First school visit

Today we had another kick-off day! The head of Essar's CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), came from Bombay and explored his ideas for the project with us.

By the way: I was pretty confused in the beginning by the wording Mumbai versus Bombay...to make it clear, it's one and the same city, it just got renamed caused to some political reasons...but people who live in Bombay just call it Bombay. Since I am living in this country here for more than one month, I decided also just to say Bombay anymore.

So while we were discussing the timeline and the statement of Work, the client decided that today will be the first day we'll go to a school. So we went to the first government school this afternoon and it was sooo exciting!!!!
The children were so nice and shy...it was really so inspiring to meet them...when we asked for their interests in music, one boy sang a song in gujarati (the regional language which is spoken here) and two other girls showed us a welcome dance. Paula and me spontaneously took some lessons there:





http://gicainindia.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/day5-gujarati-welcome-dance/


Another interesting thing about India is the way they communicate non-verbal. Indian's use to shake with their head all the time when they are listening (kind of europeans do it, when they disagree). But in india this could just mean everything "yes", "no", "maybe", "so&so"...it's funny, cause we are just not used to that way of communication.


Tomorrow will be a public holiday (indian independence day) and we'll join them in their celebrations at the Essar's township. I'm really looking forward to that.


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first day @ customer site

Since it yesterday worked out so well, we just decided to go out for a run today again - and it's perfect! So we got an every day jour fix now: 7:00am run in the park :-)

At 8:30am our personal driver picked us up to get to Essar's. It took us about 45min to get there. I've never been to a refinery before, so it was really impressing how hugh these company areas are. After applying for a temporary badge and a security presentation, we met the C. Manoharan the director of the refinery. He was very interested in us and about the work we are doing! Impressing!
It also seem like, people have some difficulties to pronounce my (new) surname. And it came to the following conversation:

client: "How do you pronounce that?" Tiping on the surname of my business card
me: "Teutsch"
client: "Ttuch?"
me: "With an -tsch..."
client: "tusch?"
me: "Please just call me Katrin" :-)

I need to say, in india it's common (like in all english spoken countries) to call people just by their first name. We're also doing that within the project team - the customer was just interested.

Tomorrow we gonna go over our SOWs (statement of work) again, to reassure all expectation can be met and to verify what's in scope and what's out of scope.
On Thursday there'll be a public holiday (independence day) with different celebrations and the customer already invited us to come to their Essar township (a place where all Essar employees have the chance to live) to see a parade and all the other things they do.

So I'm really looking forward to that!

Since there are no cameras allowed on the whole refinery plant, pictures from our project working environment will be rare.

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First customer meeting & Kick-off

Before today our first business meeting started, I went for a run in the early morning with Nina and Anton. There is a park nearby and we just tried to get used to the humidity and the heat - already in the early mornings.
After breakfast we met our customers for the very first time personally: its Chaitanya, ESSAR and Sava. Mamtha, from IBM Marketing India, also joined in her role as a Manager for corporate community relations.

 During the talk with Essar we got a clue about the challenges they have to establish a system of high-quality english education at the public schools. We faced the main challenges they see right now, (number of pupils per class, school infrastructure, learning materials, parent's awareness of importance of english lessons, etc. )but still there is a lot of refining and reassessing activity necessary!
Furthermore they want us to support them to improve the number of attendees in their company-based volunteering programme, and to make employees aware of the importance of social responsibility.
So, here we are - we'll try do our best:-)

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Briefing for client kick-off & first tour through Jamnagar

Our first non-travel day in Jamnagar started with an indian breakfast at 9am. Potatoe bread, joghurt, some sort of curry soup, toast and eggs were served, accompanied by coffe, tea, chai tea and watermelon juice. Delicious!
After that we had a briefing session about the client kick-off tomorrow, how IBM is collaborating world-wide with CDS and other companies in the non-profit sector, and how they came to our SOWs (Statement of work).

With Kabi (left), Shruti (middle) and Girit (right - he is the hotel manager) we are really in good hands.








After lunch, we went to the Jamnagar museum by rickshaw. This was fun - awesome!!! I would never ever have imagined how many adult people fit in one little rickshaw :-)

At the last picture, Nina and me had to hold really tightly... :-)

 Since it's monsun season in india right now, it could always start raining from one minute to the other. And even though it rains several times a day, we are quite lucky with the weather so far! Just short showers...

 ...and there is one thing I forgot to mention yesterday regarding traffic participants on the streets ... people in matchbox cars!





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Welcome to India

August 09th - 10.30pm: After 12 hours of travel I finally arrived in Mumbai - India's most populous city.  But actually when I entered the plain I already felt like I am in India :-) I was sitting next to two men who were really friendly and very much interested in my person. They asked me where I'm from, what I'm going to do in India, how old I am, whether I'm married or not, if I have children, what my parent's business are, if I have any brothers or sisters...just everything. It was I quite new experience how interested and open people here are.
After arrival in Mumbai I met Gica and Anton (my IBM colleagues from czech republic and slovakia) already at the airport. Shruti, one of the CDS coordinators, welcomed us and took us to the hotel. Since I just had lunch in the plane and a little snack (ice-cream) I was really lucky that I still had my swabian "Butterbrezel" with me, I bought that morning. So this was my first dinner in india :-)

After a short night I met this morning the rest of the team - and after one day I can already say, it's really enriching to meet these people here.
We flew to Jamnagar all together and met Kabi, the other CDS coordinator, there. They brought as to a lovely hotel in a nice and safe neighborhood. Somehow strange is how crowdy the streets are and how many beeings share the space on the streets. People in cars & rickshaws, on bicycles & motor scooters, pedestrians, dogs, cows, camels with carriage - quite new for me :-)

Since alcohol consumption in Gujarat is regulated by the state, tourists have to get a permit for that. So we took a Rishwa ride to an abandoned hotel (the place where you can to get it) and learned how unhurriedly indian processes work. Now I'm officially authorized to have a glass of wine in the evenings with my colleagues.


 We also had a very good introduction to the indian cuisine. Our lunch was very delicious - but I still have to get used to the indian way of spicing.

That's Elyse, Paula, me and Claudia (started by the left hand side).

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... 3 days to go

We just had our last preparation call. It's a funny feeling when I think about I'll meet everybody I've been talking to by phone for over three month, in less then 4 days.
I also went to an office equipment store to take some pens, since a friend of mine told me, indian kids are just crazy about pens. So I hope this is gonna be sufficient:

On my way to find the perfect host presents for the indian colleagues and the team, I finally went to the "milka"-store and bought some german sweets. I hope the chocolate will make it all the way through the heat to the air-conditioned hotel...

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... 8 days to go

I just spoke to a friend who's an english teacher in Germany, what has to be considered when teaching a school class in a foreign language. She agreed sending me some materials about didactics. So hopefully this will help me to get to know more about the science of teaching and learning. If anybody else wants to share anything regarding didactics or education - I would be pleased :-)

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