Scratching the surface

Tuesday was such an intense day that when I tried posting I fell asleep from exhaustion mid sentence!  We started our day at 10am I.S.T (Indian Stretchable time) and 10:30am my time :-)  I have found that India is a surprising place of extremes and contradictions.  The emotions and senses are so bombarded that I have been overwhelmed and then I realize that I have still only just barely scratched the surface.

Kumar/ Mr. Sanjay and Vijay picked us up from the hotel and we drove across town to a very large (or at least it seemed to me) temple for blessings.  The temple is called Govind Godham and not only has a temple, but a Cow Sanctuary and a lower school (elementary) as well.


Please see the photos below of our team entering the temple, standing at the altar and receiving our blessings:

 After receiving our blessings we visited the Cow sanctuary.  There hundreds if not thousands of cows that they have saved.  They have blind cows that are going to undergo test cataract surgery (if they are successful then this will become a process that will spread across India), they have cows with prosthetics, sick cows, etc... They take care of the cow until it takes it's last breath....it was a sight to behold.

Blind cows and me with the idol of the first cow

We then had the opportunity to visit the temple school created by the encouragement of Swabhimaan NGO.  The children were in dance lessons when we arrived so we were able to watch their dancing, which was a lot of fun.  There was a lovely young woman there who owned her own dance studio and volunteered at the school to teach the children dance.  I have video of the dancing, but unfortunately the color is not great so will not post it here.

Then we were off to the first Swabhimaan school that Mr. Sanjay and his friends started in 2008.  The school is gated, has proper desks and infrastructure.  When we arrived the local establishment of the Times of India was there taking photos and interviewing Mr. Sanjay and Vijay from Swabhimaan, the newspaper was published today with the photos, but we are still waiting to see a copy...will post a photo as soon as I have a copy (should be tomorrow).

Please enjoy some photos from the school:

Group photos in front of Swabhimaan school with the principle & students

The kids showing me their English work

Lunchtime!

After visiting the school, we went to our new office and had a roundtable with Swabhimaan team enjoying some local Indian snacks and further discussing expectations and existing processed and procedures.

Meeting our Partners

To kick off the morning we had a bit of team bonding by describing our life journeys:

We then were able to finally able to meet our partners face to face.  We met in ballroom 3 of our hotel and Shruti and Mamtha kicked off the event with introductions of IBM and Pyxera.  They explained why we do Corporate Service Corps as well as what IBMs priorities are for India and our Corporation on a whole.  We then had time for each of the partnering organizations to introduce themselves and what they wanted from this experience.  After the partners finished each of us went in front of the room and presented about ourselves and why we we're passionate about corporate service corps.  After the intro's and lunch we broke into our individual teams and got deeper into understanding our SOWs.

We sat with the 5 representatives of Swabhimaan NGO (2 were interns who grew up in Ludhiana, but were studying Engineering at a school in Mumbai) and learned the history of the education problem in India, in addition to the many challenges they face as an NGO and as an education provider today.  We are very excited to have the opportunity to have the two interns, Vishwas and Sameer, work with us on achieving the objectives for Swabhimaan as they have a lot of insight into this city, state and country as well as teaching in one of the Swabhimaan schools for the last week.

We have decided that tomorrow we will go visit one of the schools with Kumar to see first hand all of the things we heard about today.  On Wednesday morning Kazu, Eduardo and I will meet as a team at the hotel to outline our specific objectives and milestones for the next 4 weeks and hopefully have Vishwas (Sanskrit word meaning Trust) and Sameer (meaning Wind) join us in the afternoon to put the final touches on the SOW and have a proposal with clear objectives and milestones for Swabhimaan to sign off on. Later in the week we may join the Bharti team and visit one of Bhartis schools to see the different approaches and models they have vs. Swabhimaan.  

The great advantage we have with this group is that 3 of the 4 teams have similar objectives or programs and we can potentially team our groups together for even greater success.

We then went to an amazing dinner at The Yellow Chile as a whole team including Mamtha, our IBM CSR Leader for India. Jaspreet, Shruti and Mamtha have been such amazing hosts!!

Team building in Chandigarh at the Rock Gardens

Today took us on a team building trip to the capital of Punjap, Chandigarh, the only planned city in India!  Chandigarh was very clean and green, a beautiful city.  Driving the 2 hours to Chandigarh was the real challenge, though.  We really had the experience of what 'driving in India' is all about today!!

The highlight of the trip was the Rock Gardens.  My pictures don't really do the place justice as the place is absolutely amazing.

Please take a look at all the photos and feel free to post any questions!

Getting ready to hit the road (left to right: Dymitro, Kazu, Alessandra, Peter, Rafal,Jaspreet, Eduardo, Shruti)

Le Corbusier's is the cities planner.

We had a quick lunch on the nearby lake and headed home.  On our way we made a stop for some fresh squeezed orange juice.

Lukas was buying some oranges.

We ended the evening with some shopping for some local clothes to wear over the next few weeks.  What an amazing day!!  I'll try to get some videos posted this week as I learn my video editor.  

I tried to post this last night, but had some internet trouble.  

Now, brings Monday morning and we meet with our clients in just a few short hours!  I can't wait to get started, knowing my team we will have great success!

My first 24 hours in India

What a feast for the eyes, the nose and the stomach!!

After 24 hours on the plane, Smitha from Pyxera Global, helped me to the hotel taxi for my 45 minute (but blissfully short without the normal traffic due to the late hour) journey to the Bloomrooms hotel.  There, I experienced my first unusual encounter; an older gentleman helped me take my bags to my room and I thanked him by using the Hindi word, Namastey.  He then asked me if I spoke Hindi, so while blushing I admitted that I did not speak Hindi.  The man then reached over and 'gently' slapped my face!! Apparently, this is actually not rude, but seen more as a teasing gesture, but I must say it gave me quite a shock!

After 4 hours of sleep, I was up to meet my new friends and colleagues in the lobby to head to the train station.  Thanks to our other wonderful Pyxera Global representative Shruti, we successfully boarded the train and headed to Ludhiana.  I sat with Dymtro, sharing stories and enjoying multiple cups of tea or "dip dip" and food, which of course we ate with our hands!

IBM was also featured in the local newspaper with a short article including our CEO.  Not sure I can share the article here, so leaving out for now.

We then had a fun experience exiting the train and following our bags to the car.  You only have three minutes to get off the train and have the coolies (not considered a derogatory term here) get on and grab your bags before the train departs to its next location!  You then must follow the coolies who have your bag to ensure your it makes it to the car.

 Jaspreet, our local consultant, negotiating the rates.

That is my 51lb bag on top of that woman's head, she is amazingly strong!!

We then reached our hotel the Fortune Park Klassik hotel where we were greeted with warmth and fanfare!

Then after resting a bit we headed to Babas Chicken BBQ for a DELICIOUS traditional Punjabi meal of BBQ meats, butter chicken, Naan, Roti and Salty Lassi. It was amazing, I wish I would have remembered to take more photos...next time!

Our auto manager is the one in the pink turban.

On our way to lunch!  On the way, I was also almost fortunate enough to have a cow pee on me!!  I was busy trying to get a photo of the cow, while holding on for dear life in the auto, when I realized it was relieving itself and I was about to be sprayed!!  Thankfully, I realized in time to scoot out of the way...though apparently it would have meant good luck so maybe I missed out?

The salty lassi

Breath mints

And then we somehow mustered more energy to have a briefing at 4pm...here we are drawing our life stories!  Eduardo is in the front, Kazu and I are in the middle and that's Dymitro at the desk in the back.

I was struggling to keep my eyes open!

As we were all falling asleep we decided  to finish the stories on Monday morning!  We took a short walk (crossing the street here makes Vietnam seem like a walk in the park!!) to see the nearby markets. 

Tomorrow we are headed to Chandigarh to the Rock Garden designed by Nak Chund.  It will be a day trip, but apparently an amazing site so can't wait to see it.  More to come tomorrow, for now I need some sleep so that I can have all my energy to take photos and enjoy the day.

To Fabio Ferreira, Oliver Gehb and Alexandre Gaeckle: Look who we now have as mutual friends!!

India here I come!!

Thankfully all the flights look to be running on time despite the snow storms across the country.