Work Day Twenty - The Final Fling (O Fling final)

A bus was arranged to take the team to Uberlândia City Hall where all the teams were to present a summary of what they had set out do and what they had done to the Mayor, various City officials and representatives from the NGOs.

 

Our team outside City Hall

When we arrive the Tourism team were finishing off their presentation to the Mayor, Gilmar Machdo, and the Secretary for Tourism, Paulo Romes, and a large group of others.  We learned later that it had gone well.  Once that completed we settled ourselves in our positions and waited for the off. 

All presentations and speeches were to be instantaneously translated over headphones in both directions – i.e. if the speaker was in Portuguese we’d hear an English translation and vice versa.  The translator was very good and kept up a steady flow despite some of the technical terms. I chatted to him afterwards and found out he came to Uberlândia from Ireland as a Priest the same time as my wife and I went to NZ – 1976.  However the beautiful Brazilian senoritas were too much for him and he gave up the cloth, married, and settled down to live there. He has a number of business interests (as do many of the people I met in the four weeks) of which translation is one.

Back to the action. The Mayor gave a very warm and generous speech, thanking us for all we had done and promising the City would follow through with our work to the best of its ability.  Unfortunately he then had to leave for an equally important appointment in Uberabba with a Federal representative, so handed over to Paulo Romes, the Secretary for Tourism, to chair the rest of the meeting.

Gilmar Machodo making a point in his speech - the founder of
ONG CASA, Wender Marques, is in the yellow shrt

After an introductory speech from Alcely, the IBM Corporate Citizenship Executive in Brazil, we started our series of presentation on the various projects the teams had worked on.

Ação Moradia had two projects, Brick Making Process Improvements and Financial Management Support.

Christy makes a good point on
brick making...

...and the audience likes it (our translators and Karen)

Nirav leading off on the finacials...

...and Sylvie closing

Instituto Ipê Cultural also had two projects, Business Planning and Enhanced organizational structure and HR procedures - they weren't actually consecutive (not sure why not) but for convenience I've grouped them together.

The Business Planning team of Paul and Leslie and the
two translators (leftmost)

The HR team of Hajira and Joel.

The Politriz Institute had a communications strategy, which included a webpage development.

Terumine, Robert and Olaf for Politriz

Our project was ostensibly for the parent NGO, ONG CASA, but was really about establishing the SEDE project as a going concern. The day before we decided all four of us wouldn’t present as that would be too messy so we agreed that Michael and Chi would have the honour. In my unbiased opinion it was the most informative and well-delivered presentation of the day.  ;-)

Michael and Chi

And as noted above the City itself had a tourism project for the Municipal Secretariat for Economic Development and Tourism of Uberlândia. Modestly, Radhesh remarked that they'd saved the best for last.

Xuemai and Radhesh for the Tourism team - Marc and Jill
supporting from the sidelines

At the end of the presentations Paulo Romes gave a very warm speech of thanks to us all for the value we had added to the work by the NGOs in Uberlândia. He then invited everyone present (I’d guess at around 40-50 apart from our team of 19) to stand up and applaud us.  I must confess to feeling quite touched by this, as the applause and the looks in the faces of the audience was very genuine and heartfelt. Finally we were all presented with a large bag of special coffee.  The region produces top quality Brazilian coffee but most of it goes straight to export. As a result it is quite difficult (and expensive) to get, so we felt very honoured with this gift.

Paulo thanking us all

The formalities then concluded and we posed for lots of photos. 

The SEDE team with Larissa and Bruno
L-R - Larissa, Bruno, Laerte, Cecilia, Karen, Mariana, Chi, Isadore, Michael and me

Larissa then produced a Brazilian flag for each of us which we got signed by all those present who were members of our team or had contributed in some way or other to our work. Other gifts were also exchanged between various team members and supporters.

Flag signing in progress

We went over to the Mall, which is close by, for lunch and then back to the hotel (in a slight drizzle, unfortunately) so I could start my packing before a 3pm team meeting.  With the gifts we’d received plus the things I’d bought to take home my case was looking somewhat full, if not overflowing.  I left it half packed and went to our team meeting with some of the others, arriving as a prior meeting with the translators was coming to an end.  Gradually the others arrived and we got down to business, which was a feedback session and also a discussion on the highs and lows of what we’d done. We were all unanimous in feeling we’d finished on a high, something which doesn’t always happen!  To remember him by, Bruno gave us all a special bracelet made out of coconut wood and Larissa gave us some special Douce Laite, or sweet milk.It was very kind and generous of both of them and we were all quite touched by Bruno’s farewell hug and by Larissa’s speech.

Once the meeting was over I returned to my battle of fitting a quart into a pint pot and through a series of trial and error attempts and repackings finally managed to get all my belongings into my case. Then it was time to head to the final team dinner, at a well-known restaurant (which I’ve forgotten the name of).  Our taxi group was first there and settled in to some Brahma Special as our final farewell fizz.  As other groups arrived so did some food and by 9 o’clock it was all in full swing.  Apart from the whole Brazil 14 team (19 of us), most of our translators turned up, Larissa (of course) and the reviewers, and people from some of the NGOs, so it was a large crowd. 

A surprise of the evening was meeting up with Renato.  Marc, Cecilia and I were originally scheduled to do a different project than the ones we did and Renato was going to be our main representative for this other project.  Marc and I had had a telephone call with Renato and were very impressed with his knowledge and ability and we had been looking forward to working with him.  Unfortunately, and almost at the last minute, the NGO decided not to proceed with the project, so Marc, Cecilia and I were reallocated.  When we met Renato this evening we didn’t initially make the connection as his partner was one of the translators (although Renato was aware of us, and had dropped a hint or two we'd missed) but a chance remark from someone else joined the dots!

Marc, Renato, Cecilia and me - the virtual team

Sorting out the bill at the end of the evening took Larissa and Olaf some doing!  Most were going on to a nightclub but with the prospect of a 6:30am departure from the hotel and a 30 plus hour journey home I headed back to the hotel in company with Joel after several rounds of farewells!  Despite that, in the confusion and milling around, I realised later that I had missed saying goodbye to some, but I hope they know that wasn’t deliberate.

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