With great anticipation, I arrived at the Quito airport. A driver was waiting for me outside of customs to take me to the hotel. I don’t speak Spanish, and he didn’t speak English, but we managed to communicate somehow. I was impressed with the new roads out of the airport that are in better shape than most highways I’ve been on in the US lately.
Once we left the airport area and the new highway, the journey became a narrow and winding climb upwards. Even though the speed of the cars around the blind corners made me nervous, I had a smile on my face the entire time. I discovered my hotel offers a spectacular view of the Andes and everyone I have met so far is warm and friendly. I am enchanted and loving it here.
I am working in a team of 12 dedicated SAP colleagues who are part of a SAP Social Sabbatical, in cooperation with partner Pyxera Global. This is an award-winning CSR program designed to help mission-driven organizations around the world.
We work in 4 sub-groups of 3 people each. My team consists of myself from the US, Lucie from the Czech Republic, Karim from Egypt, and Dani from Quito has joined us to help with language translation. Our client is ConQuito, an organization who is passionate about their mission to help develop the economics of Quito. Adrian from ConQuito has joined the team and is with us 100% of the time while we are at the client site. We have all been together for less than a week, but we feel like family already.
The ConQuito building is an old building with beautiful architecture. There are stairs that were challenging initially because of the elevation here. Quito is at almost 10,00 feet, and I was feeling the effects the first few days when exerting myself. Thankfully, I’m adjusting as the days pass. ConQuito has a cafeteria with great food for $3.00. If you continue to climb the hill next to the building, they own a plot of land at the very top where they teach people how to grow food. It’s an amazing place in so many ways!
Although working hard during the day, we try to go out to dinner together each night to talk about the day and spend time together. We managed to take a short trip to the Quito city center this week through the wonderful hospitality of the Pyxera team. Our plans for this weekend include a trip to the edge of the Amazon. We are all excited as we have been working hard this week, and are looking forward to some great adventures.
Stay tuned to see what develops in Week #2 in Quito
