TBK tells- Inspiring Kabayan Series- nineteen and twenty , my wonderful work colleagues at Bapco- Ate Hazel and Kuya Dino

Ate Hazel and I with Velu, Reuben and Ebrahim at the Oil & Gas Academy in September 2019

It is always sad when you move to a new place because you have to leave old friends behind. For 11 years I worked in Bahrain with two special Filipinos , Ate Hazel and Kuya Dino. Both were typical OFW- away from home and their families for long periods, hard working and always smiling and willing to share what they have.

Kuya Dino is a great photographer and took some great pictures of my 54th Birthday party organised by Patrick ( who never could spell my name right!)

Dino took all the photos at my 54th Birthday party

It was Hazel who always advised me on places to go when traveling to the Philippines on Vacation ( Subic, The Heritage hotel in Manila, Corregidor etc.) and advised me on buying my house ( above the flood water, not on an earthquake line) and my adopted children ( the more you give, the more they will ask for)

Kuya Dino was the one who introduced me to Pasalubong ( its a Pinoy tradition to bring a gift back from your vacation for your friends) . He also introduced me to " Team Manila", a fabulous brand of clothing from "Kultura" at Mall of Asia. Every year, when he goes home , he brings back a new "Team Manila" Extra Large Tee shirt for me which I proudly wear.

Hazel looks on as the Pinoy staff clap and I cut my favourite Ube Cake- Birthday cake 2 for 2019!

Hazel also introduced me to Ube cake and has bought one to every birthday party, together with huge home made banners . Dino was our Building owner at work in Bahrain and fixed everything from faulty AC to window locks and broken printers to keep us operating, as well as doing his own job as Electrical instructor. He also helped out at my house , extending the compost with some old doors we rescued from the conversion of the Academy and taking photos at one of my early birthday parties.

Ate Zel with my ILM 3 group running an Experiential Learning exercise

At the Oil & Gas Academy I worked on many projects with Hazel introducing her to the world of Experiential learning with MTa Learning and Northgate Training . She spent hours going through the explanatory notes, buying supplies to make flags, Pizza boxes, advertising leaflets and so on. Each year she would update everything based on the Delegate feedback and how the exercise went ( "Next year we will have two larger teams so we finish the production faster" or "I am going to make a timetable for the meetings for when we do that exercise next year")

Hazel, why are you looking so guilty????

Hazel and I ran the Workplace Skills (WPS) sessions together when our twenty 17 year old boys first arrived in 2017 to do their 3 year Diploma in Oil and Gas Operations. In 2018 she updated the programme and produced the manual for the next 40 students to join the Diploma. She came up with some great ideas to get the students more involved ( she got them to work in pairs to read a chapter each of the Book "Eat that Frog" by Brian Tracy. Then at the next session they had to present their summary to the other delegates . In 2019 Hazel took over the WPS completely bringing in our new colleagues Evan and John to run sessions alongside her . Thanks to Hazel I went from working 6 days a week in 2018 running WPS, ILM 2, ILM 3, and the co-ordination of the ILM 5 workshops and refresher classes and running the IDP workshops. That was in the week, then for 3 months we also worked every other Saturday running three Team building workshops for the new Security Officers and Customer Care workshops for the Hospital on two Saturdays. In my final year I just ran 6 ILM workshops a month!

Experiential learning with MTa for the Diploma students in 2018

In 2019 we finally organised an MTa Masterclass with Jamie at MTa learning so Hazel , and many others in our Professional Development team, could use the MTa activities more effectively and improve their facilitation skills to get the maximum learning from the exercises.

One of my great pleasures in Bahrain has been in developing Hazel and Zainab to take on more and more of my responsibilities and work load , and to get the praise and recognition they deserve . This has left me free to do the Internal Verification, to update the programmes for my final year in Bahrain and work with the assessors Jim and Evan, to gain the highest level of quality for an ILM centre, Direct Claims Status.

One of my Diploma students working on a drawing to illustrate the good and bad environmental issues in Bahrain

Ultimately, thanks to their hard work , I am now able to retire to my beloved Philippines, knowing that all the work I created in Bahrain ( ILM 2, ILM 3, IDP workshops , Customer Care, Team building workshops, the MTa Team kit , STEM kit and Insights kit and all the Northgate exercises) are in safe hands.

Dino was an athlete as well and loved walking and running and tried so hard to get me to follow in his footsteps by joining him on the Awali walks and runs!

Kuya Dino on the left with Pinoy Colleagues at the 2018 Awali fun run and walk

Thank you so much Hazel and Dino, Salamat Kabayan, Ingat and Kita Kits!

Oh yes, they helped improve my Tagalog and introduced me to more of their wonderful Pinoy Cuisine as well!

Kuya Dino and Ate Hazel- binigyan mo ako ng kaalaman( you gave me knowledge) , Magaling na po kayo magtagalog ( you are good in Tagalog) , subra akong swerte ng kakilala kita ( I am so lucky to have you ) , and finally for Kuya Dino ( who also always bought me a bag of my favourite Chicharron back from the Philippines.....

Kaya ayan tuloy mataba ka kasi mahalig ka sa

chicheron!

-You will get fat if you eat Chicheron!