What Is Poor? (Cycling Idanre)

Different people will define poor in any variety of ways. Economists will define it as anyone living under a certain income deemed the poverty line. Religious folks may define it as someone living a life without faith and no hope in an eternal life. Others may define it as a life without hope in general, such as those imprisoned or isolated from the world. Others maybe living a life alone, without any friends or family to keep them company. I've also heard it referred to before as those caught in and endless circle of everyday life doing work they're not the least passionate about - the poor in spirit. Whatever definition one may use to determine what they deem "poor," it became quite clear to me after this past weekend that I will never define it as what I perceive to be one's "standard of living." I now know that this is completely relative. 

I had the amazing opportunity to spend the three days last weekend in the town of Idanre in the state of Ondo, Nigeria. This was a mountain biking trip put on by the Nigerian Field Society about once a year. This trip we had six of us from Chevron and three others, but only five of us were there to do the cycling; the others were there to hike. The journey to and from Idanre was far from pleasant, as it took us between 5-6 hours each way to travel less than 200 km. This is a testament to how truly bad the roads are here. Piled onto a bus, we took a combination of back roads and one major expressway riddled with potholes and broken asphalt. Probably the least comfortable road trip I've ever been on. The mountain biking itself was the hardest cycling trip I've ever done in my life and possibly even the most strenuous physical activity. I've never been much of a biker, but consider myself pretty athletic and in good shape, and this pushed me to my limits. In all, the bike trip totaled 51 km and took us almost 6 hours. Granted, only about 4 hours of that was actual riding time as there were many stops along the way. The terrain was rocky, muddy, steep, and exhausting. By the time we returned to our hotel six hours later, I had to just lay down motionless for a good two hours before wanting to move again. I think it's safe to say this was the greatest feeling of accomplishment I've ever had after a workout.

However, the reason I write this post with the title I chose is not because of the ride itself, but because of the interactions we had along the way. Leaving the town of Idanre early Saturday morning we quickly made it off the road and back into the jungle. As we weaved farther and farther back into the thickness, we encountered one village after another full of bright and smiling faces. At each encounter the villagers could not have been more happy to see us and welcome us, children especially. As we rode through, the most shocking thing to me was the apparent living situations. All the homes appeared to be structures thrown together out of clay and mud of sorts that looked to be deteriorating and uncomfortable from my point of view. We never entered any of the buildings, but I can only assume what the insides were like. Most of these communities have no running water or facilities to go to the bathroom. We encountered people who looked like they probably hadn’t showered in months and children just running around naked and barefoot everywhere. Despite all this, they all appeared to be having the time of their lives. The sense of community was astounding, as well as the pure and constant joy they all showed; it truly moved me. A Danish man who was cycling with us commented to me at one point how these people, by any western standard, should have no reason to be this happy, and yet they’re all completely satisfied and content. And I couldn’t agree with his statement more. We both continued to admire and appreciate their happiness town after town. 

I don't think it a coincidence that I didn't manage to get this post up until Thanksgiving Day. I meant to get this up every day this week, but kept being delayed until finally having the time today. I find it quite fitting to post this today, where even though I'm far away from friends and family for the first time on this holiday I find myself with so much more to be thankful for than ever before. I am so blessed to have been afforded all these unique opportunities and experiences so early in my life. It's moments like this past weekend that just remind me of that ever more. I truly thank God for these opportunities I've been given to broaden my horizons and help me grow through traveling. I am especially thankful for the luxuries I've been afforded my entire life and completely taken for granted. What better time to stop and reflect on this than Thanksgiving Day. 

I’ll try and portray our journey below with some pictures and descriptions to help illustrate the experience.

When we first got off the main road and about 10 minutes into the bush, we ran into some young children that were out harvesting some cocoa pods. Cocoa is the main crop of this region that most these smaller villages rely on for their main source of income. Here is a picture of a single cocoa pod hanging from a tree, along with the kids I mentioned. You can also see the long scythe they use to get the pod out of the trees made from bamboo and a curved knife at the end. Notice some more of the pods hanging in the background as well. 

In this next picture you can see all the cocoa beans laying out across the ground in front of some of the village homes. Pretty much every house we saw had these concrete slabs laid out in front, which are used to spread out the beans for drying. Often times we saw these chickens or roosters playing around in the beans as well. 

Here is the first village we actually stopped at. The lady you'll see in the middle of the first picture was a dancing machine. For about five minutes she just kept dancing around and singing. Pretty hysterical. The man you see a close-up of actually came up to me and asked me to take his picture. I just thought he really wanted his picture taken, but turns out he actually just wanted something from me in return. Afterwards he asked me, "So what do you have for me? That's how it works: I let you take my picture, you give me something." Clever, clever man. I didn't actually give him anything though (considering he asked me to take his picture in the first place), just laughed and rode away. He didn't seem to mind. It was all in good fun. 

Here's more of the cocoa beans spread out all over the ground.

Now, our next stop was one of the cooler ones. I mentioned how cocoa production is huge in this region, but the other main product is palm oil. Palm nuts are the next biggest crop in this region of Africa, and we ran across a little make-shift mill in the middle of our trail. There was one man, a woman, and some children all tending this area, and actually gave us a brief tour by even cranking up the machine for us to see how it all works. It was really neat. Here is a picture of the grinder they use to crack the nuts, a barrel used to store the palm oil, and you can somewhat make out the machine behind the barrel which they use to mix the oil. You can also see the Danish guy from our group, Jakob. 

And here is one of our police offers taking (stealing) a cocoa pod and some palm nuts for souvenirs. Palm nuts are on the left, cocoa pod on the right. Also, a gun. Now these people we actually did give a little money to since they were so willing to show us everything and explain the process. It was really neat. 

Here is just a quick snapshot of the next town we stopped in for a picture and snack. One of the men offered us a whole bundle of bananas and was incredibly friendly. We each took a couple and gave him some money, which he was incredibly humbled by. I don't think he expected anything in return. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Eventually, the shy women and children in the background came in for a picture too. 

This next village was the coolest one we stopped in. When I first rolled up, second in our group, I saw a huge crowd of the villagers huddled around something in the distance. Honestly, I was a little nervous at first because it looked like I was interrupting a town hall or something. Turns out, it was just the guy in our group ahead of me relaxing in the shade, mingling with the entire village that had surrounded him. It was quite the site. They had brought out the chief elder to meet us and we conversed with them for awhile, surrounded by all the children. This was also one of my favorite backdrops. 

Finally, this was one of the last villages we came to where we stopped for a rest. The kids here were my favorite and loved getting photographed. I took a couple pictures of them and then turned to show them the pictures on my digital camera. They all freaked out and went crazy at the sight of themselves on a camera and loved it. I think it was quite likely the first time they'd ever seen themselves on a camera. Also, there was this one crazy guy who loved my bike for some reason and kept wanting to get pictures with it. He had some brand new boots that he was very proud of. Unfortunately, it sounded like he was speaking jibberish the whole time and I couldn't understand a word he said :/. I just smiled and laughed the whole time. He wanted me to send him the pictures and I said okay, although I have no clue how on earth that would be possible haha. 

And that pretty much sums up the cycling journey in a nutshell. I truly believe when it's all said and done for me here in Africa, this past weekend will go down as one of the best, if not the best, experiences I had during my time here. We also went for a Sunday morning hike the following day, which somehow my legs had recovered enough to allow me to do. I'll include below just a few of the better pictures from that part as well. I only shared a fraction of the pictures, so if you have a desire to look through any more and are friends with me on Facebook, you can find them here: https://www.facebook.com/nickbalser12/media_set?set=a.10200945531149926.1073741827.1515360584&type=3

Happy Thanksgiving!

I Am Here to Work, After All

I’ve let myself slip away from the blog lately and haven’t posted anything in the last couple weeks, but everything has been pretty routine lately. I haven’t done anything crazy exciting or adventurous the last couple weeks so I figure now is a good time to write a little about the work life I’ve experienced here thus far. My current role is part of the Internal Controls team, which is part of the Compliance group. There’s really not any technical finance or accounting work in this group which is what I’m used to, so it’s a big change of pace for me. It’s not known as a very glamorous part of the business and, quite honestly, I’m not entirely sure why it even falls under the finance function. But nevertheless, it does, and therefore is part of my development experience to get some exposure to this field. I will say though that if you’re going to be doing compliance work, Nigeria is a very fascinating place to be doing it. There are an insane amount of challenges in this business unit that I’m learning more about every day. I’ve already gotten to take place in a couple audits (both internal and external) and will actually be conducting a couple of my own audits in the next few weeks. I should get to take part in a few fraud investigations, which I think will be very interesting, and hopefully even travel to some of our platforms/rigs and see what it’s like out there. I am excited to be finally working in the upstream after two positions in the downstream, as this is upwards of 80% of where Chevron’s business is.

Working in Nigeria is challenging, to say the least. Everything just operates differently over here. Things take longer, you have to trace people four or five times, a simple email will rarely suffice, and for any relatively simple task you’ll usually have to add a couple illogical steps. I’m slowly learning that this is just the way things are and I have to be patient, but some situations still get the better of me and I find myself pulling my hair out wondering why it has to be so difficult. I won’t give too many examples, but in summary, it took about six weeks after my arrival to finally have all my initial office-move tasks completed. This includes things like having access to the right shared folders, getting my basic employee information into the new systems, getting my telephone set up with my information and for international calling, getting a local ATM card, and several other things. I spent my first two weeks almost entirely working out these issues and trying to get everything functioning properly before I could even really start digging into the work. Another example was the task of replacing one of my desktop monitors that was broken. The request was put in a month before I even arrived and was just delivered this past week, almost three months later. Luckily I had another to use in the meantime, but still three months is pretty ridiculous. House maintenance issues are a whole different story and entirely different headache. If you ever need to put in a maintenance request (which happens very, very often) you have to be absolutely explicit in what you want done and what tools will be required. Otherwise they’ll come out and look at the situation like 3 times before they even start working on it just assessing what needs to be done for a simple task. For instance, right now I’m trying to get a light bulb replaced on my front porch and the workorder has been outstanding for about 3 weeks. Preventative maintenance is nonexistent in Nigeria and applies to everything. Anywhere you go you see decrepit buildings and structures that are not cared for whatsoever, yet are somehow still in use. All maintenance is reactive here, as in nothing is done until something is broken, and that applies to everything.

The pace of work here is just very different than in the states. I’ve always known that the US is very driven and work-centered, but it’s hard to really grasp the differences until you experience a work environment like Nigeria, which is completely opposite. Much time at work is spent socializing, meetings rarely ever start on time or are well-organized, everything can be put off for another day or two, rarely anybody works past five and most people’s lunches range from an hour and a half to two hours; it’s just a whole different mindset. Productivity is rarely a priority and, as I’ve stated previously, logic never prevails. Another key thing I’ve already learned over here is how to be more stern with people. Many people here are always trying to push the work onto someone else. There have been a couple times I’ve been given the run-around by coworkers trying to say they’re not responsible for something and pushing me on to another person. After a couple endless loops determining nobody is going to take ownership I just had to finally say it’s enough and tell them somebody needs to get it done. In my past I’m well aware I’ve had a tendency to be more of a pushover when it comes to things like this; I’d have been more likely to just say forget it I’ll do it myself, but you can’t operate that way over here. Way too much work would fall into the laps of a few people. I do think this is helping my development quite a lot.

All this being said, there are some things about the Nigerian work style that I do appreciate. People are very direct with one another. Nobody is afraid to say what’s on their mind or shoot down bad ideas and it’s not considered offensive. I feel like so often in the US people try and sugarcoat everything or try and find a polite way to say something won’t work, myself included. It’s not really that way over here. People are blunt and direct, which I think is honestly the best way to go about business. Another thing that I find rather useful (but still get beyond frustrated in the moment) is how facetime is very valuable here. I mentioned how often times an email or phone call will not suffice and I have to physically walk over to someone’s desk and talk to them. I can sit there and see that they’re online, call them and get no response, then walk over and see they’re clearly at their desk. While this is no doubt frustrating, it also has its advantages.  In our current technological age we’re not used to having to actually talk to somebody. We always want a simple email or phone call to be the solution. However, business was not always conducted like this. There was a time when social interaction was necessary and we didn’t get to hide behind our computer screens, and I genuinely think there is something to be gained from that. I’ve found that I’ve already gotten to meet pretty much all my colleagues in a rather big finance group and was able to more quickly match up faces with the names. I’ve also noticed that having these relationships does, in fact, help my productivity as well. After talking with someone and getting to know them, even just a little bit, I’ve found them much more inclined to respond to my requests in a timely manner. I’ll have sent a request that’s been sitting in someone’s inbox for three days, but find once I just go talk to them for five minutes and explain the situation, it’s back in my own inbox within a couple hours. Relationships go a long way here, they really do.

I’ll close with this… I’ve found myself in a very unique situation here in regards to my timing. Without saying too much (because I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to), there was a recent round of layoffs that just went on here at CNL (Chevron Nigeria Limited). Well, not exactly layoffs per se, but what were called “Voluntary Severance Packages (VSPs),” in which the employees had the option to decline the packages. The business here is not in its best shape and costs have been skyrocketing lately, most of which are people costs. For a little background: all Chevron employees here below a certain pay grade are unionized, and have basically lobbied over the years to have some of the best employee packages in all of Chevron. Nigeria employees are some of the best, if not THE best, compensated employees in all of Chevron and the costs have simply become unsustainable. This is what has prompted the latest round of layoffs and some company-wide cost cutting initiatives. But, because they are unionized, there has been some unhappiness with the recent round of layoffs, despite having union approval beforehand and negotiating very generous packages for those offered VSPs. Over the last two weeks some of the unionized employees have been holding prayer sessions in front of the building in the morning and, I’m told, these are usually the early stages of a strike. Strikes have been very common here because of the unions and, I’m told, there are usually a couple each year. There hasn’t been one in the last year or so, but I think we are shaping up for one here pretty soon. I’m anxious to see how it all plays out and what it means for the rest of us as far as getting anything done. We shall see. 

Busy Week on Camp

My last week back on camp has been quite busy and exciting. Tuesday was my usual basketball night, but we had a big group this week and ended up playing for over three hours, which was awesome. Thursday night I went over to another guy’s house on camp to help him pass out Halloween candy to trick-or-treating kids while drinking beer on his driveway with a few guys and rating the kids costumes by holding up signs as they all came by (they all got 10’s, we didn’t discriminate). This was followed by heading over to another coworker’s house for a rather small adult Halloween party. Friday started the weekend festivities by going on the Fat Boy Run (for more info on this, see my previous post: http://nigerianick.blogspot.com/2013/10/fat-boy-run.html) and then coming back to a disco party at a house on camp. They went all out for this with the decorations, music, food, and drinks. I guess you can say this was my first big camp party to attend and it did not disappoint. Those present were fellow coworkers all the way up to senior managers getting down on the dance floor and letting loose. It was quite the scene and went pretty late into the night. People here really know how to have a good time. Today I started by getting up in the morning to take my first tennis lesson. I think I mentioned in a previous post that everyone here plays tennis. There are three courts right across the street from me and several instructors that are here pretty much every day of the week for lessons. I had my first one set up for this morning and had a great time. Although, I forgot how exhausting tennis can be, especially in the heat of the day during dry season here. I had to run home and change shirts midway through because I was sweating so much and grab a towel. The instructor recommended I start playing doubles with the guys here on Wednesday evenings too, so I think I might begin that next week. I went to the gym and got in a quick workout after that, before heading out with some friends for lunch. We hit up this great Italian restaurant in Lagos that was by far the best food I’ve had here yet. It was absolutely phenomenal and was a much needed break from the guest house food I’ve been living off of. The restaurant was actually part of a hotel and looked out over the pool, and after sitting there for an hour watching everyone outside we decided to join in the fun. We went and grabbed a cabana after lunch and spent the next couple hours smoking hookah and just chilling by the pool. Not a bad Saturday afternoon in Africa… We followed this up with a quick trip to the grocery store and arrived back on camp just in time for the monthly Curry Club festivities of the evening. Tomorrow is the celebration of Diwali in the Indian culture, so in honor of that the Curry Club hosted a dinner event tonight. They catered fantastic Indian food and everyone brought a bottle of wine to contribute, which was flowing throughout the evening. Now, I’m back home for a quick nap before I get up at 2AM to watch the Aggies play. I honestly wasn’t going to watch the game this weekend because it’s only UTEP and, let’s be real, it’s going to be ugly… BUT the director of deepwater drilling here is an Aggie also and invited me over to his house to watch it with him. And if the director of deepwater drilling invited you over to his house at 2AM to drink beer and watch football, you DO NOT say no.

Here are some pics of this week's Fat Boy Run to break up my writing:

Cooking the food over the trash can grill you see on the right:

Beef suya and Star beer. My favorite Nigerian cuisine, but very spicy!

As you can tell I’ve had a pretty busy week here. This isn’t how they’ve all been for me, but they’re starting to shape up more and more like this from now on. I just looked at my calendar this week and realized I have activities booked almost every weekend during the month of November, plus all the sports and activities I’ve picked up now during the week. It’s sure helping time fly by though as I just realized I’m already a quarter of the way done with my time here – I’ve already been here almost a month and a half of my six month stint. It sure is going by quickly, but I have a lot to look forward to in the months ahead. I recently confirmed my Christmas plans to visit Munich, Germany and Vienna, Austria. I’ll be doing four days in Munich before heading to Vienna on the 23^rd to spend Christmas there. I cannot wait. Also, one thing that’s come up that I think I’m most excited about is the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Games, or NOGIG. This event takes place once every two years in February and 2014 happens to be the on year. All the oil companies that operate in Nigeria get together for two consecutive weekends and basically have an Olympic-style competition with all sorts of events. The one I've been recruited to take part in is basketball. Some of the guys I play with on Tuesdays are influential in putting the team together and have asked me to join. They’re taking it pretty serious with twice a week practices –Tuesday evenings on camp and Saturday mornings off camp (which I’m not sure if I’ll be able to attend yet because it’s far into mainland Lagos). They have coaches and tryouts and everything. I’m told I have no need to worry about being on the team though because the guys who matter have already seen me play or played with me and, let’s just say, they’re content.  However, I did hear a rumor this week that there might be a criteria that you will have had to be working in Nigeria at least six months to be eligible to play in the games. If this is the case I’ll be very disappointed as I’m looking forward to this more than just about anything right now. I’m just going to keep this information on the hush unless I start hearing otherwise, but we’ll see how it plays out. It’d be nice to help Chevron bring back the gold this year haha. So far I've been the only white guy out there playing on Tuesdays and – that I’m aware of – is playing on the Chevron team. But, being around basketball my whole life, this is nothing I’m not used to; this time I’m just in Africa.

So I've noticed that I talk a lot about my social life over here, but I promise I do work here as well. I’ll devote much of another blog post to my work life soon, but for now I’ll just say this... I do find it much easier to work long hours over here than in the states. I've found myself most weeks working much more than 40 hours, but not really noticing. It’s not like it was in Southern California where I was going home to the beach every night and ready to leave right at 5. If I stay at work an extra hour or two here I’m just putting off working out, reading, or sitting around my house – nothing too special. But, it’s convenient that I haven’t minded because I've actually been very busy my first six weeks just getting up to speed on everything and taking the lead on certain projects that require a good deal of time and effort. I’ll go into detail on that next time, though.