Nairobi

So I promised I would come back when I had more news, and now I finally do. I took a week long trip to Nairobi last month. The purpose of the trip was to make some research partnerships with local institutions in Kenya for the think tank that we are trying ever hard to mount from Pamplona. The trip was very fruitful, and I'd love to return to Kenya. That's the bottom line. If you want more than that...

Thursday, November 4th >>> We fly from Madrid at 6.45am in the morning connect in London Heathrow and arrive in Nairobi at 10pm. As we began to land, Nairobi didn't seem to have the allure or the bright lights that other big cities do. When we went through customs, we again noticed that the size of the airport and the quality of its maintenance was something we hadn't seen before. Walking to meet our driver and seeing a seemingly chaotic disorder of cabs scrambling to give people rides made us realize we'd arrived in The Third World.

I was quite tired and happy to get to my hostel. I was greeted by the German Nun of the Precious Blood Order that ran it. She would be my cook for most of the week.

Friday, November 5th >>> I woke up and had to make it for a business meeting at 9.30. I hadn't had a chance to get to the ATM yet so I ask for a ride there. My cab comes and rolls up to an ATM guarded by two army officers with assault rifles (just in case I was worried about theft I assume). I then went to go see Strathmore Secondary School. It is a private high school in Nairobi, and, as you will see from the pictures, quite an awesome one. Next, we had to go to a meeting in at the Institute of Economic Affairs. We showed up nearly 30 minutes late for the meeting because the roads were in poor condition. We literally couldn't move more than 15m on our dirt road before hitting a muddy pot hole. The institute itself was actually in a fairly well-kept building. Once our meeting concluded, we went to Strathmore University to take a tour of its facilities and have lunch. A couple of first impressions still stand out. First, the Kenyans who greeted us were remarkably friendly and the nicest guys in the world. It turns out that they were not exceptionally nice, but rather the norm for the country. Second, I listened to Catholic Mass with Swahili hymns for the first time. If anyone has any doubt Kenya his beautiful, listen to some Swahili music. I doubt you'll find a more peaceful tune. The day concluded with a meeting. We spoke with Terry Ryan who is an economic adviser to Kenyan government. He was brilliant and said many interesting things. The most interesting: "Consider a man who is a tribal chieftain, wears a prestigious cloth, owns 100 cattle, has 30 people who would literally die for him and makes exactly $0 / day. Is he poor? According to the World Bank, he is. But we have to go much deeper into understanding poverties many complexities."

Saturday, November 6th >>> Being a weekend, we took advantage of it to go and tour the centter of downtown Nairobi. For lunch, I had the most amazing fruit of the trip, Passion Fruit. Imagine a pomegranate but so much sweeter and more glorious. That's what it tasted like. I loved it. During the afternoon, we went to go see the Eastlands Project (check out the photos since my words will do injustice). For dinner, we were invited to the Opus Dei Delegation for dinner.

Sunday, November 7th >>> A lazy day. I somehow was able to play basketball with 9 Kneyan guys at the Strathmore School. I am embarassed to talk about how badly I played compared to them. That night, I was also given some yogurt by the nuns that came straight from the cow on the farm that they also work. I was in heaven. That yogurt is so much fresher than anything I've ever tasted.

Monday, November 9th >>> I found my balls this morning, and decided that it was time to walk to work and not just take cab rides. So I walked for about an hour through one of Nairobi's nicer zones. In some ways, today is the most boring day because it is back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings. Enough said.

Tuesday, November 9th >>> We had a meeting in the morning with the five deans of the different faculty at Stratmore University. Afterwards, we presented to the Institute of Development Studies (where Stiglitz won his Nobel). Next, I had to make a presentation in front of 30 lecturers from the School of Accountancy to drum up interest in our project. Was I successful, we'll see with time. One interesting thing is that a student told me that he had developed a project in the slum where he got poor people to band together to save pools of money, and when they had collectivley saved money, a bank would be willing to sponsor them, give them a loan and let people start building houses of their own. It is very creative. That wasn't the coolest part of the day. Just as I was finishing up the last of my cab rides and I reached for my wallet to pay the fare, I heard a squawking sound from the trunk. The driver told me to come to the trunk to see what he had inside. I looked in to find two live chickens. He explained that they were dinner for his family, but if then he offered me the chickens because I had been so nice. I ultimately rejected the offer, but I have never been so surprised before.

Wednesday, November 10th >>> Good news. All of our business meetings were finished so we had the day free before our evening flight. I asked some community outreach people at Strathmore University if they could show me the real Nairobi. They said, "No problem." They got me some jamming boots, and we went to Kibera. This is the name given to Africa's largest slum covering nearly 500 square kilometers (if my math is right, that is more or less the size of Manhattan). I was entering another world.

With internet, you can read about poverty. There are plenty of news stories every day about it. You can also hear about poverty. There are a number of documentaries that attempt to enable poor people to give their testimony about their plight. With the explosion of Youtube, you can also see poverty and the circumstances that these people live in. However, none of these things let you smell poverty. In Kibera, I smelled poverty. From the burning pig hooves that were going to be one man's breakfast to the river of raw sewage that ran through parts of the slum to the collective odor in the air of walking by shacks that house people who use their money to buy water and can't afford to shower everyday or buy clothes, I was overwhelmed by how in the world humanity could let such a thing happen.

But that's when I saw something truly resilient. I went to go see a project where 15 Hiv-Positive mothers had confronted a harsh reality. They would be dead in 5 - 10 years, and it is very likely that their children (72 among them all) would be orphans in one of the worst places in the world to be an orphan. What did they do? They banded together to form a business selling tiny bracelets and necklaces. The profit from any single band is nothing for one mother. However, the profit from 15 mothers working is enough to sustain a school for their children and to provide for medical care as well.

Seeing such resiliency made me realize that the money in my savings account could technically finance that school for quite some time, it would destroy the mothers. Their lives are all about the community that they live in. What can improve their lives is them improving their skills at jewelry-making. My money would be no good. That is the biggest lesson I took away. This poor society was not about competition and invidualism. It was about collaboration and community. I'd like to go back to learn more those things since they are a lot more attractive to me than the former two.

November 10th >>> So I skip the remaining details of my trip (which are few) to talk about being in London Heathrow's Terminal 3 for my connecting flight only 24 hours after walking through Kibera. In Kibera, the streets are lined with garbage. In Terminal 3, the tile floor is so polished that I could see my reflection. At that moment, I did not feel pity for those in Kibera nor contempt for all the businessmen about me who have so many good fortunes in life that they can probably name only a few. What I felt is hard to explain. I was quite humbled by what I saw in Kibera. Western wealth is not a bad thing. Affluency that let's one pursue their dreams is a blessing. The shame is that the people in Kibera are so poor that many of them don't even know what it means to have dreams to pursue. And I can't help but to say that a dream of my own is that we can learn as much from them as they do from us.

4 months

Geez! Has it really been four months since I wrote my last post? That's how life goes. Four months ago I was headed into summer so I knew it would be a good time to take a break. Yet, after friends came in to visit this summer and then my own trip back home at the end of August, I barely had time to resurrect with the work that has been going on. Anyways, we're going to keep blogging this year even if unsporadically. I promise I'll be back soon with a real update...

Falling into place...

Since the last post back in April, I have gotten a lot of answers to some of the questions that popped up. For starters, my contract will be renewed for at least one more year, which means I will be in Pamplona until August 2011. I have also been admitted into a master's/phd program at the university to study governance and culture of organizations. The master's program is one year followed by three more to do the thesis. Obviously, that means I will be in Pamplona for more than a year in all likelihood. I do miss home, and ideally will spend 9 months a year in Pamplona and 3 months a year at home for the next chunk of my life. The other big thing is that a foundation here has named as a US delegate, and so, I will be trying to some grant writing and fundraising on their behalf in the US.

While all this has been going on, my sister came to visit for a week, the girlfriend went back home for the summer and I moved into a new apartment. That is quite a bit of activity, but by no means a complaint. It has been very fun the past two months.
Now with summer approaching and, more importantly, el Mundial I get to enjoy less distractions at work as I prepare for nothing but a few hours of solid work followed by more hours of watching football.

That said, I am not sure how much I will have to say. Originally, I wanted to start blogging to let everyone know about my travels and my work out here. I didn't how long I would be out here so I just enjoyed it. Looks as though now I might be here longer. I will probably continue to blog, but you will notice the tone, content and maybe even the quality change a little bit as I get even more accustomed to life in Spain. Either way, I will be back in New York from August 18th until September 12th. With everything else going on, that date is certainly circled on the calendar.

Easter break

Just got back yesterday from Easter break. It was pretty awesome. I spent five days in Rome with my sister and my parents and then two days in Madrid with my parents and then two days at a conference in Segovia.

Rome was definitely the highlight. I didn't eat a bad meal, and had more spaghetti and gelati in those five days than I will ever have in Spain. That alone was worth the trip. Being back in the motherland with my family was great. The first time we were all abroad even though we were only 4/5 of what we should be. To boot, my girlfriend happened to be in Rome and she met the parents. That went really well. Add in going to the Good Friday service at the Vatican as well as Mass at the Vatican on Sunday. The weather wasn't so cooperative, but it didn't matter. I think there were around a million people at the Vatican for Mass on Sunday. That is how to do Easter right.

Madrid with the folks was good too. They got a taste of the Spanish country side. I was able to show them around a little bit as well. It was all good stuff. I even took them to Pamplona so they could see what life here is like. Pamplona is small enough that it can be enchanting providing you don't stay too long.

I was in Segovia the past two days for something called the Science Against Poverty that was put on by the Spanish Presidency of the EU. It was a big rah-rah about how social scientists and academes can use their skills to make policies to help combat poverty. Still, I met lots of interesting people. Some of whom I will definitely stay in contact with in the future.

After all that travelling, I am very happy to be in Pamplona for the next few days to refocus on what I am doing at the center and to relax. It is springtime here. I want to enjoy as much sun as I can even though I have much to do. I hope by the end of the month I will have official word about my status in Pamplona for next year, but it unofficially it is looking like I will definitely be back.

Until then...

Africa, Africa

For the past twelve days I was in South Africa. It was quite the trip. From the people to the sights to the country itself the visit was incredible. Our journey consisted of 3 days in Pretoria, 5 days in Johannesburg and 4 days in Cape Town. South Africa is a country that can overwhelm you with its stunning natural beauty from Cape Town's winelands and cliffs to safaris just outside the Jo'burg-metro area. Equally overwhelming is the racial diversity of a country that is 80% black and just 15% white, but with much inequality. Apartheid ended here just 15 years ago and it seemed as though you could notice it Jo'burg. There is definitely a severe paranoia that is not unjustified that robbery, assault, carjackings and murders are always imminent. Rich people do not put picket fences around their homes, but rather concrete barriers with electronic fences that have armed response units with guard dogs lurking near the entrance. All of this is because Jo'burg is chronically unsafe. The city has 40% unemployment. Of that number, many are black and between the age of 18 - 24. That is not a good demographic for a low crime rate. Yet, Jo'burg was a city founded first because of its gold and later because of other resources. For that reason, many British mining companies are in Jo'burg and are very much profitable. Throw in the Afrikaaner influence into the mix, and you begin to get an idea of the kind of diversity you see in Johannesburg. It is a city of nearly 5 million, but growing fast. 70% of all businesses in South Africa call Johannesburg home. For all of its security issues, it is the richest place in the country beyond a doubt.

That doesn't take away from other cities who have their own charm. Pretoria is where a lot of politicians call home. For that reason, it is markedly more pretty than Jo'burg, but also less exciting and very white. Cape Town is incredibly cosmpolitan with the feel of a European city to it - just much blacker. These are just generalities and initial things that are striking.

What exactly did we do? In Johannesburg, we went to the Nelson Mandela and Hector Peterson Museums. The name Mandela doesn't need much explanation, but the second one does. Hector Peterson is a little boy who was shot dead by a riot in Soweto in the mid 1970's. An anonymous journalist took a photo of the boy being carried across street in the midst of the riot. That photo became famous and embodied what happened in Soweto that day. At this point in time, the apartheid government had been in power for 20 years. They had previously decided that it wasn't important for blacks to learn math and writing skills only how to mine and to farm. They also decided that blacks wouldn't be allowed to travel outside of their township without permission. Growing bolder, in the 1970's they said that all schools in the black townships had to teach Afrikaans (a mix of Dutch, German and Belgian). Students resisted and organized a protest where they were all going to march from the township to a soccer stadium. They never got there because the Afrikaaner police unleashed fire and killed more than 200 children no older than 12 years old. Seeing all of this in the museum was powerful. What is even more striking is where we went next.

We went to a poorer part of Soweto (here is where you find out that Soweto was a SOuth WEstern TOwnship that is part of Johannesburg that is massively big and riddled with poverty though within it there are some lower middle class and middle class pockets). We visited a school that looked like it had been abandoned. Its windows were shattered, its doors non-existent, its walls sprinkled with gunshot holes and its yard appeared like many of the kids did in the classroom - malnourished. Of all the kids that go to school, 85% of them do not know their parents either because the father is working far away in a mine and the mother has died from AIDS or because the some guy my age raped their mother who abandoned the child. The result is that you have all these kids living in quasi-orphanages with no role models and, for the most part, no future. That is why Real Madrid is throwing a bunch of money to renovate the school so that it can do some after school projects and hopefully link the kids with positive role models that way. Though it is just one school, it is a microcosm of the South African situation. The rest of Johannesburg was meeting with universities. It was fruitful.

Then we went to Pretoria for a few days. We went to nature reserve and saw some zebras and antelope. We passed some time in the swimming pool of the residence where we were staying. We had meetings with government institutions the next day before returning to Jo'burg to wrap some other meetings.

Next, we went to Cape Town for more meetings. The city itself is incredible. There are sidewalks, and it is completely walkable during the day. There are live music venues, bars, diverse restaurants, shopping malls, theater and plenty of life in the city. It is also naturally beautiful with its own waterfront, and the chance to do things like safaris, whale watching, skydiving, cage diving to see Great White Sharks, seal watching, hiking, touring wine lands, driving along the coast and seeing diverse wildlife. We opted for the last two. We drove along the coast to go to the Cape of Good Hope and stopped off in Simon's Town to see some African Penguins.

It is here where I get to say that while I have pictures they do not do justice to the trip. Either the weather sucked when I had my camera on me, or (as was the case in Soweto) I didn't feel comfortable or was too caught in the moment to take the really interesting shots. Regardless, below is the link for photos:

http://s756.photobucket.com/albums/xx208/rbdesimone/Africa%20Africa/?albumview=slideshow

It was a great trip with many memories. South Africa is a fascinating country.

San Cristobal, South Africa and Ulzama

I am gearing up for South Africa. I will take a 12 day trip from March 11th until March 23rd visiting four cities. The purpose of the trip is business. We will be meeting with several individuals at South African think tanks and universities to see what the possibility is that we could do a research partnership with one or more of them. I will be staying at this place called Cotswold Gardens that is right next to the Jo'burg Zoo. It is just a short five days away. It is going to be awesome, terrifc, fantastic, wonderful, sick, mad, etc...

Other bit of news is that I went for a hike yesterday on the Camino de San Cristobal. It was the first hike that I've taken in awhile and the first in Pamplona. It won't be the last. The view from the top of the mountain is pretty neat. You can see the Pyrenees as well as all of the little towns that are around Pamplona. To boot there is an old, abandoned army fort at the the top of the mountain that was also used as a prison camp during the Spanish Civil War. It was pretty creepy to be inside. Regardless, as the weather gets warmer I am animated to take more and more hikes.

After I get back from South Africa on the 23rd, I will go on a four day retreat (25 - 28) to Ulzama (a small village) to spend some time in prayer and silence. I don't know when I will make my next entry then. I will squeeze in what I can. Either way, there should be pictures accompanying some of the following posts.

February

It has been a busy two weeks here in Pamplona. There are two major highlights to speak of:

1) Rome. I went to Rome not this weekend but eight days ago to visit my sister, who is studying abroad there this semester, and my brother, who was visiting here for the week. It was a fantastic time. I got there around 3pm on a Saturday afternoon and had enough time to eat pizza and have some wine with my sister, walk around her neighborhood in Trastevere and walk around Ancient Rome for a bit before having an amazing dinner at this place called Vecchia Locanda. When I say the food was amazing, I don't mean it was just one particular dish. I mean everything including the bread had the same effect on me that those mangos had on George Costanza. After dinner, I went out to get a taste of the Roman nightlife. I went to one hip and trendy bar, a divy student place and then a club. It was a pretty cool night overall. In the morning, I woke up and had a nice breakfast with my sister before heading home. It was an awesome trip though too short. I am very excited for Eastertime now since I will go back to Rome with my parents to visit my sister. It should be spectacular.

2) Getting warmer. By getting warmer I wish I meant that spring was upon us. Unfortunately, the weather in Pamplona is still around the normal winter temperature. It hovers just above or at freezing. What I meant by getting warmer is that if I am going to stay in Pamplona for longer than just this year and if I am going to do the master's and phd like I want, I have always known that I had to thrash out some a solid idea for a potential thesis. Not only does the idea itself have to be compelling, it also must be compatible with the research center here so that I can do the PhD as I keep up with the workflow at the center. I have flirted with several, more specific ideas since January. Common themes that keep recurring are social entrepreneurship and public-private partnerships broadly speaking. I have had some very fruitful conversations with some people recently that are helping to hone more and more what I want to do here. I don't have specifics right now except that I hope to have a very clear proposition by the end of March.

A third thing worth mentioning is that I have been hanging out with what you might call the New York crowd here in Pamplona a lot more. All of us are in a similar boat. We are from New York and came to Pamplona to do research or a degree. It's always good to be around people who have similar struggles.

As you can see, I am continuing to enjoy Pamplona, but think I will be even more comfortable once I have fully warmed up. Hopefully, by the next post, I will be nearly there....

The last 54 days

I am resuming the blog after a long holiday break and what has been three weeks of getting settled back into my life here in Pamplona. Holiday break was amazing. I saw many of whom are probably reading this blog. Now that I live away from home, it was such a blessing to spend Christmas in New York with family and friends. It was absolutely perfect. I much look forward to repeating the experience again and again over the next few years. The holidays are very much time for family and friends so I didn't do anything too eventful beyond the usual eating and celebrating.

I have been back in Pamplona nearly three weeks, and it feels like I never left. At work, things are continuing to pick up. We are on the verge of winning some funding for the center pretty soon, and we are starting to select countries that we will do poverty research on. I am slowly getting very busy. I much like this. In addition to the uptick at work, I am keeping up with the ongoing effort to raise money for Fundacion Profesionales Solidarios. I am hoping that an updated website and some sessions with a graphic designer will give us some better weapons to fundraise. Also, I am going to pursue grants from US foundations since there is real money to be had here. The last little project that I have going is trying to set up some activities here in Pamplona for doctoral students. The effort is coming along nicely and is finally starting to bear fruit. I have organized a small speaker series of sorts. I hope that some sporting events and weekend getaways will also be in the miss, but not only do things happen slowly in Spain. All new things take time. I am wrestling with it.

Socially I am enjoying Pamplona more and more as I appreciate it for what it is worth. It is a quiet town, but I know enough people to enjoy it. Because winter has a way of making people stay indoors, I have been doing my best to try and learn how to cook a few extra dishes in addition to catching up on some reading. In two weeks, I go to Rome for the weekend. I am beyond excited about that. I will be visiting my sister who is studying there and brother who will be in town for the week. At the conclusion of that trip, I will surely have more photos to upload.

Speaking of photos, below is a slideshow I put together explaining the foundation's work and their projects over the 2009 year. Enjoy it...

http://s993.photobucket.com/albums/af60/funapros/funapros%202009/?albumview=slideshow

Last note is that I am continuing to think long-term about doing a doctoral thesis out here. My interest is in how to build an institution. Within that, I am still trying to flesh out exactly where I wish to go. The good news is that by May I hope to have a plan in place as to how I will do it. I also hope to have a theme picked out by then. You will be posted as the idea kicks around my head.

Now, that I am back I hope to resume the regularity of doing an entry every week. Write to you then...

The holiday home stretch

Been an extremely busy couple of weeks over here. I am working from Pamplona on a freelance project for one of my old bosses in New York. I have had to grade 240, 15-page long essays for the class that I am assisting for as well as doing some research for work about different think tanks in South Africa. In the midst of all that going on, the day before Thanksgiving, my old roommate from New York, Kevin Correnti, came to Spain because he was going to become a Godfather to his best friend's son. He stopped in Pamplona for a day and it was great to see him. We went to an Asador, the Spanish version of a steakhouse for lunch, and had way too much food. Then, we walked it off as I showed him around Pamplona before having tapas for dinner to finish off the night. The next day was Thanksgiving, and there was a party that an American guy threw that about 40 people went to. It may not have had the Thanksgiving flavor that I am used to, but it was a great night. Everybody was in a really festive mood because it was a holiday. Following Thanksgiving, it was a long weekend here in Pamplona for the Feast of San Saturnalia. I had the chance to go to a small town called Tafalla just outside of Pamplona and it was really neat. There are a lot of small towns with populations between 5000 and 10,000 outside of Pamplona that are really old and have majestic feels to them. I think that I am going to go to some of these small towns in the spring time when the weather is warmer and the charm is no dobut bigger. After the long weekend, it started an 8 day long Novena here at the university in preparation for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. What that means is that for 8 consecutive days there is a Mass celebrated in the gymnasium of the university. Every night, over 1000 people came to Mass, and, though it might not have the same commercial touch that New York has during Christmas it was definitely a great way to kick off the holiday season. Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception so there will be a huge Mass celebrated in Pamplona's cathedral today. This Thursday, I have a banquet to go to for the foundation that I have been collaborating with. Because I am from New York, they have asked me to say just a few remarks in Spanish to the audience. The banquet is an appreciation dinner for their donors, and so, I am just a bit nervous to be speaking Spanish to such an important group of people. Regardless, I think it is a pretty cool opportunity. On Saturday, I have organized, after months of planning, a small event to get a bunch of doctorate students together and talk about the possibility of planning a series of events with them so that we all can meet more people. After that, I will be only 10 days away from December 22nd, which is the day I come home. In those 10 days, I will be in full wrap up mode tying loose ends here in Pamplona and sending out my Christmas salutations. I will also spend a short weekend in Salamanca on the 19th and 20th to reunite with old friends. Then, I come home from the 22nd until the 7th to do very American things. That has been the last two weeks and a preview of the next month. This is definitely going to be the last blog of the year since when I go home I can tell you all in person about life here. I will pick up in January 2010 and let you know how the holidays were and where I hope the year takes me. So, though it might be premature...

Merry Christmas to all!

Thanksgiving week

Hard to believe that I am here three months exactly as of Thanksgiving day. Things have certainly moved at a dizzying pace even if I am not in New York anymore. The major news this week is in two developments. First, I have to grade nearly 250 student essays for a political economy course at the university, which is part of my job here at the center. It is about as exciting as it sounds. Do the math. 250 essays at 15 pages each and grading is not something you can skim. It requires attention to detail. I am trying to mow through as fast as I can no matter how painful it is. Second development is that the gentleman who helped me find my apartment here in Pamplona is back in town because he has to take exams. He is originally from Valladolid, which is close by Salamanca. When he finishes up with his exams, I think I am going to make the trip out West to go back to Salamanca and visit old friends on December 18th - 20th. My first weeks here I travelled a lot. I went to San Sebastian, Torreciudad, Barcelona and Madrid, but since then work has picked up as has my social life. So I haven't been out of Pamplona in six weeks or so. That trip to Salamanca will be very overdue. In the meantime, I am looking forward to Thanksgiving day because a bunch of Americans here are all going to congregate at somebody's apartment and have a gigantic pot luck Thanksgiving including a turkey. Everyone who is going is already very excited about it. The only thing that we will be missing is some sweet potato pie, but I am happy enough to have turkey on Thanksgiving day in Spain. There should be about 25 people over so it will be an absolute ton of fun. We are going to stream the football games too so it will be a proper Thanksgiving. I will be sure to let you know how it turns out...

Just who have I been meeting?

I have calmed down a bit with taking trips, and a nice routine has developed over the past month. I have written plenty about the types of work I am doing, but not so much about who I have met. I will try and do that some justice now. Problem is where to start. I met a Spaniard during some lecture I went to about different personality types here at the university. Over the course of the semester, I have hung out with him a bunch and play Padel (a Spanish sport that is a mix of raquetball and tennis) with him from time to time. He is due to graduate in December. There are a bunch of guys who live in a house here, YESA, that I also visit quite frequently. Besides that, the rest of who I am meeting tend to be international people. The guy that I work next to is from New Jersey and we have things in common. It is also nice when you are so far from home to have someone who knows exactly what you are talking about. There are also a couple of other Americans who are in the Master's program here or that are also research assistants at the university who drop in to talk to us from time to time. There is a long grocery list of other interesting people that I have met and talk to on a regular basis now. They range from a PhD candidate in Finance here at the university who was has Taiwanese parents, was born in Australia and has spent most of his life in Hong Kong. A Chilean studying a master's degree in psychology and higher education. A Peruvian doing a PhD at the very institute that I hope to get mine from and a Nicaraguan who has already completed her PhD and is now living in Pamplona for at least a year. The list does go on, but I don't want to be repetitive. I just hope to give you a flavor of who I meeting. What is more interesting is that I am starting to become friends with some of these people as well, but these things do take time...

Back on my feet

I am feeling 100% again, and so it is back to normal here in Pamplona. As promised, I am going to tell you all about the past month more or less. Between being busy here or sick, I have fallen behind a bit on the blog. Excuses aside, here is a proper if overdue entry.

A Spanish friend of mine made a very interesting comment to me this week. He said that I am very accustomed to results. I have lived my entire life in the Tri-State area or New York, and I am used to doing things by starting at point A and going to point B. I always have the end goal in mind. He went on to say that my challenge is to learn that Spain is not like that. People start from point A, but very often have no point B in mind. The process seems to matter more than the results.

In all of my activities of the past three months, nothing can be more true than what my Spanish friend had said to me. At work, I have been constantly looking for projects to get myself involved in and things to do. While there has been a sufficient stream of proposals to write, there are no projects. Building a research team and carrying through the project, is much more adventurous. Rather than doing specific tasks, my job is slowly - very slowly - evolving into more about forming and managing relationships with professors at the university, my boss and other researchers. Any projects like proposal writing take a backseat to the relationships.

Equally, in my collaboration at the foundation, I am trying to help them do some fundraising. My first questions were how much do they need and when. Their responses were as much as we need as long as it takes. As you can see, this is not the aggressive mentality of goal-setting that I have grown accustomed to. I am realizing that in the plans that I formulate for the foundation, they are more interested about how they are going to do it and the sustainability of the efforts rather than getting the money. Their time horizon is longer and so they aren't so short-sighted as to only worry about the money they need in the next three months.

Also, in trying to setup activities for doctorates here in Spain, I knew I was in over my head, but I was committed to creating a more social atmosphere. I am at this brilliant school. It would be a tragedy not to know the other brilliant minds here too. At the moment, there is no infrastructure to do that. There are no clubs for researchers or sports teams or excursions. Researchers have their computers and their coffees, but little else. To this end, I was focused on trying to develop infrastructure and create activities for the researchers in the form of happy hours (or at least the form of it that exists in Spain), lunches, sporting events, weekend trips, etc. After consulting a few people here though, I learned my approach was all wrong. To create a social atmosphere, it is first more important to form a group of five people who want to do the same activities just in the small group of five. Over time, the group will become more close-knit. As we become close-knit, we can invite more people into the group. Eventually, it reaches a size where we can organize larger events that will have the same close-knit spirit of the original group of five. Obviously, this isn't a very American mindset.

And so, the lessons keep piling up here in Spain. I have realized how fusing my very American ideas with some Spanish know-how is creating hopefully some interesting ideas. Doing all of these things, I haven't found much time to travel. I have been getting to know Pamplona as well as my friends more and more, but have been too busy to knock out an entire weekend in a city. I was going to with some friends to a mountain lodge this weekend to get away from the city, but I have to proctor an exam for a political economy course on Saturday (I feel really bad for the students, but they have Saturday exams here). I am hoping to make a trip to Salamanca to visit old friends sometime in December, but for now I am content to be working on these activities here in Pamplona.

One other bit of news is that I am almost sure that I am going to try and do a master's program here. The degree would be at the university's business and humanism, and would help me flesh out my ideas better about what the exact role should be between business, governments and the general public and the non-profit world. I would not start it until January 2011 at the earliest. After some years of study here, my hope is to come back to New York to put the ideas to good use.

There are two major barriers: financial obstacles and a language barrier. Time is on my side. I am hoping that in the 13 months I have, I will be able to be fluent in Spanish and find the necessary funds to make this hope a reality.

As of this writing, this is my 72nd day in Pamplona, and I am already amazed at what I have done, who I have met and what I have learned. There is no doubt that there are more people to meet and things to do. I just hope I can slow down enough/become Spanish enough to enjoy it.

(In case you are wondering, while I love it here I also love home and miss it dearly. I will be back from Dec. 22nd to Jan. 6th to do nothing but American things.)

A small bump in the road

As you can see from my previous entries, things are awesome here. The past two weeks I really came to appreciate how good I had it. Between work, the foundation that I hooked up with here as well as ever trying to meet people and learn more Spanish, I was never bored. Everyday had its own version of excitement. The excitement (as well as my luck) seems to have caught up with me though as I have spent all of this week fighting off a fever and other flu-like symptoms. Obviously, this explains my silence on the blog posts the past two weeks. When I bounce back to normal, I will have much more to tell as I am starting to envision a stay in Spain of maybe longer than just one year. However, all plans and activities are on hold until I can leave my bed without feeling like I am going to collapse - unfortunately, that last comment is not being dramatic either. It has only been today where I felt that walking more than 10 feet was detrimental to my health. I hate being weak...

Cada Vida Importa

http://www.diariodenavarra.es/20091018/nacional/masiva-manifestacion-favor-vida.html?not=2009101802465988&idnot=2009101802465988&dia=20091018&seccion=nacional&seccion2=sociedad&chnl=30

Barcelona photos

http://s756.photobucket.com/albums/xx208/rbdesimone/Barcelona/?albumview=slideshow

Comfort and discomfort

For the early part of the week, I took two stabs at meeting new people one of which was potentially successful and the other not so much.

First for the one that didn't go so well...my idea was that in volunteering with Ice Hockey in Harlem in New York I met many contacts while doing a good thing. I will always remember my time there and will definitely go back to it if I can. Having such a good experience I thought volunteering with kids here in Spain would also be a good idea. The university hooks people up with volunteer opportunities through its ayuda social program. I signed up for it, interviewed for it and was placed in a program at a rehabilitation school for kids. Little did I know but found out when I got there that the kids were severely mentally challenged and my task was to try and help them play a simple game with four other Spanish volunteers (university undergraduates). May I say first that it is an incredible thing that the university sets up. Those kids definitely enjoy the hour that is spent with them and they like the sport. That said, I was extremely uncomfortable because I'd never been around kids like that in my life before and really didn't know what to do. I felt like I was more of a waste than anything else. No when I feel like that my guy reaction is to persevere and get comfortable except my time is limited and I can only do one volunteer project and the other thing, the potentially successful one, has me much more excited so I am going to chase that up.

What is it? Fundacion de Profesionales Solidarios is a Spanish organization that tries to promote the cause of international development by hosting local culutral activities in Pamplona, conferences in Spain and runs international programs in the Congo and Nicaragua primarily. There is a staff of 6 people and a team of 60 collaborators. I was very interested not only in the cause, but also because it is the perfect complement to my job. My job is very top-down. It approaches poverty by trying to solve it on a policy level by affecting the lives of millions people. The organization is very bottom-up. It tries to life people out of poverty by affecting 100 or so lives directly. For that I think it is a perfect fit for me. I have an interview tomorrow to see exactly what a non-native Spanish speaker can do for them so I have my fingers crossed.

In other news, this weekend was a holiday weekend here in Spain as they celebrate their culture on October 12th. I spent the weekend in Barcelona which was great. We rented a car, saw cool sights even though we stayed for cheap overnight in a bungalo that was the equivalent of a trailer park. Still, pictures are the best way to tell how much fun a trip was and I hope you'll see from mine that I enjoyed Barcelona for the most part (except when I was hungry which is when I really look pissed in the photos because...I was). Anyway, I'll post the link to the photos soon. I haven't had a chance to upload all of them to Photobucket yet.

Groin pulls, The Dark Knight, Madrid!, But not quite...

Week started off well. I played in a soccer game with a group of 10 other guys. They were all quite good and I enjoyed just trying to keep up with them. The problem is that I couldn't. As you know, Americans suck at soccer. The Spaniards, on the other hand, can dribble like the ball is glued to their feet. When I tried to imitate them, bad things happened. The first time I passed it to other team. The second time I ran into my own player, and, the third time, I pulled my groin. That ended that.

If you remember this time last year, The Dark Knight was finally winding down from grossing the buckets of money it did over the summer. A year later it is not forgotten, but it is certainly old news except to me. I love it and watch it every chance I get. So I was quite excited this week when the TA that I work with announced that he was going to put The Dark Knight on his projector and make a movie night out of it. He lives with a Spaniard who has girlfriend visiting quite often. The four of us got together and watched the movie. With his projector, the screen was nearly the size of all. We were all in lounge chairs. It is effectively a home theater. I was in heaven.

The morning after the movie I was really excited. A friend of mine from AMR, Jason, told me that he was coming to Madrid for the weekend and that I should come to meet up with him. An old friend + weekend in Madrid was a no brainer to me. So I went ahead and bought bus ticket and booked a hotel room for the night. I worked the rest of the day very much anticipating how much fun it would be.

But the following day my boss came in and told me that it was going to be a long weekend because we had to crank out a proposal to submit to the university. I was a bit annoyed that I had burned my money...that's life though.

I sucked it up and worked quite hard during the entire weekend. On Saturday, my boss took me to lunch at one of the nicest restaurants in Pamplona. Red meat, red wine and sorbet. Wasn't a bad lunch break. Also, because I worked with him all weekend I learned a lot more about what he was going to need me to do and what his plans are for the center. It reaffirmed some of the things I thought when I first took the job. I am going to be in touch with phd's all over the world and try to coordinate research efforts. I am going to be expected to explain sophisticated research to senior level people at foundations and governments who just don't have the time to listen. I also being playing with PowerPoint quite a bit. I am content though. Everything is very interesting and I am happy to be here.

It is only a question of time before I go back out to Madrid.

Hasta luego...

One month in

One month ago today I was in the air on my flight(s) from New York to Pamplona. Work is getting more interesting and as The Center slowly develops, but the most exciting highlights this week are about the social scene in Pamplona. On Thursday night, I went to an international networking event and met all types of different people. From Honduras to Taiwan to Spain to the US, there were plenty of people to meet and I got a kick out of it all. Friday night was more of the same as I went to a house party that included people from Russia, Poland, Colombia and Canada. There is definitely a big international scene here and I am happy that I have been able to play a part in it. For the weekend, I went to San Sebastian with a group of Spaniards and Colombians - ten of us to be exact. One of the Spaniards is a member of a gastronomical society there in San Sebastian and so we enjoyed a big meal of pasta, steak and peppers. To boot, the weather has been perfect the past few days. I am enjoying it before the fall it begins to chilly. I know this is a short entry, but I plan to do some travelling the next few weekends so the next few posts should have more in the way of pictures and text. For now, the past week and the upcoming week have much the same theme...work and play as much as possible

HASTA LUEGO

Getting busy and making friends

The third week here (September 13 - 20) started off fantastically. I was able to deposit the first portion of my scholarship at the bank, finsish the last of my orientation at work, and, in the evening, I grabbed a few beers with a Colombian that I met here, Camilo. He got me very enthused for two reasons: 1) I was actually able to converse in Spanish with him without having to pause and ask him about what certain phrases or words meant (I love the Colombian accent >>> very neutral and much easier to understand than other Latin American countries), and 2) he told me all kinds of stories about how cheap it is to travel in Spain. Namely, one of his buddies rented a car during Easter season last year for 12 days driving from Madrid to Rome for 175 euros. Split between four people that is roughly 40 euros for a car for two weeks. I am going to look into it for sure...

The next highlight of the week came in the middle of the week. When I first got here, I joined an entrepreneurship club at the school. This week they had their first meeting and I attended. A Spanish entrepreneur was invited to come speak to us so that we could learn more about his business and ourselves at the same time. His name is Carlos Andreu, and, from what I understood in Spanish, he founded a business making all sorts of personality tests designed to teach people more about themselves. To demonstrate the effectiveness of his tests, he had everyone in the club take a test. The test was pretty simple. We answered eleven questions about ourselves regarding which character traits we had more of relative to other ones. After the questions, there is a scoring system to help you decode which personality you have. I scored an 11. That number is a Conductor Personality. Conductors are typically people who are very aggressive, demanding, active, energetic and ordered. To illustrate each personality there was an historical figure associated with it. The person most identified as a Conductor Personality is Adolf Hitler. Imagine my shock and the horror of those next to me when this was revealed. Regardless, I managed to play it down and make a friend...more on that in a moment

Week ended with a bang at the office, in the gym and at the bar. At the office, I found out what my first two projects are going to be. I have to find out a list of donors in the funding world who would be interested in giving our center money and I have to find out experts in international development who would be interested in collaborating with us. In short, I have to find strategies for getting money and making friends for the center. Additionally, I am a TA for a World Economy course, which is a bit of a chore, but hopefully I don't have to grade any papers. In the gym, I received an invitation to play soccer from my Colombian buddy and his friends who are a mix of people from South America and Spain. We played soccer for 2.5 hours in the gym and it was awesome. And I didn't suck as much as I thought relative to the Europeans. Also, I played a sport called Padel that same day(a version of tennis and raquetball - Youtube it if you are curious. At the bar I met up with the friend I made from the entrepreneurship club who showed me around Pamplona at night. Apparently, a typical Saturday night means dinner at 11, a coffee until 1, the bar from 1 to 4 and then a club from 4 to 6. We only stayed out until 2.30...I am going to have to build up my stamina.

Incredibly happy to be here...

HASTA LUEGO!!!!!!!

Pamplona - the first two weeks

Friday, August 28th 6:25pm
I arrive in Pamplona after taking Metronorth to Grand Central, a cab to Newark, a flight to Frankfurt, a two hour layover, flight to Madrid, crawling around Madrid's metro for an hour, and a final train ride from Madrid Atocha to Pamplona. I caught a cab from the train station in Pamplona to the dorm residence where I was going to be staying for the first week. That same evening, the first leg of the Champions League was about to begin and I got to watch Barcelona with the directors of the dorm residence (equivalent to RA's) as we ate tapas and pinchos. Fighting jet leg, I went to bed hoping to sleep.

Saturday, August 29th
I was in bad need of buying clothes as I had packed superlight. After I woke up and had breakfast, I went out to shop for some clothes. One of the guys who was living at the dorm had some free time and was nice enough to show me around the city and then take me to a department store. At the department store, he became a little bashful. When I asked him why he told me that it does not look very good in Spain when two guys go to a store together and one is buying underwear while the other one watches him. After shopping and trying to get as immediately comfortable as I could with Spanish, I had lunch and then met a friend of friend that I knew from NY and he was able to show me around Pamplona. He gave me a true tour showing me the historic parts as well as the newer ones. With all the shopping and walking and Spanish, I have dinner and go to bed early again craving sleep as jet lag has not fully worn off.

Sunday, August 30th
Here is what you have to love about Pamplona. Everything closes on Sundays. Today also was move-in day for the entire university so students were filtering in all day. Since I am staying in the dorm, I hung out by the pool that they have just outside the dorm and enjoyed a barbecue.

Monday, August 31st
The first day of what you can call work, but it isn't really work. My boss gave me a binder full of stuff to read and websites to visit and told me to get to know the development world. So I spend all day skimming through the binder and getting familiar with it. I also meet some of the professors I'll be working with and finish filling out paperwork for the research commission

Tuesday, September 1st
The first day of classes at the university so the beginning of the year buzz that comes with it is in full swing. For me, that beginning of the year buzz meant a bit of a culture shock. As students get oriented to classes, I got oriented to Pamplona - the hard way. I wanted to go and buy a cell phone, open a bank account and get my residence card. I wanted all these errands out of the way. After going to a bank and a cell phone store and getting rejected because I didn't have my residence card, I called the police station seeing if I needed an appointment or not. They told me that I had the wrong number and that I needed to go to the police station for immigrants and not Spanish nationals. Not knowing the difference or how to find the second one, the morning had already passed. I spend the afternoon at work deciding it was better to do something rather than nothing. That evening, my boss informs me that the apartment he arranged for me to have is ready for viewing. I make an appointment with the former tenant to view the apartment. I meet him at around 7pm. It turns out that he is an American citizen who grew up in Spain named Matthew. His father is a New Yorker, former Wall St. lawyer / banker, that moved to Spain after meeting a Spanish girl in The States. The result is that he spoke English quite well and while I was supposed to meet him to sign a contract we decided to go out for dinner and beers. The deal is that he signed a lease to live in the apartment in May. At that time, he and his girlfriend planned to get an LLM in law this year at the university. Over summer, things changed and they decided that they already spent 4 years at Navarra getting a bachelor's so it is best to get a master's elsewhere. He opted to go to Fordham (that's right, Fordham in NYC) and she opted for school back in Ecuador (her home country). By the time August came around, he needed someone to assume his portion of the lease. Enter me. The timing worked out beautifully and I was grateful to be able to speak in English so that I understood all details about the contract. He is leaving for NY in January and will live with his parents in Valladolid until then. With that out of the way, we had Flautas for dinner and then went to an Irish pub for some rum and coke.

Wednesday, September 2nd
Instead of running around Pamplona looking for a police station, I go to the university's international office to see what I did wrong yesterday. They told me that there is someone who can help me get a bank account, cell phone, and residence card without the headache it would take of me doing it by myself. The name of this someone is Aires Vaz. He tells me all that I need to do. I feel more relaxed after talking with him. That evening, I go out with my future roommates and Matthew.

Thursday, September 3rd
In the morning, I get a bank account and cell phone as well as signing the contract to the apartment. I move out of the dorm I was staying in and into the apartment. I stay up late moving things around in my new apartment.

Friday, September 4th
I got no sleep the previous night, but am happy to have an apartment, bank account and cell phone now. I spend the day getting to know different campus services as well as its gym. During the afternoon, I can continue reading the binder of information my boss gave me. I go to bed early.

Saturday, September 5th
More walking around the city trying to get to know it better. I buy some things for my apartment like bed sheets.

Sunday, September 6th
Feeling like the adventure of the first few days is over and enjoyed Skyping with family while recharging my batteries.

Monday, September 7th
I spend my first real morning at work. At this point, I have read everything and can try to start to digest it. My boss takes me out for lunch, and answers questions that I have as well as to see how I am adjusting. From him I find out that my major task of the next week is to figure out how the development world works in terms of who the major players are and how policy is influenced by research and idea generation. At least now I have a project.

Tuesday, September 8th
A routine is emerging at work. This morning though I am pleasantly surprised that instead of working by myself in an office there are two people that are going to be there as well. One is there only part-time. He is the web master for the Economics Department. The other is a TA from New Jersey at the university on a scholarship like myself. The TA is a nice guy despite his home state. That evening I go to the equivalent of a prayer group. The university is uber-Catholic since it is run by Opus Dei. There are several centers on and off campus. I go to one called YESA in the hopes of meeting people and because I like it.

Wednesday, September 9th
I go to Town Hall in the morning to register with the city. They give me a paper verifying my residence. I know have everything that I need for a residence card except a letter for the university and an appointment with the police station. I will spend the next few days chasing that letter in various offices to no avail. I will get it once I cut through all the university red tape. It is just proving difficult at the moment. That night I go out for beers and pinchos with the guy from New Jersey, Mike, and his roommates who are also all Spanish.

Thursday, September 10th
More running around trying to find get the letter I need from the university. I hate bureaucracies and now I know why. The university is closed tomorrow so I temporarily decide to stop chasing the letter until Monday. I finish reading a few things for work before calling it a day. I meet a Phillippina woman for lunch that I met while I was waiting online to go the international office the other day. She has worked in South Africa doing women's empowerment work for a foundation down there. She had lots of interesting stuff to say as well as advice about being an immigrant in Pamplona. I didn't get a bunch of sleep the previous night and decide to take advantage of the day off by not setting my alarm for bright and early like usual.

Friday, September 11th
It pisses me off that all the news channels here show footage from September 11th (quite graphic) of when the planes first hit. Regardless, the morning is a bit somber because of it. I shake it off after lunch and go out into Pamplona to take pictures of the city for all of you to see. Check 'em out:

http://s756.photobucket.com/albums/xx208/rbdesimone/Pamplona%20-%20first%20few%20weeks/?albumview=slideshow

Saturday, September 12th
Today I get up at 6.30am to meet a couple of guys that I have met at YESA. There are four of us and we are making a trip to Torreciudad for the 20th Marian Celebration for the Family. Basically, Torreciudad is a place where there is a 1000 year old shrine to the Virgin Mary and, in recent years, a sanctuary and seminary has been built around it. A ton of people go every year on the second Saturday in September with their family to celebrate just that - family. I get a big kick out of it. We drive from about 7.30am until 10.30am. We get there in time for snacks and to walk around the Sanctuary. Then there is a Mass. The Mass celebration is huge and is said by the Bishop of Burgos. In other words, it is a huge deal to the people around here. After Mass, there is tons of food. The Spanish guys brought a few Spanish pastries for me to try. I wouldn't say that they topped Cannoli's, but I would say that they were damn good. During the evening thousands of people gather around to say the Rosary and recite a closing prayer. You certainly won't find anything like this in New York unless the Pope comes to visit. As you can in the photos, it was very serene up there and I had a great time. We left at about 6pm, stopped off in the small town of Ayerbe for a coffee and got home at 10pm. It was just in time for me to watch Sevilla play Zaragoza in La Liga. Sevilla won 4 - 1. It was fun to watch though as each goal seemed more spectacular than the next. Check out the photos I took:

http://s756.photobucket.com/albums/xx208/rbdesimone/Torreciudad/?albumview=slideshow

Sunday, September 13th
I write this blog and begin downloading photos on my computer...I am not planning on doing an entry a day, but from this point forward blog about the happenings of each week. I just wanted to run down the first few days because they have been exciting, frustrating and a blur all at once. Now that the the year is fully underway and I am pretty much situated, I press onward with the intention of working hard while trying to meet as many people as I can.

HASTA LUEGO!!!!!!!