Tuesday, September 3, 2013

With a Little Help From My Friends

There are 11 of us IBMers here in Jamnagar, and they have been blogging as well - most of them have in fact done a much better job than I have....so please take a look at what they have written...and you may even see "yours truly" in some of their pics....

Malcolm (from Australia) - http://cscindia20.blogspot.com.au/   (I especially like the one on the transportation options)

Peter (from Germany) - http://www.schnitzlers.de/category/peter/csc

Keith (from Canada) - http://kmackenzie63.wordpress.com/

Nina (from UK by way of Germany) - http://ninainjamnagar.blogspot.in/2013/09/going-native.html

Katrin (from Germany) - http://katrinindiacsc.blogspot.in/

More to come...

Working on the final report and presentation - which we do tomorrow!

- Elyse

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Rounding the Final Turn

Our last week in Jamnagar...it has been three weeks of "firsts" followed by this final week of "lasts" - last weekend, last run to market, last Rickshaw ride.

Some highlights of the past week -

We got to visit the Essar Oil Refinery - 2nd largest in India 

With our safety helmet and Safety shoes - don't worry, we were never in danger - this is about how close we got to the actual refinery 

Another highlight was the Essar Foundation Volunteer event celebrating one year of employee Volunteering

The IBM team went in Indian costume and we spoke at the event 

Final report almost done...and shopping almost complete as well...will do a blog soon with the links to the other IBMers blogs so you can see things from our various perspectives.

Rounding the Final Turn

Our last week in Jamnagar...it has been three weeks of "firsts" followed by this final week of "lasts" - last weekend, last run to market, last Rickshaw ride.

Some highlights of the past week -

We got to visit the Essar Oil Refinery - 2nd largest in India 

With our safety helmet and Safety shoes - don't worry, we were never in danger - this is about how close we got to the actual refinery 

Another highlight was the Essar Foundation Volunteer event celebrating one year of employee Volunteering

The IBM team went in Indian costume and we spoke at the event 

Final report almost done...and shopping almost complete as well...will do a blog soon with the links to the other IBMers blogs so you can see things from our various perspectives.

Rounding the Final Turn

Our last week in Jamnagar...it has been three weeks of "firsts" followed by this final week of "lasts" - last weekend, last run to market, last Rickshaw ride.

Some highlights of the past week -

We got to visit the Essar Oil Refinery - 2nd largest in India 

With our safety helmet and Safety shoes - don't worry, we were never in danger - this is about how close we got to the actual refinery 

Another highlight was the Essar Foundation Volunteer event celebrating one year of employee Volunteering

The IBM team went in Indian costume and we spoke at the event 

Final report almost done...and shopping almost complete as well...will do a blog soon with the links to the other IBMers blogs so you can see things from our various perspectives.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

English Education Improvement


On Friday we finished our interviews and observations at the 17 government primary schools around the Essar refinery. Here are a few pics from the visits.


We are working on refining a set of recommendations that can be implemented short, medium and long term.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Weekend in Diu

Our overnight adventure!  First stop was Ghandi's birthplace in Portbander
Exact spot where Ghandi's was born

I have a new appreciation for the Swastika - it has very different meaning here and at first it bothered me but now not so much.

Then in to Diu - first we checked out the fort - this was built by the Portuguese in the 1400s

Here is our resort 
Special lock on the room doors 

Then the coconut festival - a nice surprise - there was a coconut in this thing that the men pulled this thing apart to get the coconut tin the middle 
Then next day, the monkeys




Friday, August 23, 2013

Shopping


So far so good on the shopping front.  Over the weekend we went to the old market for some typical Bandani fabrics

Tons of choices
I got some nice table clothes.