Mon. Oct. 19: Meet the Rangoli Team

(Credits: Team photo from Annamari Soikkeli; Rangoli team logo by Susanne Hupfer; Team wheel graphic by Dominik Lanzenberger.)

Our CSC Team -- officially known as "IBM Corporate Services Corps India Team 4" -- has known one another virtually (via phone, emails, instant messages) for about three months, ever since we found out when and where our assignment would be. Since mid-July, we've been meeting every week by phone with our team facilitator, Charles Howell, who's been guiding us through various exercises and assignments that needed to be completed before the team's in-country phase. We've also had "homework" assignments -- about 60 hours' worth of learning modules -- that we finished prior to coming to Ahmedabad.

What kinds of things did we learn about in our pre-country work? History, economy, dress, food, and sights of Gujarat, and Ahmedabad specifically; cultural awareness and cross-cultural sensitivity; health and safety considerations for India; IBM's business operations in India; corporate social responsibility; theories on how to best effect social change; consulting methodologies, high-performance teaming; and much more.

One of the key aspects of the CSC program involves learning how to work effectively in a distributed, global team of IBMers, representing varied ethnic and professional backgrounds. Our team is a mix of older and newer IBMers (ranging from 2 years with the company to 20); men and women; consultants, researchers, QA specialists, and project managers from various parts of IBM (from Research to Services to Software Group). We come from around the globe, and bring a range of motivations for wanting to participate in the CSC program and apply our skills to social service work in a developing country.

Here's our melting pot of a team, with links to where you can find their blogs describing our team's CSC experience from a variety of perspectives:

• Feed of all the team members' postings:
  http://friendfeed.com/cscrangoli
  
  
• Annamari Soikkeli, Finland
  http://annamari-exploringindia.blogspot.com
  
  
• Dominik Lanzenberger, Germany
  http://india.confused.de/ (in German)
  
  
• Eva Moczar, Hungary
  http://evaindiaban.blogspot.com (in Hungarian)
  
  
• Mapje van Ginkel, Netherlands
  http://mapje.blogspot.com/
  
  
• Per Jorgensen, Denmark
  https://www-146.ibm.com/corporateservicecorps/blog/1735
  
  
• Rich Edwards, USA
  https://www-146.ibm.com/corporateservicecorps/blog/1573
  
  
• Soon Keong Tan, Japan
  http://eureka-india.blogspot.com/
  
  
• Stefan Mittig, Germany
  http://ahmedabadadventure-stefan.blogspot.com/
  
  
• Susanne Hupfer, USA
  http://susanne-india-adventure.blogspot.com/
  http://twitter.com/cybersooz
  

A couple months ago, we collectively decided that "CSC Team 4" was too bland and boring a name for our fantastic team. After debating a few options, the team decided to call itself the "Rangoli Team." "Rangoli" is a famous Indian art form in which elaborate sand paintings are created on the floor (typically outside homes) by carefully arranging colored sand. We concluded that "Rangoli" is a good name for our team, since Rangoli sand paintings can be quite complex and are only successful through the careful coordination and collaboration of the various artists, working in harmony with one another. We are hoping our team of 9 will embrace this spirit of collaboration to create some great results for our CSC clients!

The team met for the first time in "real life" on October 19, after 4 hours or so of sleep after touching town in Ahmedabad in the middle of the night. It was very exciting to meet the actual people that go with the voices we've become so familiar with these past three months! I feel we're already friends, and I'm looking forward to getting to know these colleagues much better over the next month.

On our first day in India, our team had a couple hours of orientation in which we did a couple team-building activities and in which we learned how to handle everyday matters here (e.g. how to use our cell phones, how to get on the Internet, intricacies of getting laundry done, etc.). Next up: the ultra-practical lesson by Arjun, our local logistics person, on how to hire and ride a rickshaw!

Mon. Oct. 19: Diwali & the New Year

It turns out that we've arrived in the middle of a big festival
week in Gujarat. The Hindu holiday of Diwali (Festival of Lights) began the day before we arrived; this holiday is as big in India as Christmas is in the U.S. Moreover, on the second day of Diwali, the Gujarati New Year begins as well. We've learned that each of the 28 states of India has its own date for its New Year, and this happens to be when Gujarat celebrates. Also part of the multi-day Diwali celebration is "Brother-Sister Day" ("Bhai Bij") -- when sisters visit their brothers and present them with a red-and-yellow string "Rakhi" bracelet, signifying their sincere wish for their brother's wellbeing. The brothers tie these on, and also receive a spot of red "tikka" on their foreheads, promising that they will take care of their sisters in any time of need.

Many people are on holiday this week. Lots of stores are closed, and even the newspapers stopped printing new editions for three days! Many buildings -- even some petrol stations -- are decorated with lights, and there are fireworks going off every evening -- sometimes even in the middle of the street. Locals keep telling us that the city isn't as busy as usual due to the holiday, as many people are away on vacation, but I can't even comprehend that the chaotic mix of people, vehicles, and animals could possibly increase.

Mon. Oct. 19: Running the Flu & Customs Gauntlet

3:00am. We stepped out of the plane into the hot, humid, languid Indian night air, and a bus transported us a short distance to a small arrivals building, which reminded me of a spartan 1960s-era civil facility. I could see hordes of mosquitoes swarming in the lights of the facility, and was glad I'd started my Malarone anti-malarial prescription the day before.

The mass of people from the plane squeezed into one line to get through the terminal door, and then we were funneled into an impossibly narrow, loud, chaotic space to wait for customs. We shuffled along slowly to make progress in the line, but by the time I got to the front of it, clutching my "flu survey" (a sheet of H1N1 symptom-related questions we had received on the plane: Are you sick? sneezing? feverish? no, no, no) I was told I needed to get out of the line and push my way over to visit the medical personnel lined up a few feet away, who were apparently clearing people before customs.

I made my way sideways to a Dr. with a mask on, and a stethoscope on his folding table. He eyed my form and then eyed me suspiciously: "Are you feeling well? Any symptoms?" I replied, "Yes, just fine. I'm completely healthy, no symptoms" and then he asked me to open my mouth so that he could shine a flashlight into it from two feet away (not sure how much that diagnostic would tell him). Only then would he sign off on my form.

Later, when I compared experiences with my Corporate Service Corps (CSC) team members, I don't think anyone else had had the flashlight experience. Our NGO coordinator suggested maybe the medical Dr. was just using the flashlight on the girls, but I had seen him ask an Indian gentleman for the same.

After getting the doctor's signoff on my H1N1 form, it was back to the other line, to wait for a bureaucrat to stamp my customs form. Then onto baggage claim, which took quite a while, and then out the other side of the building by 4am, where I was cheerfully met by Arjun, a very nice young man who is the coordinating NGO's local in-country logistics specialist. He had just met four other arriving members of our CSC team (Annamari, Rich, Soon, Per) and sent them off in a taxi to the hotel just 10 minutes before. He also procured a taxi for me, and instructed the on-English-speaking driver to take me to the Ginger Hotel in downtown Ahmedabad, about 30 minutes away.

As we drove the night streets of Ahmedabad's outskirts, I could see that vendors were already setting up various carts along the side of the road. There was still a bit of traffic at 4am, but I ever could have imagined the utter chaos that streets become during the day...

I met Gavin, our DC-based NGO coordinator, at the Hotel Ginger, and he set me up with my Indian mobile phone and wireless access info. When I got to my room (rather spartan, but very clean and comfortable), it must have been 95 Fahrenheit in there. I couldn't figure out how to work the A/C or the Internet, so I finally decided at 5am to try to sleep by the breeze of the ceiling fan.

Sat. Oct. 17 through Mon. Oct. 19: What Day Is It Anyway?

(See more photos at: Susanne's India Adventure)

Saturday mid-afternoon I began the long journey to the Asian subcontinent. I started out from Connecticut (where I'd gone the previous day), taking a shuttle bus to JFK in New York. After about 4 hours, I was at JFK and standing in a very long and slow-moving check-in line at the Emirates airline. I don't know why they don't have check-in kiosks, which every other airline I've traveled with in recent
years has.

The Emirates terminal at JFK is quite nice, with good amenities (even free wireless Internet access, which is rare and greatly appreciated). The flight attendants wear beige pantsuits and distinctive red pillbox caps with diaphanous scarves that drape from the hat to their necks. By 11:00pm, we were en route to Dubai on a modern, fairly comfortable 777. (I was unfortunately stuck in an interior seat, though; I'll never know why Expedia put me through the process of selecting a seat at reservation time if it was a meaningless exercise -- I didn't even realize that my online seat selection hadn't worked until I got to the check-in.)

Emirates has a few really big pluses. Their onboard entertainment system is second-to-none: you can dial up hundreds of TV shows and movies at your leisure. As far as food and service go, this is flying the way it used to be in an earlier era: You receive beautiful printed menu cards listing the delicious food options; you get abundant amounts of gourmet-level food -- with real flatware, no less; and you're even presented with steaming hot facecloths from time to time for freshening up.

Here are the menus I received while on board:

Dinner
Appetiser: Tuna Nicoise - Classic salad with potato, green beans, tomato, olive, and seasoning

Main Course: Yoghurt Chicken - Tender pieces of chicken cooked in a rich yoghurt and spice sauce, served with kaju mutter and saffron flavoured rice, or
Barbeque Beef - Classic marinated beef with a smoky barbeque sauce, sauteed fresh green beans and roasted potato wedges

Dessert: Mango Mousse - Topped with whipped cream and toasted coconut
Cheese and Biscuits
Tea or Coffee
Chocolates

Breakfast
Orange Juice
Fresh Seasonal Fruit
Scrambled Eggs - with mixed peppers and onions, golden fried potato cubes, baked beans and grilled tomato half with herbs, or
Sambar and Idli - Steamed rice cakes, served with a flavoured vegetable stew and fresh coconut chutney
Tea or Coffee

Sounds quite delicious, doesn't it? It was! This is no rubbery airline food, it's up to par with decent restaurant fare, and it is plentiful.

After about 13 hours of flying time (taking us over my suburban Boston home area, the Canadian Maritimes, Ireland, Wales, Frankfurt, and eventually even Baghdad!), we landed at the Dubai International Airport. The 777 even has a live camera mounted in front of the aircraft, which broadcasts images to the screens in the cabin; you could see the plane approaching the runway, and the white stripes of the landing strip as we touched down and slowed.

The Emirates new Terminal 3 is glitzy, posh, and modern, and a shopper's paradise, featuring every luxury brand imaginable (in jewelry, electronics, handbags, and the like). If you're a fan of "Bling," this is the airport for you. I had an amazing Latte Macchiatto at Segafreddo, with a head of milk foam the likes of which I've never seen before. I also had fun browsing an Arabic handicrafts store, which features carved wooden camels, felt camels, paper mache camels, glass camels -- they love their camels! Americans have chocolate Easter eggs; Arabs have chocolate camels! The picture also shows an interesting variant on the Matrushka nesting doll concept: a nested Arab family!

An 11:00pm Emirates flight out of Dubai took me straight to Ahmedabad, India in another 2.5+ hours. At 3:00am local time, I stepped out of the plane and into another day (Monday) and into another world...

Friday Oct. 16: 15 Minutes of Fame

Earlier this week, a reporter from Boston Business Journal interviewed some CSC participants from the Boston area, including me. We had a nice phone conversation on Tuesday, and the BBJ sent a photographer to take pictures of Erica Topolski (CSC Ghana, 2008), Marc Herman (CSC Brazil, 2009) and me.

Today, the article appeared; a portion can be seen here.

I think it's a nice writeup, although I'm don't think I exactly said that I was nervous about applying my skills to the rural ecotourism project I will be on. Granted, all the CSC projects are challenging assignments and quite a stretch from our regular everyday jobs -- by design -- and we're anxious and motivated to bring our skills to bear in the best way possible. I'm sure the project will be incredibly challenging, but I'm also sure our team will rise to the task.

Here we are posing with Erica's mementos from Ghana. Marc's wearing the official soccer shirt he brought back from Brazil.

Thurs. Oct. 15: Frantic Last Minute Preparations

My long-awaited flight to India is in just two short days. Despite three months advance notice of the assignment, and my efforts to prepare during that whole time, I'm still not ready! Work has kept me super-busy the past two weeks, and in my limited free time I've been going through the learning materials every Corporate Service Corps team member is required to complete before their in-country experience. It hasn't left much extra free time to get supplies in order for the trip. Let's see...

• Passport - check.
• Indian visa (rather involved procedure that required letters from executives in US and India) - procured.
• Multiple vaccinations for various diseases found in the subcontinent - completed.
• Malaria medication - obtained.
• Mosquito net, face masks, industrial-strength Deet products, hand sanitizers, guidebooks - all purchased.

What's left? Taking care of bills, household chores, backing up my computers, setting up webcams and Skype, making sure bills will be paid, cleaning up my home, and, finally, packing. With age and experience, I would have thought this kind of packing and
preparation would get easier... but it's actually getting harder. I feel much more stressed this time than before any other trip. Maybe it's the length of the trip, or the rather esoteric supplies and complex preparation required... but I'm extremely stressed out right now. I've talked to some other folks getting ready for their CSC assignments, and it seems this is a common experience in the days leading up to departure...

Above are my baby Siamese kittens, "helping" to pack my suitcase! I'm sure they've left me some cat hairs to remember them by while in India.

Tues. October 13: India-Themed Bon Voyage

My group at IBM Research -- the Collaborative User Experience (CUE) group -- threw a wonderful Indian-themed "Bon Voyage" party for me. Highlights included Indian rasmalai, Sadat's Bengali Mishti Doi, and Jamie's Chocolate Meringues -- all temptingly delicious, and assuring I won't fit properly into my travel clothes :-) Lauren set the mood with some catchy Indian tunes.

Marc Herman (recently returned from a CSC stint in Brazil), Karina Liendo (heading out with the Mumbai CSC team the same timeframe I'm heading to Ahmedabad), Cathleen Finn (of IBM's Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs), and my friend Suzanne Minassian from Lotus were all there as well.

Thanks, CUE, for a fabulous sendoff -- I was very touched!

Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity

About five months ago, I received the exciting news that I had been accepted for a one-month assignment with the IBM Corporate Service Corps. For those who haven't yet heard about this program, a good description of the program appeared on Yahoo Finance recently:

[The IBM Corporate Service Corps is a ...] corporate version of the Peace Corps, now in its second year, which sends teams of 8-10 of its top employees from around the world, with skills in technology, consulting, research, marketing and finance to key emerging markets for one month.

When I first heard about this program, I doubted whether I could afford to disappear from my "regular job" for a month. However, armed with a green light from my management (thanks, Martin & Irene!), and an impression that this was the most innovative corporate citizenship and professional development program I had ever heard of, I decided to go for it. Much to my surprise, I was accepted -- and elated!

The CSC program requires that you are willing to travel anywhere in the world for one month, at any time from July of one year to June of the next. You're permitted to order global regions in order of preference (I chose Asia / S. America / Africa / Eastern Europe, in that order)... and you find out the assignment just 3 months before "deployment." For a couple months, I was on pins-and-needles, waiting to find out where and when my mission would be... I told friends and family that I was going somewhere exciting, though I didn't know where and I didn't know when...

In July, I finally found out my location and timeframe: mid-October I'm scheduled to deploy to Ahmedabad, India as part of "CSC India Team 4"!

The Corporate Service Corps is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become immersed in another culture and place. I've been fortunate to have a culturally diverse mix of friends and colleagues and have enjoyed learning about their values, arts, and cuisines. However, I've never experienced Asia firsthand and am greatly looking forward to the experience.

I am inspired by the challenge of understanding a community's problems and applying my professional skills to tackle them. I am also thrilled to be part of a diverse, global team of IBMers working to impact people's lives -- how often does a day at work have that kind of significance?