First full day of work, first walk alone (just the IBM ADEC team, no locals or CDS guides) to and from ADEC, first meal with no fluent Spanish speaker, first trip to el supermercado with no Spanish speaker.  We didn’t get lost, managed to eat lunch, and I even bought some avocados and oranges for snack; small successes.

We had a very productive day at work, speaking with Rodolfo and learning about the Competitive Fund managed by ADEC.  Big thanks to Isabel, who spent hours translating between Rodolfo and our team.  I find it very interesting but also mentally draining to process all the information they are providing. I cannot even imagine how exhausting it might be to translate for hours on end.

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to gather our thoughts, discuss, and review the stated activities and deliverables with the statement of work based on our discussions with the ADEC team so far.  For a small organization, ADEC is very complex in terms of the different areas and diversity of projects and programs they provide, and every time we delve more into the details, additional questions arise.  Just add it to the list for tomorrow’s discussions.

Sorry I don’t have pictures of anything work related, or really anything at all, over the past two days.  As Ryan can tell you, I’m not the best at taking photos.  Luckily, other team members are.  Here’s a link to Edwin’s blog with some fun photos of the orientation and kick-off event.  You may need a Tumblr account to view it.

I talked (actually FaceTimed) with my parents this evening for the first time since I’ve been in Argentina.  The connection was a little inconsistent, it would be really good, and then very slow or we’d lose video, but good enough to get the message across.  My mom said that she now reads my blog to my Nan every day.  Talk about being guilted into blogging on a regular basis.  Hello Nan!

#ibmcsc argentina