Recently in Life away from home Category

The Brazilian people are known worldwide for their hospitality. As a journalist, I've had the privilege of visiting Brazil three times during my career.

The latest trip in November was to Sao Paolo, and then to Ribeirao Preto - a major sugarcane and agricultural municipality about an hour's flight from the big city.

It's one thing to get great treatment from your hosts - in this case it was UNICA, the Brazilian sugarcane industry association - but it's another thing when you're off entirely on your own.

And so I was, breaking off from the group in Riberao Preto after the sugarcane ethanol plant and sugarcane field tour to look for an Internet cafe to file my online stories.

The group was at a famous open-air restaurant and cafe called Pinguim (Penguin - pictured) where we would lounge around for hours until the shuttle bus took us to the airport.

But getting some directions to the nearest Internet cafe, I took off and also got a chance to explore the town. Following directions is not my forte - just ask my wife. When I arrived at where I thought I should be, I walked into a modern looking store with a some computers and friendly staff.

No one spoke English - and why should they? It's a local town with few if any tourists.

But with my broken Spanish and not a lick of the local Portuguese language , I managed to convey my desire to get onto the Internet.

The friendly staff accomodated, but once I sat down at the computer terminal, the realization sunk in that this was not an Internet cafe, but something like a mobile phone store.

So the staff gave me a computer terminal to use in the middle of their showroom floor - a computer supposed to be used for staff and customers.

Not looking the gift horse in the mouth, I busily typed away, filing my stories and catching up with the wife. Before I knew it, after having been there for almost two hours, I was handed a phone - a call for me? Here, in the store? Really?

"Hello? It's Joe from ICIS," I said. On the other end: "Hello Joe. I'm so sorry, but we need to close the store now."

Apparently the staff had called someone who could speak English and tell me the store was closing. I would have thought anyone else should have employed the universal language of kicking someone out - no English required!

I was so grateful and amazed at their hospitality and tolerance of a silly tourist with a notepad thinking this was the place to use the computer.

Ever helpful to the end, as the store closed, one of the staff pointed me to the real Internet cafe - across the street.

 

Photo credit: Sites-do-Brasil.com

BY SPECIAL GUEST CAROL PICCARO, PRESIDENT AND CEO, U.S. CHEMICALS

Golf is one of the perks of my business, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to entertain and be entertained on the "almighty" course. While I've learned much about the game and the people I have played with over the last 20 years, this particular day it was a "golf first."

But going back, I still remember the day a very patient supplier offered to teach me the sport. I felt like I was just admitted to "the club." And I was hooked. I wanted to have all future meetings outside, without desks or tables, phones or Blackberries - just walking down the course, sharing stories.

What luck to be out of the office, enjoying some of the most wonderful settings in the country - and all this for "work!"

Being in the chemical distribution industry, most of my golf rounds are with men. Therefore, I have a wonderful advantage at golf outings, especially when the longest drive competition is not gender-segregated.

In many cases, the women's tee box is a generous 150 yards in front of the men's. You connect, and you may very well be the recipient of a dozen golf balls and winner of the coveted "longest drive" competition. But then at the 19th hole, all the participants hoot and holler that a woman won the honor, which makes for a long walk to receive the prize.

I felt compelled to write this after traveling to Ohio to play golf with a vendor. Once again, I was the sole female golfer. I accepted the invite and agreed that caddies would be a treat.

I appreciate caddies and enjoy their company, as they move the game along, save time ball searching, and help with reading putts, yardage, and providing advice when choosing a golf club. Playing golf is similar to running a company - you need the assistance of a great caddie to shoulder the load.

As we walked up to our first tee, I was blown away to find four young, attractive women as our caddies. Each girl was more pleasant than the next, with a smile from ear to ear. They gladly embraced the work on a hot afternoon.

And for once, I was not in the minority - I had peers, women, and numbers in my favor! The teasing I received for forward tee boxes or a good drive was now met with five sets of eyes staring down the persecutor. It was a wonderful day, and truly the highlight of this noteworthy golf experience.

Photo credits: U.S. Chemicals, Carol Piccaro

Stephen Burns of the ICIS bureau in Houston writes of his recent trip to Colombia:

 

Many cities are known to us only by reputation. Paris has romance, London has pageantry, Rio de Janeiro has nightlife. Medellin has...Pablo Escobar?

 

It is almost 16 years since the violent death of the drug baron who for much of the world still defines that city. Escobar helped shape the image of chaos that Colombia still struggles to shake off.

 

Here's hoping it can, because the country deserves recognition for the progress that has put it back among the leading economies of Latin America.

 

A bad rap is hard to dislodge, though. Both the opportunities I have had to cover conferences in Colombia - Cartagena in 2004, and Medellin in 2009 - came my way because of the greater prudence of others.

 

The organizer of the latest conference acknowledged that the security issue loomed large for Americans in particular. But attendance from across the region was healthy and the choice of location was generally acclaimed as a success.

 

So what is a journalist with only a couple of spare hours to do in Medellin? Guidebooks talk of markets, the old town centre, and Botero statues.

 

But to a reporter, that would be like going to Rome and not seeing the Coliseum.

The hotel doorman translated my destinations to a taxi driver: Escobar's grave, and the scene of his bloody last stand.

 

Bravado evaporated as I was led across a well-kept cemetery, a magnificent showcase for the local flower industry. Did henchmen still watch over him, and watch over his visitors?  

 

Maybe so...I was surprised to find fresh flowers adorning a large, tidy grave. Later I learned that flowers are placed regularly by those who regard Escobar more as Robin Hood than as evil personified.

 

Escobar shares the wide grave - and the December 2, 1993 date on his headstone - with some relatives. It looks more like a little garden than the portal to hell I had envisaged.

 

The area where Escobar made his last stand was nicer than I expected, too, although the house had obviously been empty for a long time. Graffiti on the walls distinguished it from its neighbors.

 

But the grim look on the faces of two men working on the roof where Escobar died was enough to deter my taxi driver from stopping. On to the chubby Botero statues.

 

It is said that reputations come down in the elevator but go up the stairs. Medellin - and Colombia - found itself a long way down in the basement, but it's definitely moving on up. 

 

Video of Medellin, including Escobar's grave and last hideout: 

You never really notice the convenience of things until they're gone. Such was the case on my vacation to Ireland in August.

Visiting the Emerald Isle for the very first time, and for a week, my wife and I made the capital city of Dublin our home base as we explored the city and took several day tours.

Making a quick run to Supermacs, the fast-food chain bearing a strikingly close resemblance to McDonald's, I ordered four cheeseburgers, fries, some fried chicken, and a coffee and tea to go.

Just your usual unhealthy fast-food order - but lo and behold, no plastic bags for your takeout!

Ireland first slapped a tax on plastic bags in 2002 and usage dropped 90% within months. There are just no plastic bags to be seen anywhere.

Instead of the plastic bag you're used to getting in my home town of New York, you get a flimsy paper bag. Now that's fine for the food, but not ideal for carrying hot drinks back to the hotel.

And at the "convenience" store, whatever you buy, you haul out with your hands and arms - no bag is offered. Good luck carrying several bottles of water, milk, juice, potato chips, a cup of yogurt and a banana.

If you insist on having a bag, it will cost you 22 euro cents there. Call me cheap, but I was loathe to pay for something I'm used to getting for free.

Sure, there could be benefits to taxing plastic bags - the streets do look clean and same for the countryside. Maybe it's worth a bit of inconvenience, but that's debatable.

I missed the convenience of plastic bags. And don't get me started on the napkin situation. Restaurants were very sparing with the napkins, making a messy eater like me look even worse. At a local Burger King, there was a half-joking sign that said that if you took more than 10 napkins, you were a thief!

In August, Mexico City became the latest major metropolis to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags from the retail sector.

In most of the US, many feel it is our God-given right to get a free plastic bag with our purchase - whatever it is!

But then again, we also thought it was our divine right to drive gas-guzzling SUVs fueled with $1/gal gasoline.

 

Photo credit: Yvonne Chang

For five days each year, a few fields in a quiet corner of the UK's West Country becomes a throbbing city of 180,000 people. The Glastonbury Festival of the Performing Arts is a national institution. Started in 1971 by a farmer, Michael Eavis, who had an interest in music, it has grown to become Europe's biggest festival.

Whilst there this year, I started thinking about the organisation and economics of this event, plus its wider impact on the local area and on demand for chemicals.  

At a "meet the organiser" question and answer event, a rather stoned-looking man stood up and said he thought the festival had become a model for a new way of living. He was referring to the "Green Fields" part of the event where people seeking alternatives to conventional lifestyles.

Eavis didn't seem too keen on that idea, but said the festival had been called "the acceptable face of capitalism" because he donates around £2m each year to charities such as Greenpeace and WaterAid.

The local economy must benefit hugely from the festival. There were several hundred stalls selling everything from food to clothes to the "ShePee", which I'll leave to your imagination. Of the 180,000 people attending, 40,000 are workers: a major boost to the economy.     

The huge number of tents covering the site must also stimulate demand for the UK plastics industry: or more likely, China's plastics industry.

"Green" is certainly a key theme of the event. Woe betide anyone trying to avoid the queues at the toilets by hiding behind a bush or hedge. A team of "green police" (see video) wearing British Bobby hats coloured green patrol the site, blowing their whistles and chasing offenders.

The figures for waste produced are staggering. In 2008 the festival recycled 49% or 863.32 tonnes of its waste. This included 193.98 tonnes of composted organic waste, 400 tonnes of chipped wood, 9.12 tonnes of glass, 54 tonnes of cans and plastic bottles, 41 tonnes of cardboard, 66 tonnes of scrap metal, 11.2 tonnes of clothing, tents, sleeping bags, 0.264 tonnes of batteries, 10 tonnes of dense plastic and 0.25 tonnes plastic sheets.

This year the festival also used a fleet of New Holland tractors, all capable of running on 100% biodiesel refined from used cooking oil sourced in the UK.

This year I saw fantastic performances from Prodigy, Will Young, Tom Jones and Neil Young plus DJs like Pete Tong and Deadmau5. Don't tell any of my cool friends, but I also loved Australian legend Rolf Harris!

 

Written by Mike Nash

Two weeks ago, the general mood at the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) annual conference in Shanghai was, for me, established on day one. I was having lunch with a French fertilizer distributor, who when not moodily pushing round the food on his plate with his chopsticks, was making monosyllabic utterances about the pretty dismal state of the fertilizer market in general, and his little corner of it in particular. A few Gallic shrugs later, I'd had enough. It was a long lunch.

By the end of day 1 I was pretty miserable too. And I had two more full days of meetings like this. 

I could understand the misery. Last year, everyone was making pots of cash on the back of booming fertilizer prices, driven by high crop prices, and the mood was buoyant. Now, since the collapse in the financial markets, farmer credit has dried up, crop prices are uncertain and the fertilizer market has seen a near collapse. 2008 was already being consigned to history as a never-to-be-repeated aberration.

It was perhaps the spirit of this masochistic misery that I subconsciously allowed the rather scruffy looking man sitting behind me in a hotel coffee shop to expertly steal my wallet.  Talking with friends and colleagues afterwards, it is quite true that, looking back, you realize exactly when it happened. I remember colliding with the suspect when I got up to go to the bathroom, inadvertently hitting him with my chair.

I like to think of myself as fairly savvy. I've traveled to some pretty dodgy places for work and pleasure and this kind of thing had never happened to me before. The lobby of the Shangri La hotel was not a war zone and there were two colleagues sitting at my table. Surely they would notice anything amiss while I walked to the bathroom, leaving my jacket on my chair?

Alas no. About 10 minutes later as I got up to leave and pay the bill, I realized what had happened. It is a sickening feeling. First there's the frantic call home to the wife, waking her up in the process to ask her to cancel all the credit cards. Then there's anger - what good to him is my gym membership card or my pass at the driving range, all of which needed replacing.

Then a curious calm descends upon you. I became quite sleuth-like, asking for CCTV footage - unfortunately the cameras did not cover the exact scene of the crime. Then I retraced my steps through the lobby, looking under tables and chairs, and getting a few odd looks.

This kind of news ripples through a conference pretty quickly. And the hotel bent over backwards to help. This included commandeering the bell boy, Irwin, who accompanied me to the Shanghai police station in the hotel limo.

While much of urban China has "modernized", let's just say its police stations are stuck firmly in the 1950s. It was like a scene out of a film. The police were clearly having fun with the bell boy. Poor Irwin was patiently trying to explain what had happened, but the policeman on the reception desk kept getting up, only to be replaced by someone else. It was clear a decadent westerner losing his wallet was of little concern to them. I decided to remain patient. Any sign of antagonism would only protract the whole process several hours.

After 20 minutes I was finally allowed into an interview room. Bare white walls, bare desks, no natural light. No air con just a fan which kept blowing my passport onto the floor. There was one attempt to lighten the place up. A potted plant stood forlornly in a corner, unwatered for several days.

There followed a painstaking review of what the wallet contained and what make it was. Time and time again my passport was checked. Fortunately, my visa said businessman rather than journalist. Otherwise I'd still be there today.

Then I described the suspect, my version of events as best I could recall them. This took an hour. At no time did any policeman make eye contact, or acknowledge my presence. It was disconcerting.

Eventually, I got what I had come for. A certificate with a crime number on it so I could claim for my losses back home through insurance.

I remained stoically British to the end, I thought, and went to shake the policeman's hand, who looked totally non-plussed, but eventually offered his hand.

Then the police disappeared to input all the data onto their computers. I was left alone with Irwin, who chirpily started talking about Premier League soccer. He was a Liverpool fan, which made it bearable. God bless Irwin (later in the hotel I filled in a card saying how he had "gone the extra mile" to help a guest). He's probably head bell boy now.  

I resisted the temptation to steal a police cap from the rows upon rows of them I was passing as I left. It would have made for a nice souvenir and would have pleased my son no end.

It all certainly made the conference a little more memorable.

Written by Feliza Mirasol

On my latest family trip, we took to the road for a 10+ hour drive to Toronto, Ontario. I am one of those people who really enjoys long drives, when the weather is clear and you've got a full tank of gas. It feels good to know you can go for miles and miles.

Hitting the road for Canada was once a family tradition. As kids, my parents would drive me and my siblings to our relatives in Toronto and let us stay there for whole summers. So taking this trip up to celebrate our cousin's birthday was in keeping with family tradition.

But as a kid, it didn't occur to me how long road trips like this need planning and money: food, gas, tolls, maps, etc. Where I live, it's fairly easy to find gas stations with competitive prices, and these days, every cent off counts. But on the road, I find you're pretty much at the mercy of whichever gas station you pull into, and despite prices having come down from ridiculously high highs, it can still take a hefty bite out of your wallet.

On this latest road trip, I eschewed the usual "punch buggy" game used to pass the time in lieu of pointing out hybrid cars on the highway. Once or twice we even passed, or were passed, by the cute little Smart Car, which always reminds me of a clown car at the circus for some reason. I was curious of how much of a difference it made to run on electricity and whether those travelers in the hybrids really needed to stop less often as we did.

I've read up somewhat on varying debates on whether hybrid technology is worth the investment when there still exist cars with better fuel efficiency at cheaper prices. However, with the presence of more and more hybrids on the road, at least according to my re-vamped road game, it seems that there is at least a faction of consumers out there willing to do it the new way.

But in the meantime, while the development of even more fuel economic vehicles marches on, and as hybrid technology gets its kinks ironed out, I'll kick it the good ol' road warrior way. Without the GPS and just the roadmap, a wad of gas cash, a loaf of homemade sandwiches in the cooler, and, of course, the Slim Jim's original beef jerky. Canada, here we come, eh!