..Training, training and more traning..

give two people like susanne and i, a beamer and a notebook, and what do you get ? you get lightning, you get a buzzing atmosphere, you get pure energy - right from the beginning we are once again using our good old ping ponging trick, taking over from each other, feeding of each others energy.. i have to mention that today i have a slow day - susanne is taking the lead, i am just assisting - tomorrow i will get the whole day! susanne does a great job in capturing the interest and excitement of the group, you can see how they are shaking their heads, how they are nodding in recognition as she speaks through the first couple of slides, how they talk briefly with each other to ensure they dont loose any of her words - we split them in groups, they dance, they sing, we have games with them, we challenge them, we ask questions, we talk and discuss with them, we tease them, they tease us back, we laugh, we smile, all in all another great session today, and then all of a sudden its lunch time, time really does fly when you are having fun..

(lunch served on the floor - i am getting use to this..)

After lunch we try to "squeeze" the last drop of energy out of them with another group exercise, and they are enjoying themselves, and by now it seems that they have figured out our motivation strategy - so they ask if we brought candy for them, and of course we did, as they sit and eat the candy i brought from Slovakia, i cant help thinking about how nervous we were leading up till today, how much we prepared for today, how much stress we have had, if we would do a good enough job or not, seeing them sitting on the floor talking to each other, discussing and eating candy - they look like they are having fun, they look like they are learning some new things, they look excited, they look engaged, they look concentrated - but above all they look like what we have talked to them about today and last week is coming together in a beautiful presentation - a presentation about how to organize a Hindu marriage (we try to make our examples related to their traditions and customs so it would be easier applicable for our teams in the future..), how to build everything around this marriage as a project (and as todays session is about project management why not integrate two things at once) - the presentations are shared with each of the groups, and my God i have never thought there would be so many things to organize for a Hindu wedding.. you seriously do need a project manager - and a project team, wow ... and deep pockets.. i am impressed and very proud of the teams while they are presenting - great work team, really well done..

(Well done girls - we are proud of you...)

.. we summarize the session by asking them to mention one or two things they have learned from todays session - everybody has something to share, and personally i have to admit i learned a couple of things myself, as we head home i start to think that this prayer might have actually blessed out training - i hope tomorrow will be as successful as today..

..The time is finally here..

Monday morning, 9.30 and Kumar is nowhere to be found, a slight drizzle is what we are greeted with when we step out side the hotel, we get called by Prija that informs us that Kumar is a no-show today, and if we can figure a way out for ourselves to come to work, - we catch a ride with one of the many rickshaws that are standing and waiting for us, like hungry lions over its prey.. as we slide through traffic, i notice that somehow my knee was touching the cloth that the driver apparently was using as a window and now half of my leg is wet, what a day to start a monday on - i guess Garfield is right, i should have stayed in bed, oh and as this is the first day of a total of 8 training days, how great is it to come late, the session was to start at 10.00 but as we are still on the road at 10.05 that isnt going to happen... So how this normally works when you do trainings, (and i have done my fair share of trainings so i do know how important it is), is that you always arrive with at least a bit of, what we call "clearance time" - today our clearance time is in negative, red right from the beginning! We enter our training facility on 3rd floor - and i have this feeling of "home, sweet home" .. one of the ladies we training is just swiping the floor, another is placing the chairs and there is all in all some 6 - 8 women there, and here i was getting stressed because we were late .. - we are considered arriving early, oh well, we meet and greet, set up the logistics and another 30 min is spend on that..

(two of the guys setting up the projector - out of a group of 32, there are 3 guys only ..)

at last we are able to start - ventilators are spinning on full speed, the rain has increased its intensity, and so will we ... a day full of training is just about to start.. but before we start - there is something that has to happen first, the team asks us, if we mind if they do a prayer for our training, and so they start to do a prayer for all of us - asking for their gods to protect us and make our training successful ... WOW this is a first time for me with this ... 

..what a show ..what a convention..

..only some 25 min after we are suppose to have started the agenda do we actually seem to be taking off - i am not sure yet, the noise from the huge gathering of teenagers is just insane, you can barely hear what your next door neighbour is saying, let alone to think any thoughts on your own .. oh and it seems like i got placed in the corner of the real real teenagers (although one of them introduces himself as a HR officer in a IT company - he looks like he is 17 at most..), i guess teenager are teenagers wherever you go...The program set off and the group next to me continues to talk, listen to music, and snaps a couple of pictures of me, one of them starts to translate some of the tamil being said, on a rusty old loudspeaker, that seems to have everything wrong with it, "and now sir, she says...", "and now sir,...", and now sir...." and "now sir, the sentence is over" ... that made me crack up totally (Tamil or no Tamil, when a person gets of the stage i kindda can do the math myself .. )

(official welcoming speech..YES you guessed it - in Tamil..)

So on my right side i get introduced to our translator, her name is Vanitha, and through this organization - she just came back in August after spending some 14 months in the US, and now she is working as a system administrator in a large company here in Chennai, Vanitha is another true success story of how you can change with the right support and help, Vanitha tells me that she never could have done this, what she is doing without the learning experience as the one in the US, i ask her to clarify what she means with "this", she looks at me, smiles and tells me "talk to a foreign man" .. well Vanitha i am happy you went to the US and that i got to know you .. it was very much worth it.. So Vanitha tells me about their traditional dance "Parai" as it starts, and here is how i will describe it to you, loud, a ton of energy, a lot of rhythm, and incredible amount of power - seriously it was brilliant.. after some more dancing some role-plays are played - describing disruptive behaviour of parents, alcohol abuse of parents, and how group pressure is a big problem if you are not mentally strong enough, it is all in all summarised as, there are so many things that impacts children, and if you need help - seek counselling - and this is the message, we are here to help and support you, young and old! After these role-plays the Police inspector of Chennai is introduced to all of us, and is officially handing out some ID cards to the youngsters, i didnt catch why that was.. - anyways good of him to drop by.

(a bit of Parai being danced on stage)

Last but certainly not least a video followed up with a speech from "Madam" where a lot of questions are being asked, a lot of thought provoking points are being send to the kids, and a lot of ideas and suggestions to them, i feel the interest from the teenagers, even the one sitting next to me, having banged his chair against mine for the last 45 min, has stopped and has even turned his music on his mobile of .. (see how patient i am becoming, if this would have happen some three weeks ago - the outcome would have been very different...) - Madam, focuses a lot of her energy, and effort on education, self-development, self-reflection and finally asks the question that almost gets me standing - "can we change ourselves?", "can we change our society to something better?" - now i have the answers to these two questions, do you ? - let me know what you think... - and with those two questions in mind, we catch a rickshaw and head back, short by insightful day, "can i change myself?" and "can i change society to something better?" ... - i personally believe you need to add a last question - which will be ...."how?"

..who said loud? ..

after 30 min. in a rickshaw, with 4 people and the driver we manage to pull up in front of the hall where the youth convention is talking place, we are fast greeted by many of the people we have visited, talked to, had lunch with and even some of the ones from our trainings. We get our tradionanl welcoming pleasing with water and some colour in our forehead, and we are formally in the convention - a youth convention that will take some 300 - 400 people share ideas and thoughts over the next 3 hours or so. I have to admit i am no longer that uncomfortable with being looked at by all the people here - the true beauty of being tall (188 cm), blond and blue eyes, you do stand out a bit in a country like india... A lot of the youngsters comes up to me, to ask for my name, introduces themselves to me, and in general just want to chit chat - i feel my hand being taken, shaken and squeezed a couple of times more than before .. - but its fun, i am getting use to being a celebrity (i am kidding here, i wouldnt want to live a life like that ..) 

...smooth as silk..

oh i almost forgot to tell you that we also went to see a silk weaving housing - where they are still weaving the traditional silk sari for women for their weddings. A sari is pretty much a long piece of unstitched cloth, that as you might know is worn by females here in India, the sari is somewhere between four to nine metres in length (the ones we saw was 9 meters long). The most common style is for the sari to be wrapped around the waist, with one end then rolled over the shoulder baring the midriff. The sari is normally worn with a blouse known as a "choli" or "ravika" - which is taking care of the upper part of the woman's front...Interesting enough the word sari is actually derived from Sanskrit and translated would mean something like 'strip of cloth". History seem to believe that the sari dates back some 2800 - 1800 BC in especially the western part of India.

so we entered a small little shed where a man was weaving a sari, as per the instructions of a older woman, and she fast started to explain us how the sari is made, and what it is made from, this specific sari the man was making actually had 1% pure gold in it .. - as it was a wedding sari - and it would take him up to 3 weeks to finish it, and cost of this sari was around 20.000 rupees (divide that we around 50 and you get the amount in USD) .. it was interesting to see how much detailed work was put into this weaving, the concentration, and precision.. and when i ask the lady - how long it took to become a great weaver, she smiled and said, "this man is a 3rd generation weaver - and he has been doing it now for 25 years.." - okay, respect for the craft!

(its actually gold string he is holding in his hand)

and then the funniest thing happen, up to my left i see something, i cant believe it - oh well yes its true, it is a long set of punch cards, (now you might not know what company i am working for, if you did - you would know what this is funny for me ..) we ask her about the punch cards, and she comes with a nice explanation of how it is integrated into the work he is doing, to keep track of all the strings, the patterns etc.. interesting, i never thought punch-cards could be used for weaving, i guess you live and you learn.. visit is over and i go back to the car, Bas and Susanne is invited into the Silk shop - and when they return, they are not empty handed - it was well-worth the trip for all parties involved.. what a saturday ...  

..temples, temples and some more temples..

As i promised to share with you a bit about my day today, here goes.. - today we went to Kanchipuram, which is a temple city, located near the Palar river, this place besides being famouse for the temples, is also well known for its silk sarees (hand made). Kanchipuram is actually called the city of the 1000 temples, and some of the bigger ones are (including both Vishnu Temples and Shiva Temples) Varadharaja Perumal Temple for Lord Vishnu and Ekambaranatha Temple which is the "earth abode" of Lord Siva and Chidambaram (Sky), Sri Kalahasti (air), Thiruvanaikaval (water) and Tiruvannamalai (fire), Kamakshi Amman Temple, Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Kumara Kottam, Kachapeshwarar Temple, and Kailasanathar Temple.

The fascinating thing about these temples is that some of them are dating back some 700 BC. imagine that - now that is a looong time ago. So i have to admit one thing - i like history, i like it a lot, and i like temples, churches and stuff like this, but to be honest - today i did feel a big different between what i have seen before, and this here... - what i saw and felt was the hundreds and hundreds of years of history, the stories the walls could have told me, the changes it has gone under, the wars it has survived, the sufferings of the people throughout it history, the blood spilled there, sacrifices made to keep it safe, the love to belief, the anger, the loss and much more, all of those emotions could almost be felt there..- as with any other Hindu temple you have to take off your sandals before entering the holy ground, so imagine walking on stone that is that old, just before we arrived, there had been a soft rain, so you could smell the stone, feel the warm rain water on your feet, when you would step into the pot-holes, it was truly a great feeling, as silly it might sound i did feel a bit more re-energized after walking around on those warm stones, and couldnt help feeling a bit childish, so i started seeking out the water pot-holes to walk through .. the silence there was breath taking - and i really did at one point feel i was taken back those hundreds and hundreds of years, back to when these temples were on their prime time, and now i can understand why India Jones loved and was soo passionate about his job - lucky one .. - i am jealous :-))

(who's the bigger bull?...)

..home, sweet home ..

..so we just arrived back to our hotel now, and what a trip, we set off right after breakfast at 8, from Chennai, our favourite Toyota came to pick us up, this time a new driver, we soon left a very loud and noise Chennai, i dont know what was happening today, traffic was worse today that ever before, the chaos was enormous, the noise level beyond anything we have ever experienced previously, it was humid, hot, and after 5 min in the car the AC went on full speed, singing a nice song of breeze directly out of the ventilator - almost whistling at us .. refreshing.. so today is was day of visiting temples - but what seemed to be a quiet day out, turned out to be a loooong day stuck in traffic..

so after visiting the temples (we come back to that in another post) we decided to get back to the hotel, we set out from the last temple at 16.00, with pouring rain hammering on our windows, i doubted an several occasions if our driver could actually see anything out the front window - or if he was simply guessing where we were going.. so all in all in terms of distant, we are talking about no more than 70 KM - which i guess could easily be done in some little over an hour .. however thanks to saturday traffic, stress and frustration levels grew to an all time high for yours truly when after 3 hours we were still not at our hotel, i was tired, grumpy, cold, wet and needed to use the toilet - i could feel sweet crawling on my forehead as time pasted and we werent moving a single meter... this has to be the longest short ride in my whole life - and not one i would recommend to anybody .. 70 KM taking more than 3 full hours ... insane! Now we are finally back in the hotel, and i hope that my boiler is working so i can finally have a hot shower - if you would have told me this before i was leaving to india, i would have laughed at you... but here it comes, believe it or not but .."i am sooo cold"!