Pete's Vietnam adventure

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Back to reality

I got home Sunday night and was back to work Monday morning (well, physically at least).  As I try to re-enter back to an existence in normalcy after being gone for 32 days and look to close out this blog, I have to wonder: Did this all really just happen?  What did it all mean?

First of all I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to do this.  My family supported me with the whole idea of being away for a month, and my IBM colleagues covered my work for the month, and for both I’m grateful.  I’m also very grateful that IBM offered up such an opportunity, and that I was chosen to participate.  Only around the top 10 or 15% or so of all employees are even eligible to apply, and of those that apply, only around 10% of those are accepted.  Beyond that, I was even luckier to have been included in a project in such a great location.  And finally, to my 9 teammates, what can I say?  Every one of you was someone I enjoyed spending the time with and I hope to remain friends with into the future.  Thanks to Alekhya and Beeka’s efforts, the coffee mug imprinted with our team “logo” sits on my desk in my office and will be a constant reminder of our month in Vung Tau.

In one of my first entries I mentioned that many past participants described their month in the Corporate Service Corps as a “life changing event”.  For me, I’d wanted to take this all on for the cultural experience, and to prove to myself that I could once again go outside of my comfort zone and adapt and contribute to something I knew very little about in a short period of time.  Its too early for me to know if I’d call it life changing, but what I wanted to happen did beyond all of my expectations, and along the way I also learned a lot about life and myself.  

Life is short and it’s too easy to get lost in a comfortable routine.  In the meantime there’s a whole world out there and it’s there for the taking for those who dare!

That’s the end of the story for now... thanks to all who followed.  

[petesvn-blog]

The final day

We arrived back in Ho Chi Minh City Friday afternoon and the departures began.  Some folks are staying here and traveling around and being joined by friends and families, while the rest of us have departures to home ranging from Saturday through the wee hours of Sunday morning.  The goodbyes are staggered in times and places depending on who’s going off to where, but they all seem to have some element of teary eyes.  Itzel is getting married in Mexico City next February and there is already talk of a reunion of sorts for her wedding.  I wonder how many people have any clue what a Mexican wedding would be like!

Michael and I booked a trip up to the Cu Chi tunnels since we don’t leave until the wee hours of the night.  Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975, and the U.S. military pulled out of Vietnam and the war ended.  As a teenager growing up in the suburbs of New York City in the years proceeding that, I was a witness to the horrors of the Vietnam war (or American war as its often called here) from the relative comfort of my living room TV.  Back then my friends and I were generally more concerned about what album our favorite rock bands were coming out with, or when they would come touring to our area, or who was having a party in the upcoming weekend.  But as we all approached the age of 18, or if we had older brothers who were, we were all too aware of the draft lottery that the U.S. government had in place, and the realization that if your birthday was in the lowest 1/3 of the dates drawn you would likely end up being called into active duty.  I even vaguely remember watching the lottery as my older brothers birthday was drawn; very fortunate for us both he was just turning 18 and I was 16 when it all ended and the USA pulled out.  There is lots of history to this sad event in time, and my view has always been that it was really a conflict between USA and the former Soviet Union with the poor people of both sides of Vietnam caught in the middle.  The horrible war and all the atrocities associated with it has always been in the back of my mind this month, but this was my first true “in your face” experience of the month. 

The Cu Chi tunnels area is now a well preserved and incredibly popular tourist area, but for anyone who remembers the actual events it can be a bit unnerving to see some of the things preserved here.  For example there were well preserved booby traps where they demonstrated how people would fall into pits and become impaled on a bed of spikes.  I could not bring myself to take any pictures of things like this. 

Some sections of the actual tunnels them self are preserved and setup to be an adventure of sorts if you want to try to crawl through them, but its only around 100 meters long and its a brief experience.  This pales in comparison to the stories of how they lived in them for months on end, eating, sleeping, cooking, even having babies while the bombs rained down from above and the endless killings of both sides went on. 

                                Now you see me, now you don’t!

Crawling through a section in the tunnel (and this was made larger for tourists!)

Fortunately this is all a thing in the past and Vietnam is now a wonderful place to visit and I hope to come back again with my wife and daughter!

[petesvn-blog]

The beginning of the end

Tuesday through Thursday this week was a jammed packed 3 days as we all pushed to get ready for our final presentations and complete all our deliverables to our host clients.  It also created an odd kind of feeling as we all realized that we were in the home stretch and this would all soon end.  

I missed my wife and daughter alot in the past couple of weeks.  Due to the time difference it always meant one of us was rushing around in the morning trying to get ready most of the times when I called, so it was kind of hard to really keep in touch and up to date.  On the other hand this little group of 9 complete strangers has become my second family for the past month.  We do pretty much nothing alone, whether it’s our client related work, breakfast/lunch/dinner, shopping, sightseeing, sunset beach outings, etc. I think about the only self time I ever have is the hour or so in my hotel room at night before sleep, and my morning run on the waterfront.  I think we have been incredibly lucky in that this group of people who are all so different have gotten along so amazingly well. Sure there is some good sparring (Dan does a good job ribbing the two ladies from India!), but everyone really likes each other and the laughter seems endless and at some times downright painful.  With everyone realizing that this is going to suddenly stop now has created a bit of an ominous feeling at times.

After just about finishing up everything on our final presentation Wednesday evening I joined Staci and Beeka and their host client and we walked up to the top of a mountain that has a lighthouse and a great view of Vung Tau and the coast.

                              Full moon with a view

Afterwards, feeling a bit overdosed on seafood and Vietnamese food we scored a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant, which has been my occasional reprieve when I’ve felt homesick for western food.   Thursday morning was a bit of a scramble as Michelle and I put the finishing touches and packaged up our deliverables into one giant presentation with links to everything we created.  If nothing else I had to marvel on how well organized it all ended up.  We met with our host client at 2 and took them through everything, which ran to almost 5PM. I’ve described before that we get limited feedback from them when we present to them, so we’re really not sure what they will do with everything we’ve done.  Will it sit on a shelf and collect dust?  Will they like what we’ve suggested and implement some of it, and more importantly, will it make a difference?  I have no idea, and I really don’t know what I’ll find out in the future either.  All I can think is that we did our best and hope we got it right.

Since everyone was finishing up with their host clients on Thursday we’d been planning a night out for our entire IBM team to treat our 4 interpreters and NGO host to a dinner Thursday night. So wouldn’t you know it, now our host client also wants to take us to dinner… what to do!!!  Michelle and I ended up with a double shift – dinner and drinks with our client and then a quick dash over to the restaurant where everyone else was for round 2.  Round 3 was a session in the hotel karaoke room, followed by “last call” on our favorite 10th floor balcony where we’ve spend many days watching the sun go down over the beach. It seemed to be a night nobody wanted to end.   

You’ve seen a few photos on this blog, but I don’t think anyone can really appreciate how many pictures this group has created. Its literally thousands and we’ve shared them on a common dropbox to the point my hard drive is about to burst.  There are so many, but there are a few that really stand out in my mind.

               My favorite sunset pic

Beeka took it upon herself to create a collage of some of the best individual photos of each of our group members and create a sort of “team logo”, which she sent around and everyone loved. 

Then at one point last night Alehkya handed everyone a gift, it was a plain white box and inside was a coffee mug with this collage printed on it…I was completely speechless at first when I looked at it; eventually the only thing I could get out of my mouth was that of all the gifts I’ve received and souvenirs I bought this month this was my favorite.  

Its Friday here now and this morning we all had to pack up and hit the road, we’re going back to our hotel near the Ho Chi Minh city airport where this all started.  We have one more dinner and then tomorrow mid day the departures begin.  My flight home is 5AM Sunday and Michael flies out at midnight Saturday, sine we’re two of the last to go we’ve booked an outing to the Cu Chi tunnels for Saturday – then its all over….

Goodbye photo leaving our Vung Tau “home” hotel... “big blue” team and Phuc our NGO host

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The end of week 3 (April 18)

Last Thursday was our “cultural exchange” night.  It’s a sort of CSC tradition where everyone is encouraged to bring some kind of gift that’s traditional from their home city or country.  My favorites for the night were the UK team members (Dan and Michelle) who taught us all how to eat and drink like the queen, complete with cheese and ritz crackers, shortbread, and the obligatory Gin and Tonics.  

                                        Living like the Queen

Also the Indian ladies (Alekhya and Sayantani) who got all dressed in traditional Indian dress and gave us all very nice souvenirs to bring back as well.

                    Definitely not dress down Friday

Since I’m from Vermont, I’m pretty sure people who live there can guess what I brought… (yes, maple syrup).  

Then for our one free weekend we traveled up north and took a 2 day 1 night boat cruise on Ha Long Bay (2 days / 1 night is the marketing spin on a 24 hour outing).  Five of our group went on this outing, while the other five went off to a  resort on Phu Quoc Island.

To explain Ha Long Bay:  According to local legend, when Vietnam had just started to develop into a country, they had to fight against many invaders. To assist the Vietnamese in defending their country, the gods sent a family of dragons as protectors. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders.  As these numerous rock mountains abruptly appeared on the sea ahead of invaders' ships; the forward ships struck the rocks and each other. After winning the battle, the dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth, and then decided to live in this bay.

Regardless of what you believe Ha Long Bay is a stunning area off the coast, comprised of a maze of rugged limestone cliff islands.  It's been designated a Unesco world heritage site, but sadly like many other areas in Vietnam it's suffering the effects of pollution and the water is full of floating trash.  Hopefully this will improve over the years, and it's certainly not a reason to stay away in the meantime.

    A few good shots of the bay, our crew, and the boat we stayed on

We flew up to Hai Phong Friday eve, stayed the night, and then departed for the Ha Long Bay harbor Saturday morning.  They kept us quite busy on the cruise with various activities, including a kayaking outing through the maze of limestone cliff islands, a trip to an island with a cave on it, and several very long drawn out meals with a bit too many courses up on the top deck.  We were warned about the possibility of jellyfish if we went swimming, but fortunately we didn't encounter any until the evening when one huge one lazily hovered around the back deck of the boat..... talk about YUK!!!

This will give me nightmares for awhile - they eat jellyfish salad here... ugh.

During our outing we got quite a few inquisitive looks from other people who were no doubt trying to guess the making up of our group, considering the four 20 somethings with me the old man, not to mention two ladies from India, and one guy each from Brazil and UK along with me from USA.  I had fun with that saying I was the dad of these 4 half brothers and sisters...if nothing else we got a few good laughs over that.

After our cruise was over we ended up back in Hai Phong with the afternoon and evening open to explore.  It's not exactly a tourist destination - in fact I don't think I saw a single other western person in our travels around town, and us being without our interpreters added a bit more to the experience.  We had a good outing wandering around the market area and the city center area that's centered around a lake that's all lit up with lots of colored lights at night.  

                         Hai Phong city center at night

Today we're heading back to Vung Tau - a flight back to Ho Chi Minh City, then the hydrofoil down the Saigon river back 'home'.

This starts our last week here and we end it with a final presentation to the director of our host client along with his key staff, and we hand off all our final deliverables and recommendations.  We have a few busy days ahead of us to finish all this, and then as fast as this all ramped up, it's going to end next weekend and we're all off on our own and back to our real lives.  We've all been warned about the transition by past participants, it's a bit of reverse culture shock that I’m told to be prepared to expect!

[petesvn-blog]

Mid-week 3 update

Yesterday and today (Tuesday and Wednesday) Michelle and I led two ½ workshops to the sales, international relations, and marketing communications staff at BUSADCO.  The topics we covered were centered on sales skills, negotiation skills, presentation skills, and effective use of media (focused on social media).

                              Sales skills workshop

                   Presentation skills workshop

We put a lot of effort into these workshops and they were generally well received.  Presenting and interacting with an audiences here is quite different from what we are used to.  People tend to just sit quietly and listen with very little interaction.  There’s nothing wrong with it, but at first we felt like nobody was paying attention or didn’t understand us well.  My conclusion (and confirmed from one of our interpreters) was that society here in general is much more of a hierarchical nature and people are more used to listening and being told what to do vs. questioning and challenging what they hear.  I can only imagine if one of our department meetings back at home ran like this; our boss Mark would assume we all had dropped off the call!  We encouraged questions from our audience, and found that we got the best results by asking them to write them down on cards and pass them to us.  Another interesting lesson in cultural adaptability.

Speaking of which, its not uncommon in restaurants for people to holler out very loudly EM OI!!! when they want to get the attention of their waiter/waitress.  I can only imagine the look of my waiter back at home if I got up and shouted “hey there” at the top of my lungs across a restaurant at home.  In fact its taken me quite some time to stop laughing whenever someone does it, even more so when Dan our resident IBM CSC comedian from U.K. gets up and does it.  Even just typing this makes me laugh ;-)

Some of you may wonder what we do with our weekends when we’re not working with our host clients. ABV (our host NGO organization) has graciously organized outings for us to let us enjoy some of the sights.  These trips are run by Vietravel, and we go around on a minibus with our tour guide named “Nam”. He’s really funny and talks about all kinds of stuff to us, both of local interest and also topics completely unrelated (and at times they can be a bit bizarre!).  He’s definitely kept me guessing what would be the next thing that would come out of his mouth.  On Saturday after our 1st week they had a full one day local outing for us.  We hiked up to a mountain top Jesus statue (very much like a miniature version of the famous one in Rio).  1000 steps up, and then another 100 inside the statue. 

                      Sorry, couldn’t resist...

It was a great view from the top, but the walk up inside the statue was definitely not for the claustrophobic.  After that they took us to the Vung Tau “White House”, a historical building that overlooks the sea and has had many uses over the history of Vung Tau and houses several exhibits about its history and Vung Tau history.  For lunch we went over to Long Son Island nearby and took a water taxi over to a floating restaurant for a very big lunch.  Its very common for restaurants to have hammocks hanging all about and many of us end up lounging about for 30 minutes after eating, sometimes with a nice breeze and water view.   

                            ZZZzzz...

Finally we visited the Long Son Big House, which is the temple for the local Tran religion.  Incredible workmanship and decorations were displayed throughout, respectfully and unfortunately no pictures allowed though.

This past weekend we had a two day / one night outing to My Tho (and don’t ask me to pronounce it  - Phuc our local host from ABV had a good laugh at me trying to say it), which is in the Mekong Delta.  The Mekong River has a series of 4 islands in it which we visited.  During our tour we experienced so many different forms of transportation getting around in one day we lost count (big boats, little boats, rowboats, buses, walking, even a horse-drawn cart).    

                “Mekong Trains, Planes and Automobiles”

Next weekend (our last together) was designated as a free weekend for us to do as we choose on our own dime.  Our group is splitting in half and 5 are going to Phu Quoc Island to stay at a luxury sea-side resort, and the other 5 including me are heading north to go on a cruise on Halong Bay.  Its supposed to be one of the most spectacular places in the world, and I’ll be sure to post pictures of it after the weekend.

In the meantime, we are all still working on the remaining deliverables we’ve all promised for our host clients, but the end is drawing near.  In some ways its hard to believe we’ve been here almost 3 weeks now, but when the discussion turns to our home lives, it feels like a very very very long time already! 

[petesvn-blog]

Half way mark (Friday, April 8)

Today marked the half-way point to this adventure, the end of our 2nd week. Our 2nd week of work was largely focused on digging deeper into the details on what exactly we’d deliver to our host client compared to the high level Statement of Work we agreed to at the end of week 1, and making a dent in creating it all.  By now we’ve made good progress on much of it and week 3 begins the point where we start delivering on some of the items we’ve promised.  Next week we’ll be holding two workshops to help them enhance various sales and marketing skills.  We also have a product promotion plan we’re working on, and a final presentation with a list of actions and recommendations we’re going to suggest, all with the overall goal to help them be able to participate in more overseas funded projects related to helping Vietnam mitigate climate change issues related to rising sea levels. On Thursday we had a checkpoint meeting with our host client to discuss what we’ll deliver to them.  The feedback from their Director and his team is that we’re on the right track and they are looking forward to seeing what we give them.

Meanwhile we wrestle with the content of what we’re planning to deliver.  Is it too basic?  It is too much?  Or is it just right?  (no 3 little bears jokes please)  While we wrestle with that, our interpreter has her own demons to deal with as she attempts to understand what we’ve written and insure she translates it properly so our thoughts are conveyed accurately.  The Vietnamese and English languages are so different in so many ways; it’s a really tough task and one I don’t envy.  In the end we all want to get this right!

Today we’re taking a break from our regular routine, and as part of the program we have our one community service day.  We met with several volunteer and community organizations that have taken the initiative to work to insure that the Vung Tau beaches remain attractive and clean up the litter.  It’s a huge issue as the tourists and Ho Chi Minh City residents come here in crowds (especially on weekends) and leave a mess. Several times on my morning run I’ve seen the crowds of volunteers cleaning up the beach, and they do a great job, but it’s a vicious cycle that repeats over and over.  They presented an overview of the situation and how they are addressing the problem for both prevention and the inevitable remediation (aka cleanup).  We then presented some ideas we came up with, and some of the best practices from our home countries.  It’s a pity that it’s such a problem, but it’s certainly not unique to Vietnam.  Much of what we’d suggested they already had thought about, but I am certain we created a few “a-ha” moments where we gave them a few ideas they may not have considered.  I’m sure there is no magical fix, but I’m also hopeful we helped in some small way.

               GROUP PHOTO FROM OUR COMMUNITY SERVICE EVENT

Since we’re at the half way point, I’d like to close with a little bit of reflection. When we’re not working, we do have our evenings free to explore the city and it 99 restaurants (!) and get to know each other.  In only two weeks time it’s quite amazing how much we’ve all learned about each other and our friends and families.  Prior to our visit we had to develop and then all agree to a “code of conduct” which was a set of rules we all agreed to abide by to insure a harmonious co-existence.   We also spent a lot of time in the pre-work sessions reviewing past CSC group dynamic problems that came up and how we would think they should be best handled.  So far we’ve been quite fortunate and haven’t really encountered such instances or dealt with any big issues within our team.  Considering we are 10 people ranging from 23 to 58 years in age and from 7 countries, it’s actually quite interesting to see how friendships can be created in such a small amount of time with so many differences among us in so many ways.  Many past CSC teams have even traveled and gathered together in some place in the world to have reunions years after their projects are over.  I hear this over and over from past CSC participants, but it’s hard to believe until you live it.  

Another thing that strikes me is that back in my current role in my current position we work in teams on big deals.  Each member of a deal team comes with a specific background and set of skills that is uniquely specific to the role they play.  Over here our skills and backgrounds may not be so perfectly aligned with some of the tasks we’re working on, which is all part of the challenge and personal growth experience.  Even though I’ve left my IBM colleagues back at home to cover what I was working on and I’m not actively participating in that while I’m here, I’m certain this is all time well spent in the long run!

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The motorbike

A bit of history first - Vietnam has come a long way in a very short recent time. Vietnam was occupied by China from the first century BC to 10th century, then had multiple succeeding occupations by the Japanese and French.  Additionally Vietnam endured numerous atrocious wars, culminating in the last war that is referred to as the “American War” in Vietnam and the “Vietnam war” in western society, finally ending in 1975.  Fortunately peace time has ensued since.  

In 1986 the government announced the “Doi moi” policy, which opened the doors for a capitalist based economy (much as China did earlier), which then helped fuel an economic explosion that has taken place since and opened up overseas trade with many countries that would previously not do business with Vietnam.  Today Vietnam has grown from an impoverished country with 58% of the population living in poverty in 1992 to 17% in 2012 according to one report I read.  The annual average income today for a salaried worker in big cities is about $1700USD.  Given the economics, the motorbike has grown to become the transportation method of choice.  It’s one of the most visual elements that makes Vietnam look different to a visitor from other parts of the world.  Today Vietnam has 92 million people and 39 million motorbikes.  By comparison there were only 4 million motorbikes in all of Vietnam 20 years ago in 1996.  If you don’t count the elderly and youth, that equates to nearly everyone able to do so in Vietnam owning a motorbike!

Asian societies are not big on suntans and many people avoid sunlight much more carefully then western society.  I’ve always found it interesting to see people walking with umbrellas on sunny days, although that seems to be far more prevalent in other Asian countries then here.  People will put on clothing that covers virtually every bit of exposed skin during the daylight before getting on their motorbikes, despite the incredible heat.  Long sleeves, long pants, face masks, sunglasses and a helmet often complete the outfit, making for a mass of colorful yet unrecognizable people zipping about everywhere.  

The motorbike also serves as the family vehicle.  I’ve heard that only two adults are legally permitted on a motorbike, but there seems to be no limit for children. I’ve seen as many as 6 (2 adults 4 kids) on one bike! 

                                              Family outing

They also serve as a transport vehicle for goods, and it’s incredible to see some of the loads of cargo that motorbikes are loaded up with and out and about.  I’ve seen an egg delivery bike with crates of eggs piled up almost 3 meters high (imagine the mess if the unthinkable were to happen!).  I’ve seen a motorbike with water tanks on it that would barely fit in the back of a pickup truck. 

          You get the idea!

                                        Shopping expedition?

                                          Moving day?

The other thing this creates is tons of traffic, primarily in the bigger cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.  Many roads and intersections have no traffic lights and there can be endless swarm of motorbikes coming down the road.  We’ve all learned the skill of crossing a busy street:  Simply step out into the road, walk forward (never backwards), walk at a steady pace, and don’t do anything erratic or unpredictable.  The motorbikes seem to easily weave around the pedestrians and you become lost is a mass of motion and come out on the other side; it’s a bit of a learning process to say the least.  

                       Not for the timid!

Lots of other things in everyday life are optimized for life around motorbikes. One more example is your favorite coffee beverage is packaged up in a cute little plastic bag with a handle so it can be conveniently hung from the handlebars of the bike - brilliant!  

                             Take-away coffee - motorbike ready.

I guess I’ll wrap this up by noting that we are here now during the dry season. Every day is sunny and very hot, and it never rains.  It makes me feel jealous of a lifestyle around such a free wheeling mode of transport, BUT – there is also a rainy season here where it rains every day and I’m sure it can’t be pleasant to get around everywhere by motorbike in the pouring rain for months on end.  For us this month, we’ll be sticking to walking and taxis!

[petesvn-blog]

One week by  (April 1, 2016)

The 10 of us were divided up into 4 sub-teams, and each sub-team has its own host client and project to work on.  My sub team consists of Michelle from IBM UK, our local interpreter Giang from DaNang, and myself.  

                                   In front of BUSADCO H/Q

Our first major task was to come to agreement on the content of a modified Statement of Work and write it up and have it signed by the the Director of our host client BUSADCO and Michelle and I.  Our deadline was EOB Friday, but we managed to get it done by Thursday afternoon!  Now our actual work to complete all the items we’ve committed to deliver over the next 3 weeks begins.

Working in Vietnam has proven to be a bit different then back at home.  The work day at our host client begins between 7:30 and 8.  They typically work until 11:30 and then break for lunch.  The afternoon work hours are then between 2 and 5.  We’re not used to a 2 ½ break mid-day and found ourselves at a loss as to what to do!   A good Vietnamese will go back home, take a lunch, maybe a chore or two and then have a nice short nap.  I haven’t figured out how to do the nap thing yet, but maybe by the end of the month? 

We are very fortunate to be housed in a hotel is ½ block from one of the two main beach areas in Vung Tau.  Its a picturesque location between two mountains with a west (eg. sunset) view.   

           Three views looking west (some day I’ll stitch them together)

            ...UPDATE: I’ve since learned how to do the panorama!

The day starts early, and by 5AM each day the beachfront strip is bustling with loads of people.  Many people awake early before work, and are exercising by the beach before the high heat and humidity takes over.  Everywhere you see people doing either some forms of stretching, swimming, running, or even dancing, etc.  Many of the fishing boats that are moored in front of the beach are heading out for the day.  It’s quite the hub of activity.

At home I’m usually at the gym before work.  Our hotel is quite nice and very accommodating, perhaps its only downside is its very limited gym facilities.  In the end this has proven to be a blessing as the beachfront at dawn is a far nicer place for a morning workout then any gym I can imagine.  The local government even has placed various exercise machines in the beachfront park every few blocks apart.  It’s funny to me that the public beach park area has better equipment then our hotel.

So far so good…!

[petesvn-blog]

Project kickoff!

Monday morning the real task at hand began. 

Official project kickoff meeting Monday morning (IBM team + ABV + our interpreters)

...and looky here - we even made the Vietnam TV news!  (Fast forward to 6:00 minutes...)

Our host client organization is BUSADCO.  They are a leading supplier of urban and rural construction infrastructure, specifically cement based products used in sea dykes, underground channels (for burying utility wires and cables under city streets), and products for water channeling and control (irrigation, rainwater drainage, and sewage).  They also handle the construction of the projects where these products are installed.  They are a successful growing company and currently the technology leader in the region on sea dyke technology, which is used to control flood damage, landslides, and erosion in coastal areas and rivers. Although very successful, they are a young company and very eager to develop their skills in sales and marketing.  This is where we hope to help them.

The first week of our process involves sorting out a preliminary statement of work with our host client that we’d received in advance.  This will be the plan of what we are to do over the following three weeks.  Even though we received this in advance we still need to have many discussions with our host client about what they would like to accomplish and what is the best use of our skills and time for their benefit.  It can be a fun process, it can also push people to their limits!  Monday was a great day at their office and at the end of the day we were invited out to dinner by their executive team. 

          Our welcome dinner graciously hosted by BUSADCO

Another fantastic oceanfront restaurant!   However I think by Tuesday afternoon we probably all hit out limit and stopped for the day on a less optimistic note. Wednesday proved far more productive,  as by then we’d figured out a far better method to manage the use of both their and our time, and by the end of the day we’d rewritten our project statement of work and sent it to them for their initial review.

Enough about our business process…. All my IBM colleagues with me are here for somewhat different reasons and they all have their own stories.  My favorite story so far is from Beeka from Toronto – she wins “best blog” award so far….read for yourself!

[petesvn-blog]

Transition

I’m a bit overdue for an update and have some catching up to do, so this is a partial update and I’ll do more in a day or two when I get a bit more time.

I arrived in Vietnam around 1AM Saturday morning - I was the last to arrive for the day and all was very quiet at the hotel.  The next morning when I came down to breakfast I met most of my team that I’ve only known by phone and IM for the past 3 months.  Not all of us had arrived yet, so the 8 of us went wandering around downtown Ho Chi Minh City for the day.  After sitting in planes for so long it felt great to just wander!  Everyone found their own rhythm and people starting assuming roles fitting to their personalities and skills.  Michael (born in Belgium, but now living in Dubai) became the official group tour guide, Alekhya (India) and Itzel (Mexico) became our team official photog’s.  I ended up playing the navigator (OK, yes two wrong turns, but hey – jetlag is a great excuse you can get away with for at least a few days).  In the afternoon we returned to the hotel and had an internal kickoff meeting and then went out to a nearby restaurant for dinner.  Sidewalks and crossing the street in Ho Chi Minh City can be quite adventurous between the obstacles and motorcycles EVERYWHERE!

By Sunday morning we had two more arrivals, so now we were the full (?) team of 10.  I say full because one woman from India had a last minute medical situation so she has not arrived and her arrival remains uncertain.  Our present makeup now: 2 from India, 2 from USA, 2 from UK, and 1 each from Mexico, UAE, Brazil, & Canada.  Sunday we hopped in the bus and went to Vung Tau, our new home for the next month.  After settling in we had another internal meeting and met our interpreters.  We will work with Giang (pronounced ‘Ye-ang’) for the next month, a very young, impressive and energetic 22 year old from DaNang.  It’s been repeatedly suggested in our training sessions to include our interpreters as a key member of our sub-team, and so far she’s proven to be a huge asset.  After the internal meeting we were treated to a welcome dinner at a very nice spot on the sea.  So far it’s felt like a big vacation/party, but the ominous feeling was apparent with everyone that our transition would complete on Monday, and it would be a very uncertain and unpredictable day as we would meet our host client organization for the first time and try to figure out what we’d do for the next month.  

Anyway it’s now Monday night, and Monday certainly did prove to be a ‘journey’ of sorts with our host client, but with a very good outcome – more on that in the next couple of days.

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A very surreal twilight view somewhere over NW Greenland.

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The sendoff, and time to fly! (March 24)

Last night my wife and daughter and I wanted to have a nice dinner for the sendoff.  Unfortunately my daughter wasn’t feeling that great so we opted for takeout.  Now the question is – what to get?  We toyed on the idea of our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, but somehow that didn’t feel right.  Instead we opted for take-out from a Turkish restaurant – perhaps this was my last farewell to my CSC Turkey 12 team that was never to happen.

                                          Here’s the spread!  

Afterwards it was time to paint Easter eggs, my daughter definitely had the best one of course!  She also gave me a going away card written in Vietnamese, which provided for some entertainment figuring out the right and wrong translations that Google translate offered up! 

This morning started off with an all too familiar routine.  Up at 5AM, a trip to the gym, an early breakfast, then a drop off at the local airport to catch a morning flight. I’ve literally done this hundreds of times before.  However this time will be a little different…

BTV airport - along with my going away card courtesy of my daughter and Google translate.

One of my biggest regrets in life was never having the opportunity to work on an international assignment.  I’ve never counted, but I’m quite certain I’ve traveled internationally for IBM at least 100 times so far.  But all too often, I come back from those hurried trips with little more of a blurred memory of airport lounges, packed flights, taxis, hotel rooms and conference rooms. Despite actually being in foreign countries, the overall experience is often far from a cultural one.  Both my brother and my current boss at IBM had the chance to experience an international assignment, and their experiences and memories are far richer then what I just described.  One of my primary reasons for signing up to partake in the Corporate Service Corps was to have the chance to actually live and work and experience a completely different part of the world and its culture.  I’m confident Vietnam will prove to be an excellent choice. Although this journey begins with an all too familiar pattern, I’m quite certain nothing else about this trip will be routine!

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March 17, 2016:  One short week to go

Today we had our "Before you go" final team call.   In one week the CSC Vietnam 13 team (as we are known as) will all leave home and head to Vung Tau. 

We've been having weekly teleconference calls with our entire team for the past 12 weeks as part of the overall training regimen that was created to prepare us all for this undertaking, along with various homework assignments we’ve had to complete on our own time, sometimes alone and sometimes in small sub-teams with others from our team.  Our telecon’s were led by Krista, who was part of a prior Corporate Service Corps team that went to another city in Vietnam last year, along with her two colleagues Robert and Rafael.  They have done an absolutely incredible job getting us ready, but you can still feel and sense the overall level of nervousness, anxiety and uncertainty that’s been building for the past 3 months, along with the rising level of anticipation and excitement within the questions and comments from everyone.  With all the training and preparing now finally complete, the reality of the imminent adventure really starts to sink in! 

Something I’ve thought about quite a bit is how this is quite the little experiment in human social adaptability.  Considering that we are a team of 11 people that up to now never knew each other, coming from all different countries, and with different skills and backgrounds.  We’re supposed to spend the next 4 weeks traveling, living, and working together on something we knew nothing about in a place we knew nothing about, and its all supposed to work!  And in the meantime I’ve also spoken to many people who have participated in this program before and quite a few have called it a “life changing event”.  Wow… OK, those who know me will probably agree that I can be a bit of a skeptic.  So I’ll have to wait and see for myself, but that’s quite a way to describe it all.

At this point all that’s left now is the final packing, and looking forward to a nice sendoff dinner out with my wife and daughter next week… wish us all luck!

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March 9, 2016 - T minus 15 days

Much has happened in the past 6 weeks.  We’ve been given our assignments and broken up into subteams.  We’ve been booked into a hotel (across the street from the beach!) which will be our home away from home for one month, and we’ve also planned weekend outings during our month stay.  I also got my plane tickets the other day - it takes 27 hours and 55 minutes in total with connections to fly from Burlington, VT to Ho Chi Minh City!

I’ve been assigned to a sub team of two; my teammate is Michelle who works in HR near London.  We’ll be working with a company in Vung Tau that wants some help with their marketing, sales and communications efforts in convincing the Vietnam government to contract them to build sea-dykes to protect the low lying coastal areas as sea levels continue to rise in Vietnam due to global warming and climate change. 

As part of our assignment, we also have one day of community service.  Vietnam has a problem with litter on their beaches and we’ll be doing 1/2 day of beach clean-up one day and then meeting with the local government to brainstorm on some ideas to help improve the overall situation.

As I’m getting ready for this, I’d like to share a little bit of history here - I was originally supposed to go to Ankara, Turkey back in September last year, but due to security issues after a tragic terrorist bombing incident that program was cancelled days before we were to depart.  So in this case, I’ve sort of been through a “dress rehearsal” to prepare for this, however its still a major undertaking to fully prepare for it all.

So there is still lots to do (and then at least until I depart I still need to work on my ‘real job’), but the posts will start to get a bit more frequent now, so stay tuned for more!

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Post #1 - from a rookie blogger

Hello everyone - its just a little over two months before I depart for Vietnam for a 4 week assignment with the IBM Corporate Service Corps.  OK I never had a blog before so excuse any novice / dummy mistakes!

What is the IBM CSC you might ask?  If you don’t know, you can learn a little about it right here:

www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/index.html

I’ll be part of a team of 12 IBM employees working in Vung Tau, VN, including 3 from India, 1 other from USA, and 1 each from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Ireland, UAE, and Pakistan.  We’ll be working on some sort of a project (that i don’t yet know about what it is!) that will be coordinated by Australian Business Volunteers.

www.abv.org.au

In the meantime we have quite a bit of work to do to get ready before we go (not to mention a few inoculations to get!) before the big day - March 24 when we all fly out.

Special thanks to my wife and daughter who not only put up with this idea, but actually encouraged it.  Since I travel alot for work, I think by now they are all to used to going on without me, but 4 weeks is a long time.

OK thats all for now, next I’ll go see if this actually works now and I did it right, bye for now.

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Visa received - one less thing to worry about!