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Intention and Realization
Friday, September 3, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Recap On Nigeria
I am sitting in the Dark here in the Niger Delta. No ÒLights,Ó which is a typical occurrence out here. The rain is pouring down and the lightning and thunder are exploding right outside my window. It is hard to put into words, but the natural forces out here seem so powerful and intense on every levelÉ I LOVE IT!
Let me give a recap of what we have been up to here in Nigeria for any friends or family members interested/ concerned. I am sorry that I have been pretty MIA lately. All or good reason thoughÉ things have been very busy and very interesting latelyÉ with lots of progress to show for it.
So, basically here is the recap. I came out here in Dec 2009, because I had met the Gov of Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta and he wanted to sponsor some community development projects in his state. After two months of reconnaissance and project preparation, things in the state government got real rocky as a reflection of the instabilities at the national level. Long story short, these extreme distractions prohibited the state government from taking community development seriously and we were not getting the attention that we had when we commenced. Then I went home and regrouped for a month. I had so much invested out here that I had to give it al one last shot before I threw in the towel on this one, knowing full well that I may come home empty handedÉ but as Jess will tell you, I never REALLY come home empty handed, whether meant to be or not. So, I got out here and again, the initial reception was extremely positive and gave me optimism that the projects would come to pass. Then things really started falling apart down here. The EFCC, an international organization that investigates government corruptions and embezzlement of government funds, showed up to in town and started investigating the place and I knew that nothing on my side would ever happen. During this process, one night while I was playing wii (yeah, super random right?, never played it in my life and I am out here playing wii one night with an Olympic gold medalist, not in wii though) I meet this very nice Canadian lady. Super rad, she had tons of experience and contact out here. I tell her what I am all about and she is like, Òwell I know this person and this personÉetc.Ó So a couple days later Nelson and I jump on a plane to Abuja, the capitol of Nigeria where we start to meet as many people as we can. We had a bunch of meetings with the World Bank, various Embassies and other stakeholders in the Niger Delta. Then one day when we are at the market, we meet this lady who runs a television program that airs on a Nigerian Station. She is very cool and is like mega connected. So she starts making introductions and we keep meeting with more and more influential people. After about a week, after meeting with professional soccer players, Senators, World Bank Officials and Embassies and being highlighted on said television show, we decided that mission was highly accomplished and that it was time to wrap things up in Bayelsa and start the decent of our trip. What had we accomplished in this process? We were able to establish and extremely well funded and influential support network who we will be able to work with for the rest of SCHAP in our sourcing for funding for projects we will be carrying out all over the world.
Once we got back to Bayelsa we still managed to keep ourselves pretty busy. We have been able to connect to two different World Bank Organizations who operate here in Bayelsa. We have picked their brains specifically about projects here as well as what it would take to collaborate. We have learned SO MUCH its nuts. So stoked and excited about the progress that we have made and how it has helped me to feel more mature and equipped and capable in my position within the organization. All the while, we try to spend as much time as possible in communities in order to carry out my informal research.
That is pretty much the story. Nelson will be heading back to Utah in a couple days and I will be heading out to Uganda and Kenya for a couple weeks in order to take care of a couple things and run some very important preparation activities with the Matoso in order to prepare for out Aug trip. Should be a good couple weeks. In order to get over to Uganda from Nigeria I have to have an overnight layover in EthiopiaÉ so I will be forced to spend a day exploring a new African city/ country. Kinda stoked about that: Addis Ababa. That will be my 8th African country! Starting to figure out the Dark Continent. Life is good. Got to keep things interesting. Despite how busy things get I try to never loose sight of the reasons that I am here. Every time I go to a community, it is SO easy for me to see all the things that could be done in order to massively increase the quality of life and create opportunities of serious progress and development for my brothers and sister out here. I love it out here. I love the landscapes and the people. I will miss this place hard core, but it is time to move on for nowÉ but looking forward to being able to get back here as soon as possible. Just donÕt tell my organization, I told them I will try to stay around for a couple months this time so that we can keep cranking out progress on our domestic operation.
Hope you find this interesting. All is well. I send my love and all that good stuff.
Let me give a recap of what we have been up to here in Nigeria for any friends or family members interested/ concerned. I am sorry that I have been pretty MIA lately. All or good reason thoughÉ things have been very busy and very interesting latelyÉ with lots of progress to show for it.
So, basically here is the recap. I came out here in Dec 2009, because I had met the Gov of Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta and he wanted to sponsor some community development projects in his state. After two months of reconnaissance and project preparation, things in the state government got real rocky as a reflection of the instabilities at the national level. Long story short, these extreme distractions prohibited the state government from taking community development seriously and we were not getting the attention that we had when we commenced. Then I went home and regrouped for a month. I had so much invested out here that I had to give it al one last shot before I threw in the towel on this one, knowing full well that I may come home empty handedÉ but as Jess will tell you, I never REALLY come home empty handed, whether meant to be or not. So, I got out here and again, the initial reception was extremely positive and gave me optimism that the projects would come to pass. Then things really started falling apart down here. The EFCC, an international organization that investigates government corruptions and embezzlement of government funds, showed up to in town and started investigating the place and I knew that nothing on my side would ever happen. During this process, one night while I was playing wii (yeah, super random right?, never played it in my life and I am out here playing wii one night with an Olympic gold medalist, not in wii though) I meet this very nice Canadian lady. Super rad, she had tons of experience and contact out here. I tell her what I am all about and she is like, Òwell I know this person and this personÉetc.Ó So a couple days later Nelson and I jump on a plane to Abuja, the capitol of Nigeria where we start to meet as many people as we can. We had a bunch of meetings with the World Bank, various Embassies and other stakeholders in the Niger Delta. Then one day when we are at the market, we meet this lady who runs a television program that airs on a Nigerian Station. She is very cool and is like mega connected. So she starts making introductions and we keep meeting with more and more influential people. After about a week, after meeting with professional soccer players, Senators, World Bank Officials and Embassies and being highlighted on said television show, we decided that mission was highly accomplished and that it was time to wrap things up in Bayelsa and start the decent of our trip. What had we accomplished in this process? We were able to establish and extremely well funded and influential support network who we will be able to work with for the rest of SCHAP in our sourcing for funding for projects we will be carrying out all over the world.
Once we got back to Bayelsa we still managed to keep ourselves pretty busy. We have been able to connect to two different World Bank Organizations who operate here in Bayelsa. We have picked their brains specifically about projects here as well as what it would take to collaborate. We have learned SO MUCH its nuts. So stoked and excited about the progress that we have made and how it has helped me to feel more mature and equipped and capable in my position within the organization. All the while, we try to spend as much time as possible in communities in order to carry out my informal research.
That is pretty much the story. Nelson will be heading back to Utah in a couple days and I will be heading out to Uganda and Kenya for a couple weeks in order to take care of a couple things and run some very important preparation activities with the Matoso in order to prepare for out Aug trip. Should be a good couple weeks. In order to get over to Uganda from Nigeria I have to have an overnight layover in EthiopiaÉ so I will be forced to spend a day exploring a new African city/ country. Kinda stoked about that: Addis Ababa. That will be my 8th African country! Starting to figure out the Dark Continent. Life is good. Got to keep things interesting. Despite how busy things get I try to never loose sight of the reasons that I am here. Every time I go to a community, it is SO easy for me to see all the things that could be done in order to massively increase the quality of life and create opportunities of serious progress and development for my brothers and sister out here. I love it out here. I love the landscapes and the people. I will miss this place hard core, but it is time to move on for nowÉ but looking forward to being able to get back here as soon as possible. Just donÕt tell my organization, I told them I will try to stay around for a couple months this time so that we can keep cranking out progress on our domestic operation.
Hope you find this interesting. All is well. I send my love and all that good stuff.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Abuja- Big Place, Big Meetings
After several weeks back here in Bayelsa, it is becoming increasingly uncertain if we will be able pull funds out of the Bayelsan State Gov in order to carry out our projects. While visiting a friend in Yenagoa we met a wonderful new friend, Mary Ellen. She has been working here in Nigeria for the last five years as a Canadian Diplomat. She is super connected around here and very interesting. She started to give us contact details for various other people who work with organizations interested and capable of supporting community development projects. SO Nelson and I got on a flight and headed up to Abuja, the capitol of NIgeria. This place is unreal. From the poverty stricken creaks to what they say, is the fastest growing city in the world. Abuja is a relative modern place, with pre-planned streets, movie theaters and more land rovers than La Jolla.
Since we have been here we have met with the DIrector of Education of the World Bank, a friend who does political consulting and is very networked around here, as well as Samson Siassia, a former professional Footballer, who has some interest in Community Development, who will hopefully be connecting us to some big players. We have a couple more meetings with the World Bank this next week, hopefully one with Microsoft, and perhaps a couple more political figures here in Abuja... just doing our best to learn and understand this side of the system, so that we can utilize resources like these all over the world. It is a fascinating experience and, like I like it, every day is very interesting and unique experience.
Lots on my mind and a bit hard to focus, so I am going to leave it at that for now. Wish me luck, until next time...
Since we have been here we have met with the DIrector of Education of the World Bank, a friend who does political consulting and is very networked around here, as well as Samson Siassia, a former professional Footballer, who has some interest in Community Development, who will hopefully be connecting us to some big players. We have a couple more meetings with the World Bank this next week, hopefully one with Microsoft, and perhaps a couple more political figures here in Abuja... just doing our best to learn and understand this side of the system, so that we can utilize resources like these all over the world. It is a fascinating experience and, like I like it, every day is very interesting and unique experience.
Lots on my mind and a bit hard to focus, so I am going to leave it at that for now. Wish me luck, until next time...
Monday, March 8, 2010
Back in the heart of Africa
So here I am (I think that I start most of my blog like this, but what else would I say if I am writing about my own experiences and circumstances) here in the Governor’s house, awaiting my next appointment with him. Quick recap: As the President of SCHAP, I had the opportunity to meet with the Governor of a Nigerian State, Bayelsa, and was able to discuss with him the principles that I believe are critical for sustainable rural development. He invited me to come to his state to consult him/ work with him on some state sponsored development projects. So for the last four months, with the exception of my recent month trip home to San Diego, I have been here researching, developing, preparing and learning how to play the political game here in Nigeria. Why am I here? That is a very tricky question. As President of SCHAP I am away from my baby while it is in a very important growth stage. I remain here, however, because it is giving me a wonderful opportunity to become an expert in my field. I have learned more about development and about how to get things done here than I have in the years of reading books. Not only am I learning, but if/ when this project is officially accepted and passed, I will have an opportunity to be able to have relatively massive impact for good, and where those opportunities arise, I must go. Despite the militants and the kidnappings. Despite the headaches of working with “the system.” Despite the malaria and the opportunity cost and the people I have left at home and the terrible food and the man-eating pythons… I am here because there are few others, so if I was not working on poverty relief and community development here, who would be?
I flew in here on Monday and have spent the last couple days getting organized and calibrated. We have our logistics and made the connections that we need in order to precede. Hopefully this meeting that I am about to have will be a major culminating and telling experience in the progression of our project.
So guess what? Yesterday I made bread by myself for the first time of my life. I came here with very little money and provisions, so Nelson and I will be providing for ourselves: Oatmeal and some protein powder follows our early morning Yoga session… and then we spend the rest of the day salvaging food where we can and living off bars and fruit to stay sustained. At night we eat our loaf of bread with… oh wait, we eat it with nothing…haha..last night, dinner was bread and water. I love it though. I love to get in touch with circumstances that force me to think more about survival. We, as animals, which we are and often forget that we are, are designed to perpetually consider the various aspects of our own survival. While we are in America, we worry about car accidents or loosing our job, but rarely we have require the thought process that we need to consider in order to preserve our life between the people who look at you and see a handsome ransom, or the calorie counting that we do to make sure that we are getting the necessary building blocks of life on any given day.
How is Nelson doing? He is doing fine. He is a former missionary companion from my service in Toronto and he was my first companion in my very first travels to Africa. So, in many sense it feels like things are really coming full circle. He is well. He is loving the adventure. We have met some pretty interesting people and have had some interesting experiences and we are just getting warmed up. He is a good sport and a pleasure to be with. Although he just disappeared and I am not sure where he went. Hopefully he didn’t get snatched. ☺.
How long will I be here? Well, I brought about two months worth of provisions. I am going to pursue my research and the community workshops that I hope to commence soon for the next 60 days or so. By then I will either be on me way home, or we will have a funded project and I will be working around the clock to mobilize for and execute. Short answer: I don’t really know.
So while I am here I am learning and growing. I brought some awesome books and yoga DVD’s. I have a wonderful field to work in for continual and arms-reach research, so I am pretty much in Paradise in ways. Say a prayer for me that all will be well for my personal affairs at home and our project affairs and safety here. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I will respond in my next post.
Godspeed.
I flew in here on Monday and have spent the last couple days getting organized and calibrated. We have our logistics and made the connections that we need in order to precede. Hopefully this meeting that I am about to have will be a major culminating and telling experience in the progression of our project.
So guess what? Yesterday I made bread by myself for the first time of my life. I came here with very little money and provisions, so Nelson and I will be providing for ourselves: Oatmeal and some protein powder follows our early morning Yoga session… and then we spend the rest of the day salvaging food where we can and living off bars and fruit to stay sustained. At night we eat our loaf of bread with… oh wait, we eat it with nothing…haha..last night, dinner was bread and water. I love it though. I love to get in touch with circumstances that force me to think more about survival. We, as animals, which we are and often forget that we are, are designed to perpetually consider the various aspects of our own survival. While we are in America, we worry about car accidents or loosing our job, but rarely we have require the thought process that we need to consider in order to preserve our life between the people who look at you and see a handsome ransom, or the calorie counting that we do to make sure that we are getting the necessary building blocks of life on any given day.
How is Nelson doing? He is doing fine. He is a former missionary companion from my service in Toronto and he was my first companion in my very first travels to Africa. So, in many sense it feels like things are really coming full circle. He is well. He is loving the adventure. We have met some pretty interesting people and have had some interesting experiences and we are just getting warmed up. He is a good sport and a pleasure to be with. Although he just disappeared and I am not sure where he went. Hopefully he didn’t get snatched. ☺.
How long will I be here? Well, I brought about two months worth of provisions. I am going to pursue my research and the community workshops that I hope to commence soon for the next 60 days or so. By then I will either be on me way home, or we will have a funded project and I will be working around the clock to mobilize for and execute. Short answer: I don’t really know.
So while I am here I am learning and growing. I brought some awesome books and yoga DVD’s. I have a wonderful field to work in for continual and arms-reach research, so I am pretty much in Paradise in ways. Say a prayer for me that all will be well for my personal affairs at home and our project affairs and safety here. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I will respond in my next post.
Godspeed.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Back Home! Africa is my favorite place/ San Diego is my favorite place
Here I am, back in Cali. It is funny how fast you can go from hanging out with Nigeria militants and working with people suffering from extreme disadvantages to going to a yoga class and walking on the beach with your aunt. Everything has their thing, and hopefully they get good at that thing, I guess that my "thing" is traveling around the world and thats just how it goes. I love and am so grateful for the opportunities that I have had thus far and I am excited for what the future holds. I don't usually write posts when I am state-side, but I thought that I would make an exception.
The last post that I wrote was right after my birthday while I was still in Nigeria. A bit has happened since. After that whole post about me humbling myself and accepting that subordiant role, things got to a point where I could no longer accept my partner's leadership and had to separate our project and hold the reings of my own content. It was a very difficult decision and process, and was a very complicate and a little messy, but when all was said and done, words do not describe the feeling of freedom that one feels when they demand their own volition and can chart their own course.
On Jan 30th, Michael, Jess and I temporarily sasid goodbye to our new home in Bayelsa and began our journey home. It was strange to leave as it really was beginning to feel like a home. Our trip home was going fine, until I sleepily walked off our flight in the Frankfurt Airport @ 5:30am without my laptop, which not only was a new mac, but had thousands of pictures and ALL of our video footage. Kinda a let down, but sometimes, once you pull a stupid move and there is nothing that you can do about it, you just have to move on.
So here I am, working my butt off to make sure that things are going well with SCHAP while I am preparing for my next trip back to Nigeria. Meeting and emails, more meeting and more emails. Its good though, its what I signed up for.
What are the plans now? Well, now it is time to get back to Nigeria, iron out the details of our project, do some additional recon, prep and community organizing and hopefully get started asap.
Don't want to bore you with any more of the details of my domestic life, I find them uninteresting to write about, but send me your thoughts and prayers that we will be able to make great progress with our project in Nigeria. I am going back and throwing in all the chips that things will work out according to my expectations. That's the only way to do it sometimes.
The last post that I wrote was right after my birthday while I was still in Nigeria. A bit has happened since. After that whole post about me humbling myself and accepting that subordiant role, things got to a point where I could no longer accept my partner's leadership and had to separate our project and hold the reings of my own content. It was a very difficult decision and process, and was a very complicate and a little messy, but when all was said and done, words do not describe the feeling of freedom that one feels when they demand their own volition and can chart their own course.
On Jan 30th, Michael, Jess and I temporarily sasid goodbye to our new home in Bayelsa and began our journey home. It was strange to leave as it really was beginning to feel like a home. Our trip home was going fine, until I sleepily walked off our flight in the Frankfurt Airport @ 5:30am without my laptop, which not only was a new mac, but had thousands of pictures and ALL of our video footage. Kinda a let down, but sometimes, once you pull a stupid move and there is nothing that you can do about it, you just have to move on.
So here I am, working my butt off to make sure that things are going well with SCHAP while I am preparing for my next trip back to Nigeria. Meeting and emails, more meeting and more emails. Its good though, its what I signed up for.
What are the plans now? Well, now it is time to get back to Nigeria, iron out the details of our project, do some additional recon, prep and community organizing and hopefully get started asap.
Don't want to bore you with any more of the details of my domestic life, I find them uninteresting to write about, but send me your thoughts and prayers that we will be able to make great progress with our project in Nigeria. I am going back and throwing in all the chips that things will work out according to my expectations. That's the only way to do it sometimes.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
B-day in Nigeria...
Another year passes and you think… what the heck is going on… I am getting older, what have I done with the last year, what have I done with my life? Have I done enough? Today I celebrated my Birthday here in Nigeria. It was wonderful to be surrounded by friends. Jess worked hard to make sure that it was a special day I am very grateful for her kindness and thoughtfulness. At dinner we had a Happy Birthday song, cake and she showed a slide show that she made of pictures from my last three years. In the very moments that I was contemplating my use of time, it really was incredible to see pictures of all the places that I have been and the different things that I have been involved with. I can’t believe how exciting it has all been. Between the different relationships, different businesses, different countries, different books and different humanitarian initiatives it has truly been incredible and I am extremely grateful for the healthy mind and body as well as the circumstances that I have been granted that have made it possible for me to be involved with the things that I have.
So what’s going on here in Nigeria?... I wish that you could tell me. Regarding our project we are still working hard to be able to have the necessary meeting that we need in order to get our MOU signed. With all the conflict in the country, the Governor has been extremely occupied with unforeseen activities and everything else has fallen victim to second priority-vile. So in many cases we are waiting… but never waiting idle. We fill our days writing more reports, brainstorming detailed conceptualizations of company requirements, project implementations and timeframes. We are making more and more contacts everyday and meeting more and more of the state stakeholders who need to be briefed on our proposals. As far as approval to move forward, that is 100% confirmed by the governor, in many private meetings, the problem is that he created a committee to officially analyze and approve the project, many of which we have had many private meetings with who are extremely enthusiastic about, others have their reservations, but the problem is that we have not been able to get everyone together. But we are working the system and ultimately it will all pay off. It is funny, about two weeks into our experience here; we were waiting in the Governor’s house, hoping to get a second of his time to talk about a very urgent matter. I was definitely getting impatient (nothing here happens by appointment… If you want to see the Governor, even if you are his guest brought out here for the US, then you wait in his parlor for hours and hours until he comes in, and/ or walks by and you get 15 seconds of face time…) and a man I barely knew at the time came up to me and said, if you want to get anything done around here you have to follow this one piece of advice: every day… EVERYDAY… take a big dose of patience in the morning and then one in the afternoon and then one at night. I laughed and knew exactly what he was referring to. It calmed my nerves to know that others knew EXACTLY how I was feeling… and I took it to heart. Rather than approaching it with Western mentality, feeling that it was unprofessional to not set up appointments and that my time was more important than to be forced to wait for hours… I began to simply accept and enjoy the wait. My understanding of the system has developed such that the other day, when we were sitting in the governor’s parlor, I looked across the room and noticed a young man, who I had met briefly several times was looking very restless and somewhat frustrated… I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him the same advice. He smiled and I have noticed him much more relaxed sense.
That really brings me to another interesting point altogether. Although everything about this experience has been incredible, from planning a statewide human infrastructure project, from being in Nigeria, to all the field work and little adventures in between… one of the other things that has been incredible has been the things that I have learned about how the political system around here works… who makes the decisions, who are the key players and how to connect to them, how to act, what to say, how things actually get done and in general, how to work the system. I am not sure that there are very many young San Diego guys who can confidently say that they know how to work the African politics game, and it is very exciting to feel more and more confident in this area. Not only do I know who to get things done, but I know what is appropriate when you are working out with a governor in the gym, why you must pee before you get into the car, because the government convoy NEVER stops, how to fasten the cool buckles on helicopter seat belts and the facial expressions that get the point across to people who have a different set of cultural programming. Pretty cool stuff.
Not only have I learned a ton about the aforementioned stuff, but also I have learned a ton about myself and I feel like I have really picked up some additional skills as well. One of the biggest advancements that I feel like I have made is with understanding the various components of leadership. As you may know, I founded and am the president of SCHAP, a San Diego based, international non-profit. Over those years I have been accused of many less than perfect leadership behaviors that have offended others or decreased my impact as a leader. When I came out here, the agreement was that I was going to partner with a Nigerian, who is a friend of the governor, who I met in San Diego. At first the agreement was 50-50… in every way. We were going to work side by side to head this social enterprise that we were founding. As the weeks went on, we had several arguments that began to emerge more and more frequently. Prince, the name of my partner, is substantially older than me and he assumed that although we had discussed 50-50, I would assume the role of the Jr. partner as a result of the age and nativity. I was having nothing of that and was prepared to be second to no one. One day this really hit a head and we had a couple blowout arguments. We were both furious and very happy to discover how to pursue things on our own. In a final blow out, Prince informed me that the relationship was over and that we must part ways. There were tremendous implications and we would be doing a major disservice to Bayelsa, by allowing our pride to thwart the progress of our project. I left the house furious and not about to give in… I felt that I would rather die than is a vice president to someone else. Luckily I had the sense to convince Michael to walk with me think that maybe he would be able to talk me out of what I was about to do. Sure enough his Chi-gonness in conjunction with some I-Ching radicands he was able to calm my nerve. I went back into the house, apologized for everything that had offended him and committed to work in a subordinate role. It was perhaps the hardest thing that I have ever done in my entire life. I had to hold up the project and my pride and luckily I had enough sense to choose the better path. Honestly, I have no shame saying this, that that was one of the most mature and humble and wise decisions that I have ever made. As we worked out the details, I was able to steer away from vice president and we settled on Chief Executive Officer for him and Chief Operating Officer for me. We are both equal owners in the Company and we are the only to officers in the company. It was a narly, but a cool experience. Since then it has proven to be a relationship that works and in fact very productive and functional. He does his stuff and I create the systems within our project initiatives that allow our objectives to be realized, I also manage the use of time of our employees to make sure that we are getting the job done.
In conclusion, things are working out very well. I am very anxious to be coming home soon and pray with all my heart and soul that we will have the MOU signed and in hand before I come back to the states so that any ambiguity regarding 2010 can be eliminated once and for all, and we can begin to really build our capacity and start making things happen already. Hope everything is going super well wherever you are, doing whatever you are doing. Stay tunes, next episode I will give you all the details about what is going on on the National Political Stage… pretty interesting stuff…
So what’s going on here in Nigeria?... I wish that you could tell me. Regarding our project we are still working hard to be able to have the necessary meeting that we need in order to get our MOU signed. With all the conflict in the country, the Governor has been extremely occupied with unforeseen activities and everything else has fallen victim to second priority-vile. So in many cases we are waiting… but never waiting idle. We fill our days writing more reports, brainstorming detailed conceptualizations of company requirements, project implementations and timeframes. We are making more and more contacts everyday and meeting more and more of the state stakeholders who need to be briefed on our proposals. As far as approval to move forward, that is 100% confirmed by the governor, in many private meetings, the problem is that he created a committee to officially analyze and approve the project, many of which we have had many private meetings with who are extremely enthusiastic about, others have their reservations, but the problem is that we have not been able to get everyone together. But we are working the system and ultimately it will all pay off. It is funny, about two weeks into our experience here; we were waiting in the Governor’s house, hoping to get a second of his time to talk about a very urgent matter. I was definitely getting impatient (nothing here happens by appointment… If you want to see the Governor, even if you are his guest brought out here for the US, then you wait in his parlor for hours and hours until he comes in, and/ or walks by and you get 15 seconds of face time…) and a man I barely knew at the time came up to me and said, if you want to get anything done around here you have to follow this one piece of advice: every day… EVERYDAY… take a big dose of patience in the morning and then one in the afternoon and then one at night. I laughed and knew exactly what he was referring to. It calmed my nerves to know that others knew EXACTLY how I was feeling… and I took it to heart. Rather than approaching it with Western mentality, feeling that it was unprofessional to not set up appointments and that my time was more important than to be forced to wait for hours… I began to simply accept and enjoy the wait. My understanding of the system has developed such that the other day, when we were sitting in the governor’s parlor, I looked across the room and noticed a young man, who I had met briefly several times was looking very restless and somewhat frustrated… I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him the same advice. He smiled and I have noticed him much more relaxed sense.
That really brings me to another interesting point altogether. Although everything about this experience has been incredible, from planning a statewide human infrastructure project, from being in Nigeria, to all the field work and little adventures in between… one of the other things that has been incredible has been the things that I have learned about how the political system around here works… who makes the decisions, who are the key players and how to connect to them, how to act, what to say, how things actually get done and in general, how to work the system. I am not sure that there are very many young San Diego guys who can confidently say that they know how to work the African politics game, and it is very exciting to feel more and more confident in this area. Not only do I know who to get things done, but I know what is appropriate when you are working out with a governor in the gym, why you must pee before you get into the car, because the government convoy NEVER stops, how to fasten the cool buckles on helicopter seat belts and the facial expressions that get the point across to people who have a different set of cultural programming. Pretty cool stuff.
Not only have I learned a ton about the aforementioned stuff, but also I have learned a ton about myself and I feel like I have really picked up some additional skills as well. One of the biggest advancements that I feel like I have made is with understanding the various components of leadership. As you may know, I founded and am the president of SCHAP, a San Diego based, international non-profit. Over those years I have been accused of many less than perfect leadership behaviors that have offended others or decreased my impact as a leader. When I came out here, the agreement was that I was going to partner with a Nigerian, who is a friend of the governor, who I met in San Diego. At first the agreement was 50-50… in every way. We were going to work side by side to head this social enterprise that we were founding. As the weeks went on, we had several arguments that began to emerge more and more frequently. Prince, the name of my partner, is substantially older than me and he assumed that although we had discussed 50-50, I would assume the role of the Jr. partner as a result of the age and nativity. I was having nothing of that and was prepared to be second to no one. One day this really hit a head and we had a couple blowout arguments. We were both furious and very happy to discover how to pursue things on our own. In a final blow out, Prince informed me that the relationship was over and that we must part ways. There were tremendous implications and we would be doing a major disservice to Bayelsa, by allowing our pride to thwart the progress of our project. I left the house furious and not about to give in… I felt that I would rather die than is a vice president to someone else. Luckily I had the sense to convince Michael to walk with me think that maybe he would be able to talk me out of what I was about to do. Sure enough his Chi-gonness in conjunction with some I-Ching radicands he was able to calm my nerve. I went back into the house, apologized for everything that had offended him and committed to work in a subordinate role. It was perhaps the hardest thing that I have ever done in my entire life. I had to hold up the project and my pride and luckily I had enough sense to choose the better path. Honestly, I have no shame saying this, that that was one of the most mature and humble and wise decisions that I have ever made. As we worked out the details, I was able to steer away from vice president and we settled on Chief Executive Officer for him and Chief Operating Officer for me. We are both equal owners in the Company and we are the only to officers in the company. It was a narly, but a cool experience. Since then it has proven to be a relationship that works and in fact very productive and functional. He does his stuff and I create the systems within our project initiatives that allow our objectives to be realized, I also manage the use of time of our employees to make sure that we are getting the job done.
In conclusion, things are working out very well. I am very anxious to be coming home soon and pray with all my heart and soul that we will have the MOU signed and in hand before I come back to the states so that any ambiguity regarding 2010 can be eliminated once and for all, and we can begin to really build our capacity and start making things happen already. Hope everything is going super well wherever you are, doing whatever you are doing. Stay tunes, next episode I will give you all the details about what is going on on the National Political Stage… pretty interesting stuff…
Monday, January 4, 2010
Merry Christmas from Nigeria
Here I am, trying to decide what to write that would be meaningful and interesting to a reader while accurate and concise. I have embarked on the greatest adventure that I could imagine and I am having a difficult time being able to capture it in words. What I am involved with is fulfilling every category of my lifelong dreams. Working here in the Niger Delta, a place most consider to be one of the dangerous places in the world, I am learning to call home. A powerful African political leader many falsely call corrupt on inept, I call a friend. Tasks considered by most to be over ambitious and unrealistic, I call my daily action items. Ultimately, what could easily be considered a plot to fictional adventure I call my life.
It has been a bit of time since my last blog entry; so let me quickly update the past ten days or so… Monday afternoon, Dec 21st, we gave a complete presentation to the State of Bayelsa Executive Council, basically everyone who runs the state. The presentation was by far the most significant public presentations that I have given in my life and it was a bit intense, could have gone very bad, but turned out pretty ok in the end. We walked out of there with what seemed like unanimous support, and we were majorly stoked. If I have not mentioned, our project consists of a simultaneous, state wide multiplicity of projects designed to reinforce the human infrastructure (the capability of the individuals) of the state of Bayelsa through communities centers with computer and vocational training, community level micro-banking, state wide teacher trainings, orchestrated statewide campaign reinforcing human values that are fading away, community level waste management systems and leadership training. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me…
The next couple days we worked around the clock in order to put all of our plans to paper and ended up with a 50+ page document describing the what’s and whys and how’s of the projects. That was a major pain. We are just finishing it tonight and good riddance. We will be giving it to the members of the committee who were appointed to analyze our project tomorrow.
Next was Christmas. We got a nice helicopter ride over the Niger Delta to Governor Sylva’s hometown of Brass, where we spent Christmas day. I must have eaten something not too rad and the 26th was feeling pretty gnarly. The next day I was feeling ok and we worked our way, in the chopper, to Calambar, the Capitol city of a different Nigerian State where they have a massive parade that is a pretty big deal around here. Whenever we travel with the Gov we are treated as pretty significant VIP’s, so of course while the crowds were thronging, we had a private, shaded seat at the center of the parade’s course. Also, when traveling with the Governor, one really has no idea what to expect from minute to minute, so, following course, right in the middle of the parade I was told to get up and I thought that we were leaving. Nope. Turns out that we were supposed to join the parade at that point and so we spent the next several hours dancing down the streets and celebrating the festivities.
We got back to Yenagoa, our hometown, and got back to work. The next day Jessica Davies, the VP of SCHAP and one of my best friends came into town to pay us a little visit. We actually really needed here to help us with graphic design stuff and I missed her a little bit, so it was super good to see her. We all got to work.
When we got here we had basically ZERO electricity, no food, no laundry, to transportation, no house service, no security, no security access and little general support and no Jess. By this time we have secured two full time house stewards, two new vehicles with drivers, a chief who shops and cooks, a washer machine, relatively reliable electricity personal security guards and now that Jess is here I may never want to leave… haha… just kidding, kinda. But seriously, we are really setting this place up so that we will be able to work comfortably and effectively, while also maintaining a welcoming environment for future American employees, volunteers and visitors.
Despite my enjoyment of the big government meetings and the vip treatment and the personal chief… my favorite part of the experience is being in the field as often as possible, learning about the lives of people and the nature of their communities. Feeling my understanding of conditions augmented dailey and therefore my ability to assist in desired and substantial development increased. I love the people here more than words can express.
I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Holiday Season and I will be sure to fill you in on the adventure that lie ahead.
Cheers.
It has been a bit of time since my last blog entry; so let me quickly update the past ten days or so… Monday afternoon, Dec 21st, we gave a complete presentation to the State of Bayelsa Executive Council, basically everyone who runs the state. The presentation was by far the most significant public presentations that I have given in my life and it was a bit intense, could have gone very bad, but turned out pretty ok in the end. We walked out of there with what seemed like unanimous support, and we were majorly stoked. If I have not mentioned, our project consists of a simultaneous, state wide multiplicity of projects designed to reinforce the human infrastructure (the capability of the individuals) of the state of Bayelsa through communities centers with computer and vocational training, community level micro-banking, state wide teacher trainings, orchestrated statewide campaign reinforcing human values that are fading away, community level waste management systems and leadership training. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me…
The next couple days we worked around the clock in order to put all of our plans to paper and ended up with a 50+ page document describing the what’s and whys and how’s of the projects. That was a major pain. We are just finishing it tonight and good riddance. We will be giving it to the members of the committee who were appointed to analyze our project tomorrow.
Next was Christmas. We got a nice helicopter ride over the Niger Delta to Governor Sylva’s hometown of Brass, where we spent Christmas day. I must have eaten something not too rad and the 26th was feeling pretty gnarly. The next day I was feeling ok and we worked our way, in the chopper, to Calambar, the Capitol city of a different Nigerian State where they have a massive parade that is a pretty big deal around here. Whenever we travel with the Gov we are treated as pretty significant VIP’s, so of course while the crowds were thronging, we had a private, shaded seat at the center of the parade’s course. Also, when traveling with the Governor, one really has no idea what to expect from minute to minute, so, following course, right in the middle of the parade I was told to get up and I thought that we were leaving. Nope. Turns out that we were supposed to join the parade at that point and so we spent the next several hours dancing down the streets and celebrating the festivities.
We got back to Yenagoa, our hometown, and got back to work. The next day Jessica Davies, the VP of SCHAP and one of my best friends came into town to pay us a little visit. We actually really needed here to help us with graphic design stuff and I missed her a little bit, so it was super good to see her. We all got to work.
When we got here we had basically ZERO electricity, no food, no laundry, to transportation, no house service, no security, no security access and little general support and no Jess. By this time we have secured two full time house stewards, two new vehicles with drivers, a chief who shops and cooks, a washer machine, relatively reliable electricity personal security guards and now that Jess is here I may never want to leave… haha… just kidding, kinda. But seriously, we are really setting this place up so that we will be able to work comfortably and effectively, while also maintaining a welcoming environment for future American employees, volunteers and visitors.
Despite my enjoyment of the big government meetings and the vip treatment and the personal chief… my favorite part of the experience is being in the field as often as possible, learning about the lives of people and the nature of their communities. Feeling my understanding of conditions augmented dailey and therefore my ability to assist in desired and substantial development increased. I love the people here more than words can express.
I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Holiday Season and I will be sure to fill you in on the adventure that lie ahead.
Cheers.
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