It is my first trip back to India in a number of months, but
it is just a short one – 2 days. This
time I fly into Mumbai, arriving at 10 pm only to get up at 5 am to catch a 7
am flight to Raipur. It turns out that a
number of Indian colleagues are on the same flight and after landing we depart together
to the project site.
As usual there are a number of religious ceremonies
that have to take place during our tour of the site. The visiting dignitaries (that’s me) get to
have a red dot painted on your forehead and then break open a coconut, while a
holy man chants. It is repeated four times
during the tour. They pass around the
coconut pieces to eat shortly afterwards, which were very tasty.
I see a few things that are worth sharing. On the roads you see a lot that is shocking
but difficult to capture on the camera as they come and go so quickly. In this photo I was fast enough to catch it
as we passed these two fellows. I
wondered if a sudden gust of wind might sweep the passenger off the back of the
motorcycle.
In the guest house, the usual array of switches was
available (in three places) which always makes it difficult to find the right
one. You can imagine what they think of
our poor selection of switches and the need to walk around so much.
This time I have added some construction photos, let me know
if you like this type of stuff and I can include more in the future (or not). The work ongoing in this photo takes places 24 hrs a day for the next 20 days, as the concrete is added the form is slowly raised in a continuous process, with the workers adding the steel and carting the fresh concrete around by wheel barrow.
In India the construction workers hired typically have no experience and are just general labourers. Now after many projects we have learned that we (and not the contractor who hires them) have to train them in basic safety. At this project they created a "safety park" with miniatures to show them safe practices.
