will call it a day. And you know what my last thoughts for the day are? I am happy I have a comfortable bed, in a room. Not so for the hundreds of staff we have in Haiti. I feel lucky for me, sad for them. And hope we made a difference for them today. And for the two million beneficiaries we are serving there… To all of you in Haiti… Good night, our thoughts are with you!

In principle, this could be the shortest blogpost I ever wrote:

Question: “What makes food in Italy taste so good?”
Answer: “The ingredients”

Here is the longer version:

In a world where as a consumer, we want to have any type of vegetable or fruit in the shop, at any time during the year, we gradually slide into the habit of eating “plastic”. There is no other word for a fruit or vegetable which was picked while unripe, only growing to its mature size (and of course its perfect look) while transported in an under-cooled container.

I remember the perfect December strawberries at breakfast in New York: shiny bright red on the outside, and white on the inside. Nothing but water. No taste whatsoever.
Same – or even more so – in Dubai, where fresh vegetables were almost non-existent. As local living habits were on the route to become North American, so were the eating habits. In the supermarkets, it all looked perfect: apples, asparagus, berries, oranges. Big sizes too. But taste like water.

And on top of that, upon popular demand by the consumer, fruits and veggies can not go off fast. We should be able to keep them in the fridge for three weeks at least… Plastic goes for ever, no? God knows what they treat veggies with to keep “fresh” for a month.

Not so in Italy. In general, you can only buy fruits and vegetables which are in season. The taste is like I have never experienced before. But you have to use it within the next days, as they go off in no time.

Look at this freshly picked Tuscan tomato a friend brought from her garden. See its colour, its firmness?

Freshly picked, it made a lovely meal by itself. But, amongst the two dozen tomatoes, there was one unripe tomato. Still firm green. Just for the curiosity, I left it on the cupboard for four weeks. When eventually it was ripe, it looked perfect, just like the others, but tasted like nothing. Why? It did not ripen in the sun, on its vine as the other tomatoes did. It grew to maturity on my cupboard.

Look at this salsa I made: the only ingredient were freshly picked Tuscan tomatoes. I added some herbs and let it all broil for two hours. Look at the intensity of the colour, look how firm it is. If I’d do this with Belgian tomatoes, it would be all watery with only a hint of red.

And that is one of the reason I love to live in Italy.

More about Living in Italy on The Road

Top picture courtesy Nanaimo Info Blog

Here I am, waking up tickled by sunlight. I get a shower, water the plants, clean up the place a bit, get into the car, drive up the highway. And then I hear a funny noise in the back…

Oops, punctured tyre.. No problem I have done this before… A Smart does not come with a spare tyre, but with a handy electric pump. I park on the emergency lane. 30 ton truck racing 2 inches past you. You “pump it up” and drive off..

Oops… puncture too big…. I barely make it to the next gas station. All flat again. No problem.. I have a can of tyre glue filler (how do you call that stuff?), made for just that. Except that there is no tool to get the valve off the tyre. No way to fit the glue tube onto the tyre.

Well, this is a gas station, so I ask the pompista. Nope. “No tools.” He points at the gas station at other side of the highway: “Ask there”. Luckily there is an underpass. Off I go.
I explain with the best of my Italian, that there is a problem with my “bomba” and I am looking for a “bombista”.. The guy gives me a funny look but no luck. “If you get the tyre here, I will fix you up with a second hand one”, he says. I think that is what he says.

Meanwhile next to my car, a queue is forming. Three buses of Dutch tourists wanna go to the loo, and line up right next to my car. And each has a comment. Not thinking I would speak Dutch. We’re in Italy after all. Until I comment on their comments.

Long story short, my luck comes in the form of an angel, a friend working close by. She dropped by the local garage, picks up a wrench and a tool to remove the valve. When she arrives, I introduce her to the Dutch tourists as the representative of the local automobile club. They all comment they want to change tyres too.

Anyway, glue goes in, but as soon as I pump up the tyre, it comes out of a dozen different holes. It seems I drove into every single nail in Rome. Tyre has to come off. Smart no come with jack. Back to the pompista to explain I have a problem with my ‘bomba’.. No tools. Friend’s car has. Fits well. Off comes the tyre.

With tyre and friend back to the other side of the highway. I ask again for the ‘bombista’. Friend asks me what I mean? I say “a guy who fixes tyres”.. “Ah” she says, ‘GOMMISTA’, you mean. ‘BOMBISTA’ is someone who makes bombs…” No wonder nobody had tools for my “BOMBA” (bomb). Oh well.

The GOMMISTA gets the tyre off, and fixes a second hand one he has laying around. “Should get you going to the next garage”, he says. 20 Euros. Cheap to get back onto the road.

Back to the other side of the highway (thank God for underpasses), fixed the tyre while realizing this is not the typical picture: Normally you would have a blonde saved by a mechanical savvy guy. Here I am being saved by a female angel..

Anyways, dropped the car off at a garage, and got a ride back home. Back where I started off, four hours later. Car to be picked up in the evening.

Will give it another try tomorrow morning…

Sometimes, you get sucked into a situation. It is like a hole in the sand your in. While trying to climb out of it, you actually make the hole wider and deeper.
And as things progress, your efforts get more frantic and in the end you have a bloody deep hole.

Don’t we all get ‘sucked’ into situations without even realizing it… And then, one day, you wake up, and look at it all with fresh eyes… When that happens to me, my AHA-thought concentrates around two things only: “How the hell did I get here?” and “How is it possible I have let it slip that far?”

An example, on a more lively and cheerful note: When I lived in Uganda, one morning the driver did not pick up my on time, and I nearly missed my flight.

I asked why he was late, and he shrugged:
- Not my fault…
- Why not?
- It was the neighbour’s wife’s brother fault.
- Why?
- I have an electric clock with an alarm, but it did not work.
- …
- My neighbour had connected his electricity line to mine. He had locked up the connection in a box with a padlock.
- …
- The wife had visited her brother.
- Whose wife?
- My neighbour’s… She had visited her brother.
- …
- She had left her keys there. The padlock key was amongst them.
- …
- In the evening, she returned home. There was a shortcircuit in his electricity connection, which also shut off my electricity. They could not repair it, as they called the wife’s brother to come with that key. But he did not.
- ….
- So my electric clock did now work, and I overslept…

To get up in the morning, the guy had to resolve the electricity problem, but ran into solving problems which were related to problems which were related to other problems which somehow related to the original problem…

And that is a problem, you see?

The week after the disillusioning appuntamente (appointments) with the hair dresser and the garage, I stepped into another appuntamento adventure. This time with a dentist.

I had never been to a dentist in Italy, but the week before last, a tooth ache appeared out of no-where. I could feel the pain spiking down to the bottom of my spine, a sign the nerve of the tooth was touched.

Via my Friend E, I got in touch with a dentist and made an appointment for “next Wednesday at 9:30 AM”. This was my first surprise, as dentists are pretty busy.

I stood at the porch of their practice at 9:25, and they arrived at 9:30, on the dot: The dentist, a young bright-blue-eyed woman, and the receptionist, a lady with a godly smile.

The dentist looked at my teeth. She shook her head. She would need X-rays and an ultrasound cleansing to remove all chalk residues before she could do anything else.

One was work for an Xray technician, and the other for a dental hygienist. I had an instantaneous nightmare of an endless appuntamente string. The dentist laughed at my sad face and said she would take an Xray of the hurting tooth herself, and put in a temporary filling. My first good luck of the day, as otherwise, I would have started my holidays – the next day! – with hurting teeth…

Half an hour later, we tried to find a blank spot in the agenda of the dental hygienist, but nothing seemed possible until September… And the Xray person was not available for months neither.

Both the receptionist and my dentist started a soft discussion, and in the end, the receptionist said:
- “OK, we will do the Xray session in two weeks, followed the next hour with the root canal for your hurting tooth… But we will do the dental hygiene session now…”
- “Now?” I asked.
- “Now”, she winked.. “I am a dental hygienist too. Today is a calm day at the reception, so I will do it. Is that ok?”
- “More than OK!”..

One hour later, I was back on the street. I had a dental appuntamento that had actually worked. They did even twice as much work as foreseen. Plus I had my dental hygiene session, for which I had not even taken an appointment.

So why did the appuntamente with hair dresser and the garage not work out, while I had no trouble at the dentist?

My theory: The first two were men. The latter were with two women. Proof efficiency in the Italian society revolves around the women, not the men. Punto.

More about Living in Italy on The Road

Picture courtesy Dentist Tools (obviously!)