Getting Down to Business

As I write this morning the Islamic call to prayer has begun. It's beautiful to hear. I've started looking forward to hearing it throughout the day. At the prompting of some friends on Facebook it has also given me pause to pray,

Tuesday was our first day to be full-time on our projects. Our group is meeting later than others. Many are working 7:30-4:00 or something similar. We are working 8:00-5:00. So, I was able to have a nicely leisurely morning around the hotel. I spent quite a long time at breakfast visiting with team members as they came and went.

Monday after work I stopped at the hotel's club member desk to get help with logging into the internet. I joined the hotel's club prior to the trip because it is part of the Sofitel group and figure I'm here long enough I might as well rack up some points. As part of being a member I can login differently and get higher data speed on the internet. While the women at the desk was helping me she was also asking general questions about my stay and how things have been. One question she asked was if there was anything lacking at breakfast that I would enjoy having. I told her breakfast was great and mentioned one of the things I enjoy most is cheese. A note here...there was cheese at the breakfast buffet and so I was happy. Move to Tuesday morning's breakfast. I go around the buffet and gather what I want and sit at the table. Soon after a personalized cheese plate with four different types of cheese was brought to my table. The service at this hotel is incredible.

My Solo Techno Park teammate, our project assistant and one of the STP head of marketing and training.

This week for work we are gathering data through interviews with staff members and other stakeholders - such as alumni, current students and businesses who hire interns or graduates. Today, we had interviews with the head of marketing and training and the head of the incubator. The morning session went really well, I feel like we gathered a lot of good information and had a good conversation. (Another note here...we have a project assistant who does translating for us along with many other things. She spends a large part of her day switching between Bahasa and English so everyone is able to communicate. She is amazing and I will write more about her later.) The afternoon meeting was fairly frustrating. I think several things led to this. Boiling it down it had to do with communication issues and getting things translated to the STP employees and back to us. There was a lot of conversation that we were not "in on." I think the topic was so complex that it was difficult to translate our questions to them and to translate their ideas and thoughts to us. We still got good information from them, but it just made for a long afternoon. After we were finished with work Bapak Sumadi, the head of STP, gave us a ride back to the hotel.

One thing I am struggling with are the names of the people we are working with. The three main people we are working with all have names that begin with S - Sumandi, Susilo and Sutrisno. I'm struggling enough with the language and having a difficult time remembering their names. Candra, our PA, mentioned to me the other day that she thinks Bahasa in pretty easy to learn. I told her yesterday the words have too many syllables for me to be anywhere close to understanding anything that is said. I do hope by the end of the project I am able to recognize a few words and maybe even some phrases.

A group of four of us went and had Italian for dinner. It was a nice change from the local cuisine and so tasty! The smaller group also led to better conversation. It was a great way to cap off a long, but productive day.

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