What about the food?

When I was first heard about the CSC program  I spent some time looking at some CSC blogs to see what sort of things others were writing about. A few of the blogs I looked at had almost nothing but stories about what they we're eating and how different and usually how great the food was. So when it was my turn I decided to deliberately not focus on food. But now we're near the end of the trip it's probably time to have a least one entry.

India has a reputation for spicy food. It's a reputation that's well deserved, as everything has some spice in it. Southern India is supposed to have spicier food than here in the North Apparently they eat a lot more rice with the food too.

I've had no problems eating the food here. Where we are is nearly all vegetarian and some of the team have really missed their regular intake of meat, but that hasn't bothered me at all. There's a couple of restaurants that have non-veg, but it's fairly expensive and the best one is unbelievably slow, which I really didn't like.

There's been a wide variety of food and it's all been great. Though I struggle a bit to have full Indian every meal. Fortunately there is other food. Pizza was a favorite at the hotel. This is an Italian pizza which includes pasta in the toppings. Someone tried a pasta pizza, apparently that doesn't have any pasta on it. Weird.

Whilst there is Indian available, Indian at every meal is too much for me. So at breakfast most of the team had eggs and toast. An omelette was the most reliable choice, but the kitchen would have a go at other forms of eggs.

One of the things that Gujarat is  famous for is ice cream!

I thought that Ice Cream went really well with Gulab Jamur, which is a sweet, soft, pastry like ball in a syrup. They were so sweet that one was really enough. Though the record for quantity in one sitting was nine (it wasn't me).

The hotel showed us they they knew how to make a birthday cake (Happy birthday Anton!)

Our client showed us a range of food too. A little pastry dish and some Chai in the afternoon always hit the spot.

The foods been great, even if most of the time I have no idea what we're ordering, and often I'm not much wiser when it's in front of me.

#ibmcsc india 

Govt Office

Yesterday we wen't back to the government office to talk about forming a co-operative. This was the third or forth try and we'd been assured the person we needed talk to would be there. They weren't.

The officer we spoke to was rather embarrassed, though it wasn't his fault. Last time I was here I really wanted to take some photos but was told it wasn't allowed. Since we were waiting it seemed like a good opportunity to ask again. This time the officer was only to happy for some photos. He insisted I get one of me at his desk.

And another one in front of some paperwork. The bundles that you can see behind him are stacks of files wrapped in cloth. There we're stacks like that absolutely everywhere.

He explained that the government had introduced freedom of information legislation. If someone requests some information and it can't be found in the legislated time frame there is a fine to be paid by the government to the requester. The government makes the officer who was responsible for retrieving the information liable to pay the fine personally. That meant no one was prepared to throw any paperwork away, and they were drowning in it.

We did finally get to talk to someone who was able to answer our question. We can't register the organisation the way we'd hoped. Which means some plan re-work is required. Happily we have one day left, so that shouldn't be to hard. Should it?

Off to the Fair

Last night a few of us visited the local fair. There was lots of rides, though many were the same type. The first attraction we visited was a large bowl like structure where we stood at the top and then two cars and two motor bikes rode around the the inside. The car's each had a passenger. Both the passenger and the driver climbed out the side and grabbed money out of the hands of the crowd on the top as they sped round.

 

Then it was off to a ferris wheel. We hopped into the little bucket and then hung on. There was no hint of anything to stop you from falling out as it spun round. And it spun around much faster than I've seen any other ferris wheel spin.

Peter and Claudia had a go on the Pirate Ship ride. It seemed the best way to ride this one was not bother about the seats, rather stand up right up the back. Needless to say none of our team tried that.

If you look closely in the middle of the last picture you can see Peter. He assures me he's smiling, though zooming on the photo I wasn't so sure.

It was all good fun.

#ibmcsc india 

Are we on the right track?

One of the things we needed to do confirm we're on the right track is to get feedback from the key stake holders who would be using the business plan as they come to launch their organisation. We'd hoped to have a session last week, but it was a holiday week and the right people weren't available. So Monday was the first real chance, leaving a couple of days to make adjustments.

A lot of time was spent over the weekend getting the presentation and finance modeling working. A few errors crept in along the way and good ideas kept coming up, but we were out of time to add them in.

We ran the presentation at a local school which did some work with the partner organisation we're working with. Whilst the classes we're on it was nice and quite. During the classroom breaks we had to contend with all the extra noise from the children playing.

Anton talked the partners and farmers through the finance model. Complex spreadsheets with lots of numbers are never very exciting. Fortunately Anton had built a number of charts and did a great job of explaining everything.

Claudia spent time talking about the theory behind optimizing the management of shop stock. There were a couple of suggestions put forward that matched up perfectly with model, which was nice.

We now need to take the feedback collected and updated the finance model and business plan with the updated information.

Overall it the response was positive. Now we've got two days to get it all finalised and be ready to do the final presentation.

Tomorrow we have a confirmed appointment with the government office that we've been chasing for more than a week, so it'll be back to the government offices. I wonder if they'll let me take a picture this time?

On the way to the presentation we saw an elephant walking along the road. Sadly no picture. :-(

#ibmcsc india

Final Weekend

This is the last weekend during the assignment, leading into the final week. It won't be long before we're all heading home.

To close out the business plan, which is the key deliverable for our assignment, we asked to have a session with the key stake holders to take them through a draft of the plan and validate the assumptions that we've used in the financial model. It should allow us to make changes and updates based on their feedback for the final plan. The feedback session has been set up for Monday morning. It seems this'll be the most significant presentation in the time we're here, so much of the weekend has been spent preparing.

Yesterday we spent some time at the local market, which's a short Auto Rickshaw ride over to the other side of town. Some of the team have gotten used to the idea of hanging off the back of the Rickshaw.

Some of the team were shopping for Bandanai. (Sorry it's not much of a photo.)

Some were shopping for spices, particularly saffron.

Some were just taking in the sights.

#ibmcsc india

Two Wheelers

 

If your looking for a handy little run about here you'll almost certainly be starting with two wheels.

Bicycles were big before motor bikes. Four brothers started the Hero cycle company in 1944 and ended up being the biggest bike manufacturer in India.

Hero bicycles, old and new, are everywhere. There's as many adults ridding them as kids.

The world's moved on from bicycles and now everyone rides motor bikes.

You have to be 18 to get a license, though that doesn't seem to be to big an issue for a number of young riders

 

I'd guess that the ratio of bikes to cars here is about the same as home, just reversed.

  

 

The most common bike is the "Hero Honda". They were built by a joint venture between Hero Cycles and Honda which ran from 1984 to 2010.

The newer bikes are simply branded as "Hero".

If your looking for something a little bit different, perhaps more up market, then go for a Royal Enfield. Built by Enfield Motors in Chennai and based on British design from the British Royal Small Arms Factory, who also made the Enfield rifle. The Bullet has the record of being in continuous production since 1934.

#ibmcsc india 

Safety

We're into final report and presentation writing mode now, so all office work. Our team is presenting to key stakeholders, which is 6 partner organisations and representative farmers from each, on Monday. We could really use another week to prepare so I can much of the weekend will be spent getting things finalised.

I haven't had time to write up a blog post today, so in the mean time check out this great post from Nina about the safety standards here.