Begging day or Shopping Day or the day of Hail

Many of us slept in this fine Saturday morning and then hit the town to spend our Rupees.  Today included Sarees, Punjabi suits, an elephant named Lakshmi, an Englishman, a barrage of hale and gorgeous scarves.  Unfortunately, I am too exhausted to finish downloading all of the photos that would allow me to update my blog tonight, so it will have to wait.  Unfortunately, I have a bit of a cold and need my sleep as we leave tomorrow morning at 7am to go to Amritsar.  We will visit the famous Gurdwara in Amritsar called the Golden Temple and experience the Wagah Border ceremony - border closing between India and Pakistan:

 It will be a long day, but I am sure it will also be yet another amazing one.  I will update this blog post with all of the photos and stories from today, Saturday February 15th, and tomorrow no later than Monday evening.

Tomorrows 2-3 hour journey by bus:

New post coming soon...Internet issues!!

Valentines Punjabi style

I was exhausted this morning, but somehow I made it on time for our meeting to prereview the charts for our customer.  We were picked up by our driver, here is a view of what traffic can be like:

Before presenting we had an amazing lunch graciously prepared by Tej's wife.

After, lunch we put our finishing touches on our proposals and then spent some time in discussions with our partners until all of the stakeholders arrived.

Once the presentations started we were able to experience a new style of conference calls, which is to take cell phone calls while being presented to.

We had a great meeting, even if it got a bit emotional at times.  The passion for the education of Indian children below the poverty line is high and contagious.  I am excited to help Swabhimaan get where they need to be to help the maximum number of children.

For tea/dinner we went to Jaspreet's house and spent Valentines Day with him and his parents.  Jaspreet's mom made an incredible array of food that was all quite delicious.  And although we went for tea time, tea was the last thing we had!

And how exciting, Jaspreet had a copy of the newspaper that Kazu, Eduardo and I were published in.

At the end of the evening we called for taxis, but due to the holiday there were no cars available, but Jaspreet's and his father kindly drove us home.  

We all then met in the team room to enjoy Valentines candy, Bollywood music and the Olympics. Tomorrow will be a day of sleeping, shopping, massage, maybe a Bollywood movie as well as homework for our customers.

A day that lasts forever...

We had a very productive time working in our partners office today.  

I am actually wearing a beautiful Indian Kurta, but it is a little cold inside so I am also wearing a down jacket!  Pintu, the wonderful man who helps us in the office brought us a steady supply of snacks, chai and juices all day.  We also had an excellent vegetarian lunch provided so graciously by our hosts.

Today we worked on our presentations for our partner Swabhimaan.  I am in charge of documenting existing procedures and making recommendations for the future, Eduardo is working on marketing and fund raising and Kazu has the growth strategy.  All three will be a coordinated effort, but we each needed to lead one piece in order to meet our timeline.  I think we have a very good and achievable (though will be a lot of work) outline documented to take them through tomorrow.  

After we finished our first drafts Mr Sanjay, Vishwas and Sameer took us shopping.  We went to the Aristocrat, then to the MBD Neopolis Mall and finally to Vishal Mega Mart (Indian Super Walmart) where I did all of my purchasing at 10pm.  

As you can see from above, Valentines is celebrates in India!  There are hearts, flowers and chocolates everywhere!!  In fact, driving home tonight, at midnight, men were on the streets buying beautiful bouquets of red roses and teddy bears!

And this is what $25 gets you at Vishal market at 10am.  5 scarves, 2 pairs of pants, 1 Kurta, 3 baby dresses, 1 baby fleece outfit, 4 fleece baby pants, 2 baby tank tops.

After shopping, we went to Mr. Sanjays house for a South Indian dinner of Dosa with butterscotch ice cream for dessert!  Amazing hospitality by our host and hostess!!  I almost forgot to mention that Mr. Sanjays handsome boys accompanied us for much of the evening as well.  The oldest son is studying IT at the university and the youngest, at the age of 14, is at the top of his class in a local private school.  His English was better than mine and he was so polite, such a gentleman!

And now it is way past my bedtime as it is 1am and I cannot seem to sleep past 6am.  I hope everyone reading this is doing well and having a wonderful, morning, day or evening!!