New wheels for Mary

The old Sonata had to go with more than 200,000 clicks. Mary found a nice used Subaru Forester and I will take over the older CRV (also with close to 200,000 kilometers already). Hilary drives also an (even older) Subaru Forester down under in Australia at the moment.

Mary on her way today to visit her Dad in St Thomas......

FC Toronto

Our son Mark and I went to see a game of FC Toronto last night. Good fun and a good atmosphere helped by the fact that TFC won the game with 3-0 and is having a very good season.

Travel back home

After two days of meetings in Maputo and work in my "hotel office" it is time to hit the road again on the way back home. Another day, another plane and another lounge where we try to be comfortable. The life of the international traveler; no complaints though. I like the adventure it is each time...

HE leaders in Mozambique

We completed our three days together with six leaders in Higher Education in Mozambique, a country with a struggling economy and still trying to get over the damage done during a civil war which lasted for more than 30 years. But these six positive leaders work on the skills of the new generations in the country. Proud of being able to do some work with them! Thanks Quinn & Tom.

Day 3 of workshop

Starting Day 3 of our workshop on leadership here in Maputo. Hard to pull ourselves away from the beautiful setting outside.......

But on we go with our training sessions inside the retreat hotel (last day of the three day event). In the meantime back in Toronto my colleagues say goodbye to a training group of educators from the Hunan province in China who spent two weeks at Seneca.

And other colleagues have a small thank you event to the team of student ambassadors who worked the welcome desk of our international offices this summer and our co-op students. At the photo below they are watching my short thank you message taped on somebody's cell phone

Great group of international students literally from every corner of the world. They worked hard the past few months to assist other interested international students and agencies. Well done team and good luck with your next academic year at Seneca!

Day two of workshop

Day two of three in the leadership workshop with six leaders of colleges in northern Mozambique. The setting here in the retreat hotel is excellent. Participation of the trainees is good....

Leadership training in Mozambique

Today we started the three days of leadership training for six college general managers. This is the fourth training session we do with them. Last year in August we worked on the principles of "project management" followed by the principles of "effective internal and external communication" in February 2017. In May we had a workshop on entrepreneurial leadership. This week we focus on leadership in the age of artificial intelligence. That looks like a stretch for an economy such as Mozambique, but the AI tsunami will sooner or later also hit here and they need to start thinking on how to train future technicians and technologists for the jobs that will appear in that new world economy full of things like "bitcoins". Maintaining systems will still be required even when these systems will be more and more managed by AI together with human operators. In the photo above our local trainer Fernando reflects with them on the coaching work he has done with them locally during the past six months. We also had somebody from the Ministry give them an update.

After the morning session we took the ferry across the bay to stay two nights in a local "retreat" where we can have them fully focused. Quinn and I checked this place out in February (see one of the blog posts in that month). The ferry boat was quite full....

...but the destination was worth the relative discomfort of the short ferry ride. In the photo above you see the sky-line of the city of Maputo. The retreat hotel here has a little pier with a bar which we use for the evening sessions (tonight we did the first of the two evening sessions). The meeting table was nicely set up for us in the cabin on the pier.

The trainees have rooms in the main buildings. The Canadian team toughens it out in the cabins at the beach side (to the right on the photo above). The view from the city and the bridge under construction from my cabin today....

...and the communication and workshop preparation continues in our "office of the day".

After the dinner and the evening workshop, we have a night cap with the owners of the retreat hotel who came from Belgium 20 years ago on a vacation in Mozambique and are still here....

More about the next two days later this week. Cheers! Ate logo!

Hello again Maputo

An hour or so in yet another airport lounge, today in Johannesburg before the short connecting flight to Maputo in neighboring Mozambique. The flight today came in nicely over the city from the south towards the airport located in the north of the Maputo. I was able to make a few nice shots...

The two photos above show the river bay with on the top the downtown area of Maputo. The city is building a bridge over the river and the next photo shows the building process well.

Back in one of my favorite hotels, "the Cardoso". I was here every now and then for a drink when I lived in Maputo and worked for MSF (1988-1990), then again stayed here a few times with Niagara College projects (2004-2012 period) and now back four times since 2015 for our project with Seneca. This time with Quinn and Tom, a repeat performance of our workshop in August 2016.

Marks stands in for his Dad

Because I am traveling this weekend, I had to miss a wedding from the son of friends. Mary asked our son Mark to be her date for the evening. They send me this photo on their way to the wedding being driven there by an Uber driver. Modern times, modern transport, modern parents.....(we hope)

The next generation of business leaders, scientists, researchers, actors and the like......

Few days in Holland

On my way to training delivery in our project in Mozambique. Two days short stop in Holland to see my family. It helps to have an old university friend who manages a nice business hotel close to where one of my sisters lives. So the photo above is Jos and Jos (both getting older and all the time better looking!). Getting over that darn jet lag once again.....

My two sisters Han & Ger + Ger's husband Bert doing amazingly well in their seventies! I bought way too much Indonesian food so we will all have it tomorrow again.....

Nice week together

Back home from a nice week in cottage country with Mary's family. Opa Vandenboom at age 87 joined the full week and I was impressed how fit he still is at his age.

On we go back to work. Hosting a training group from China on Tuesday and Wednesday and then a few days in Holland catching up with my sisters. Then a week project delivery in Mozambique.