Work Day Ten - another day in the office - mais um dia no escritório

After two weeks we are now all well acclimatised and settled in although there seems to be a bit of a cold going round the team - Cecilia was suffering a bit today.

Today was progress review day (only a project manager could get excited by that) and it looks like we are making good progress with no major blockages at this stage.  I know I shouldn't say that because I am tempting the fickle finger of fate to find a fault in our forecast. Or create one!

We managed three interviews, two of which were out of the office in the afternoon.  We decided to split the team for those and Michael and Chi went to them, with Cecilia and I staying at the office.  I made good progress in the afternoon analysing the other interviews and preparing some initial materials from them.

I am very impressed by how the better-off Brazilians are willing to spend time and money to support their less well-off countrymen and women directly, rather than leave it to the government. This seems to apply also to companies and other organisations. I get the impression that it suits the government (federal and local) to provide support indirectly through funding the NGOs, or charities as we would know them in NZ, rather than have the direct beneficiary relationship that we are used to. I am not in a position to say whether this ends up with a better or poorer result but I do see that it probably ends up with a more personal relationship being established.  One of the challenges is there are different NGOs for different causes so any one family group may need help from a multiple of NGOs - pregnant women, babies, children, young adults, old people, as well health and physical and substance abuse related ones (to name only a few causes - I am told there are 338,000 NGOs in Brazil, looking after 1.5 million beneficiaries).

Dinner at the local Chopp (a Chopp is a 250-300ml glass of draught beer with what I would consider a generous head), which came well recommended.  I enjoyed another serving of filet mignon in gorgonzola sauce - it would probably have done two but I struggled through.  Very nice. Some of the others were heading off out to another bar but I decided an early(ish) night wouldn't be a bad idea as we have an early(ish) start tomorrow.

Most of the larger team are having a weekend away at a hot springs resort thanks to Sylvie's organisational skills and mastery of Portuguese. It is about a three hour drive, leaving around 8:30 tomorrow morning.  In Brazilian time that means if we get away around 9 we'll be doing well. That's about as much as I know for now but the hot springs are well-known here, all the locals know where we are going and say it's a great place.  So I won't be blogging for a couple of days (who said thank goodness?) as laptops and hot water shouldn't mix - well, that's my excuse anyway.

STOP PRESS

Just in, some photos of our rapelling excursion last Sunday. Unfortunately (or perhaps just as well) there aren't any of me engaged in derring do but here are a couple to get the flavour.

A view into the abyss - 60 metres down

Joel on his way down - he was the first of the team to descend

#ibmcsc brazil