From William Wallace to Willy Wonka

Hey, I'm trying to jazz up the website a bit again, hence the elephants marching across the top of the page (from Etosha National Park, Namibia). I'm not sure it looks ok on everyone's computer, so if you've any feedback on the new look, let me know! (Time permitting) this is still a draft of the new look. (I seriously need to dig out that html book I slept through a couple of years ago.)

It's the depths of winter, but Sydney is still a beautiful place to be outdoors. This morning I went for a run in the botanics. When the notion takes me I can run through the park down to the edge of the harbour, round the edge of the water between the botanics and farm cove (the site of the first white settlement in Australia) and jog up to the Opera House in about 15 minutes. A round tour back through the botanics takes about 30 minutes and I never see a single car. This morning it was spectacularly beautiful and peaceful too. Why do I not do this more often??

Well of course I'd do more outdoors-ey stuff like this if I did a little less socialising at the weekend, but being unattached in Sydney is always going to keep the number of 'quiet nights in' to a minimum. Similarly I'm typing this on the roof of my building - from the 17th floor you can see the bridge and the opera house to the left and out to the ocean to the right. Why is it two months since I was last up here??
My running route. Out my front door, past Brett Whitely's matchsticks, out past the Boy Charlton pool and round farm cove to the Opera House (to the right of the bridge in the photo). This was the view from the roof today.

Work continues to be really sweet for me, and it will be even sweeter than usual this week. On Wednesday night I will be part of a panel being interviewed in front of an audience of young professionals in Sydney. We will be talking about Opportunity International of course, and also talking a little about the impact of the global economic crisis on the fight against poverty. The venue is a chocolate shop (ooh, free chocolate!), Boon Chocolates on Victoria Street in Darlinghurst. And the prospect of free chocolate has me very excited.

Not that I need free chocolate of course. But - not unusually for a Scot - I have a very sweet tooth. It's an affliction that comes and goes. At various times I can handle my condition (sic) pretty well but then at other times I just can't resist at least two 'treats' per day. This past month has been such a time. What constitutes a 'treat'? There's a modest list of top quality goodies that will satiate my junkie-like need for a sugary hit: crunchies (or violet crumble in Oz), mint aeros, McDonald's M&M Mcflurry and caramel slices are all near the top of the list, while home-baking (with it's built-in disregard for the dietary common-sense that afflicts products sold to the general public) is almost an obsession, especially tablet, fudge and shortbread, all of which have that insane level of sweetness needed to satisfy a long-time sugar-abuser. (If my metabolic rate ever slows down I'm in so much bother...)

But chocolate of any form will do nicely, thank you very much.

So needless to say, I'm very much looking forward to Wednesday. I may not sleep until Friday, and then of course I'll have to go cold turkey at the weekend. But by God will it be worth it.

And hopefully Andy Murray will give all Scots an excuse to stay indoors (and away from ice-cream vans and sweetie stories) next weekend. Come on Andy, surely the insanely high hopes of the British public will be met with Nadal already out and only 14-times Grand Slam winner Roger Federer standing between you and the title.

Seriously though, I do think he has a chance. Could be a cracker on Sunday.

Weather update: spectacular change in the weather in the 30 minutes since I started writing this update. I'm now back in my apartment as the expected lovely sunset vanished, usurped by a sudden storm and potential rain. Hmmm, it'll have to be an episode of peep show in front of the telly this evening.
Still love a good fix of quirky British comedy.

Winter in Sydney

WW takes some time-out from the battlefield to attend to local morale...

It’s been more than a month. I’ve tried a few times but…

…I’ve had mixed feelings about this website since I stopped travelling. I’ve been reluctant to talk about the day-to-day stuff. It could get rather tedious (whadda ya mean ‘could’ I hear you say?). It’s much easier to make this lively and interesting when I’m talking about foreign travel, because the focus is on… exotic places and weird customs and freaky things happening. And I’m not talking so much about me…

But I do want to keep the blog going. It's good to blog. It's something for me to look back on if nothing else.

But maybe... maybe I can keep things interesting by not talking about me. Instead of talking about me, I could talk about ‘we’ – what ‘we’ at Opportunity have been doing, what ‘we’ as in me and friends have been doing, maybe even talk about ‘we’ as in me and my romantic interests. Nah, actually I might leave that for another day... tmi…

Because ‘we’ is what life should be all about (aaaahhhh!). Ahem, ok… definitely going to get on with it now, before this becomes nothing other than semantics and naval-gazing.

[and another thing - it's hard to get motivated to update this blog when blogger works so freakin poorly. If anyone can explain why all the paragraphs are stuck to gether and why I ahve to continually fiddle with these updates to get them looking remotely neat, please do tell. Ok, Counted to ten... bitch over... High horse put back in the stable... ]

Opportunity

Opportunity International is a big part of my life at the moment. We (hey this is easy!) are going through a big big year in 2009. Not an easy year. We are working through the biggest global recession in 60 years – it affects our donors, it affects our partners (in India, the Philippines and Indonesia), it affects our clients. We are working harder than ever to make sure we can keep the money flowing. We are working better as a (smaller) team. We are loving it actually – there’s always a buzz in the office. Uncertainty is never very nice, but there’s a real satisfaction in doing as much as you can, working together. Not that it’s all sweetness and light – we drive each other mad like any other office full of wilful people.

We are relying more on the work of our ambassadors – our highly involved volunteers, who are running projects for us, not just to raise funds, but to raise awareness. Most of all we want to make friends this year.

Last weekend we had an event for ambassadors in Sydney. We had a few presentations on our work, including a presentation from me on the effect of the global economic crisis. It seemed to go very well. We are investing effort now for the long run…

Job satisfaction is often elusive. But if you can see an outcome (a product, a service, a change in the way things are done) making a positive change in peoples’ lives (whatever field you work in), and if you can know that you have made an important contribution to that outcome, then I think you’re there. I think we’re getting there.

Willie Wallace finds that freedom means different things to different people...

Party

Photos in this update are from last weekend’s (that was one busy weekend) fancy dress party. We had an awesome time, with great outfits (Jessica Rabbit, Mr T, Braveheart (yours truly), ballerinas and playboy bunnies). At the end of the night (ok, the next morning) it dawned on me that my wig was missing. Returning to the scene of the battle to ask for your wig back is something I’ll bet William Wallace never had to do. Mind you, even the bar staff had been trying it on, so it’s not surprising it went walk about…

It’s been great to reconnect with friends in Sydney. We’ve had bbqs, birthday parties (1yo, 2yo, 30yo), festivals (Brian Eno festival, Sydney movie festival) and generally done much in defiance of the steadily worsening weather.

Next week sees the shortest day. The temperature is never too low (it’s never in single figures), but it feels somehow freezing at times. Wearing a jumper to work has become a daily necessity. Going out for a coffee seems a justified defence ‘against the cold’. How did I ever survive in Scotland???!!!

Iceman!!! Bogie at your 6, bogie at your... ahhh, whatever, let's just pose with Betty Boop.

Fluff

Lots of things have tickled me in the last month. For a week I was a geeky follower of the shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. There wasn’t a battery replacement, a module installation, a stubbornly resisting screw that I didn’t read about three or four times. That’s not drama?? Are you kidding me??

I’ve been to Brisbane for the first time. Looks nice. Very legoland-ish around the river. I was there just for one day, nothing too exciting. Would love to go back.

I’ve been back at the physio. Being ancient, I break very easily these days. This time it’s the other shoulder. I now have lots more funny little exercises (steady!) to do over the next 6 weeks. At least I can still swim this time, though not in the ocean… and yeah I’m not missing that too much at this time of year.

I could go on, but I'll shut up at that. More fluff and 'we' soon.

And not an NRL player in site...

The Philippines (Part 2)

After the most intensive six weeks of work since I started with Opportunity, I was looking forward to a week of relaxation and reflection on the beach, and some exceptional scuba diving. But it didn’t quite work out as I’d expected.

Slog

The day after the conference I had a 9am flight to Manila to catch another flight to Coron, a large town in the north of the Palawan archipelago, a chain of islands in the west of the Philippines best known for their undeveloped tropical environment – fine white sandy beaches and perfectly clear blue waters.

I had a particular fixation on these islands because, in 1944, just off the island of Busuanga, American navy launched a surprise attack on the Japanese fleet, sinking 14 large ships in a raid which at that time was the longest-range aerial attack in history (many of the attacking planes ran out of fuel before they could return to their carriers). Today, these wrecks lie well-preserved in the very shallow water they sank in, teaming with marine life. In short, a divers dream!

The flight to Manila was routine and as the connecting flight took off in clear blue skies, I had no reason to think that we wouldn’t make it to Coron…

About ten minutes from our destination, while gazing out of the window at the pure blue waters of the South China Sea, I noticed a column of cloud, storm-clouds in fact, which looked not a little like a typhoon. While I was still puzzling over this aberration in the middle of otherwise clear blue skies, the pilot (or it could have been the copilot or anyone that can do that voice I suppose) announced that we would be in a holding pattern for a while due to what he euphemistically called ‘bad weather’. After 20 minutes of lazy circling (blue skies, blue skies, blue skies, typhoon, blue skies) which fooled no-one, the pilot came on to regret that we had been ordered (by air-controllers, or by God, I’m not sure to which he was referring) to return to Manila.

Detour

What I day. I spent several (yes, several) weary hours at Manila airport booking flights to Boracay for the next day. Boracay is the most famous, and (over) developed resort in the Philippines, a pretty decent place to spend some relaxing days, and - more importantly – in a group of islands well clear of the typhoon. So it was the perfect location potentially. And I did feel like I was recharging my batteries there, though by the end of the week I was pretty bored. Beach resorts are not often a great place to be on your own, and this was a particularly couple-y place. I enjoyed the diving, it was pretty decent, if not out of this world.

Somehow I found myself happy to be back in Manila though. Maybe the hotel helped – the global economic crisis has made some hotels ridiculously cheap, and the discounted price of five-star luxury has crept into even my budget. Hostels are fine by me, but I’ll take luxury when I can get it.

Trek

So obviously I prolonged checking out of the Mandarin as long as possible, but eventually they had to kick me out on the streets. I had a few hours to kill before my flight back to Sydney and no appetite for further shopping, so I decided to take-in the new Star Trek movie.


I can't say I'm a fan, at least I'm definitely not a trekkie. I have seen most of the movies though and there seemed to be a fair amount of buzz about this one. And for once it's justified. This is a fantastic action movie. No better way of describing it in my opinion. Just really sharply put together. The story is very nicely together of where all the main characters came from

What this is not though - and this will sound odd - is a sci-fi movie. For me sci-fi is the art of presenting something different and other-wordly. Superficially, this is just that. But its just too slick and though there are plenty of surprises, they are all 'knowing'. In every other Star Trek movie i've seen, there was something off-the-wall which suggested the writers were smoking something at some point in the production. On screen these moments could seem wobbly or kitsch, but they at least got you thinking. This is missing from the new Trek movie. By being slick, it's the perfect action movie, not the perfect sci-fi movie.

And that was the Philippines. It was a funny trip. Nothing went quite as planned. And at the same time I can see the place has amazing potential and I hope to go back soon, and often. But not to fancy resorts. And not on my own. And definitely not during typhoons.

The Philippines (Part 1)

I was only back in Sydney a week and I was packing my bags again. It’s to my immense good fortune that my role within Opportunity is one of the few that takes me out to the field, where I talk to our partner CEOs and staff, discuss our policies and even meet clients on occasion.

In the busiest moments… I have to confess I do forget how fortune I am. That week in Sydney was one of those moments.

But as exhausted as you do get, sleeping fitfully on flights, waking at 5am in hotel rooms, I think these times are cherished after the event. I’m already smiling thinking about the trip to the Philippines. This is the first of a couple of updates explaining why:

The Friendliest People

I never feel confident enough to make conclusions about a country after visiting as a tourist. It doesn’t stop me making some assertions – as I did about every country I visited on the Big Trip – but they are always qualified observations. There’s something about the tourist experience – visiting tourist sites, flitting from place to place, filling the voyeuristic, detached role of the tourist – that puts a barrier between you, and truly knowing a country. And by knowing a country I mean knowing its people, knowing how the society ‘works’, how people treat each other, and how they treat outsiders. That’s why my visits to India with work have been such a privilege, and so much more rewarding than my first trip, as a tourist.

So I was delighted to be able to experience the Philippines for the first time with some purpose other than enjoying the beach, the shopping and restaurant food (not that there’s anything wrong with those things, which I did plenty of when the work was over!). My main purpose in the Philippines was to make a presentation on Social Performance Management to some of the 600 attendees at the APPEND Microfinance Summer Camp 2009. Append is an organisation representing 12 MFIs that serve over a million clients in the Philippines. The summer camp was a chance for the Filipino MFIs and their staff to reflect on the past year at a 3-day retreat on the southern island of Mindanao.

The retreat was a revelation for me. Our Filipino partners are hard-working and have a level of dedication to poverty relief that you will not see in many other countries with a history of microfinance. But the summer camp is as much a celebration of the unity and shared mission of the staff as it is about any technical aspect of microfinance. There was much singing, dancing and ceremony. Religion is a very important part of life in the Philippines and people are clearly very much in touch with the role of religion in their work. Karaoke was well featured in the evenings too, and though I would have given it a go, I was a little relieved when I was passed over in the karaoke event in favour of my colleague Mark (our program manager for the Philippines) who was pulled up on stage for a couple of 80s classics from Fame.

In fact the atmosphere seemed odd and a little unnerving at first. It took me a while to realise that the reason the atmosphere seemed odd to me was because people were so relaxed at the event. The Filipinos are truly a people that are laid-back in social situations. They are the most social people I

have ever met. No wonder one-sixth of the world’s text messages are typed and sent in the Philippines!

The second day saw me presenting to a break-out group of about 100-150 people. This seemed to go fairly well. I’m not sure my accent was the simplest to understand, though peoples grasp of English in the Philippines is excellent. I started the presentation by speaking a little Spanish, which was met with much appreciation (though actually I found out that the Filipino language Tagalog is only very loosely related to Spanish) despite my limited vocabulary! Anyway, I got through the presentation fairly well I think, and the conference was a great opportunity to make contacts with key people in each of our partners.

And then on the third day we went white-water rafting. As well as being a good laugh, this was my first chance to see some of the natural beauty of the Philippines that the guidebooks will gushingly tell you is under-sold and much ignored.

Why under-sold and ignored? Well, the Philippines has a strange demographic – it’s a place that’s hard to get your head around – an incredible 4,000 inhabited islands sitting lying shards of broken crockery in the South China Sea, connected by a hundred ferry routes, and more recently by almost as many domestic flightpaths.

Mindanao itself has much about it that is strange, and no doubt wonderful too, but sadly the ongoing terrorist activity on the island has gobbled up all the international attention. I’ve been to a lot of places that have been affected by terrorism now – Sri Lanka, Bali, Nepal - places where terrorism has become part of the definition of the place (as opposed to India for example, where mercifully, attacks on Delhi and Mumbai continue to be just a tiny part of the Indian story) and I’ve learned that the most respectful thing you can do is to appreciate that, for local people, this is often a part of their experience that they do not want to dwell on, or discuss with outsiders.

In Cagayan de Oro, a town in the north of Mindanao where we had the conference, I found people to be unfailingly welcoming, friendly and always looking to do something for you, not through any feeling of obligation (that I could discern) but through that joy in being sociable that I’ve mentioned already, and through a respect for other people.

So that was the working part of the trip. I hope I’m privileged enough to return to return to visit our Filipino partners in the field. I can’t wait to see how they work with clients – I’m sure it will be a really enlightening experience.

Next update will feature encounters with typhoons, scuba diving, boxing matches and an imprompto meeting with a taxi driver who has just started protestant Quakerism in the Philippines. Stay tuned.

India 2009

(photos of India to follow!)

Ok, for those of you who are counting, and I’ve had vocal reminders from a couple of peeps (thanks for the encouragement!), its been a month (again) without an update. I’ve been travelling across Asia fighting poverty. Ok, that sounds a bit too grand. I’ve been travelling to India and the Philippines making presentations on Social Performance Management (SPM). That’s better.

There’s so much to cover. I’m going to start with an update on the India trip today. An update on the Philippines and what I’ve been up to in Australia can wait for another day (not in a month I promise!).

So, India. This was my most rewarding trip yet. Though it was the second workshop that we’ve had with our partners, it felt like a new kind of experience to me, as I had so much more face-time with the CEOs. It helped that I had the chance to introduce the event and talk a lot about my pet subject, which meant I was pretty much front-and-centre for the two days of the workshop.

I’m really pleased with how things are progressing. This is an important project for us – giving us the opportunity to introduce a new method of establishing and reporting on the impact that we are having on poverty, so it was very encouraging that so many of our partners are enthusiastic about SPM.

I was exhausted by the end of the week and after a bit of shopping on the Friday night (Delhi malls are a great place to get some bargain clothes) I was more than ready to head home. And there the fun began. After six trips to India without mishap I was fairly blasé about the risk of Delhi belly. But as soon as I woke at 3am on the Saturday morning I knew the trip home was gonna be deeply unpleasant!

As always with Delhi belly it started at one end (what do you mean too much information?) but it wasn’t long before the nausea kicked in. I left the hotel for the airport at 530am with several plastic bags to hand (cue worried looks from the driver). Amazingly (and to the driver’s delight) I made it to the airport, and indeed on to the flight without using the bags. But I knew was in real trouble when we had to queue on the tarmac for 20 mins before take off.

I know the old saying about a kettle, but truly it is a watched ‘fasten seat-belts sign’ that never goes off. With sweat running down my forehead I willed 200 tonnes of Boeing 757 off the runway, into the air and up to a safe cruising altitude. As soon as the light went off I sprinted with unrestrained panic to the toilet. And I made it. Just. But it was a long time before I came back out again, and I certainly wasn’t touching any of those foil wrapped meals with the strangely rubbery green-beans (always rubbery green-beans, no matter the continent or airline).

It was a very long trip back to Sydney and I didn’t really feel right for days. But I made the sprint to the loo and for that, I (and my fellow passengers) will always be grateful! Sadly though, this turn of events means I have had to give up a title. At work, I had become known as ‘cast-iron stomach Scott’ for my ability to disregard normal precautions when eating and drinking abroad, and never becoming ill. Now that title has gone, and I’ll think twice before I visit a Mexican restaurant in India again…


Talking of airplane food reminds me of that fantastic complaint about Virgin from a few months back (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html). And another complaint on the news today has tickled me too. Katie Masters, who is 109 wrote to the Queen to complain that the birthday cards she was getting every year had the same photo of the Queen on the front. I think that’s bloody marvellous! And obviously the PR department at Buck Palace has improved somewhat in the last ten years as they sent Prince William to visit her to apologise. Maybe the British rarely complain, but when they do they do it in style. (It’s your hamster in the box Richard, and he’s not breathing!)