The suburbs of Pune

After discussion with some coworkers, I have learned that the hotel we are staying at is actually in the suburbs of pune. But it isn't the tranquil peaceful suburbs you might imagine. It is much more urban.

As I am here for work and since I have not adjusted to the time difference completely, I have not really explored any of the country yet. I did walk up and down the street from our hotel which is on a pretty busy road with lots of action.

For those of you who have been to Paraguay, the roads around here are similar in some respects but even worse. On the roads are bicycles, scooters, these 3 wheel taxis, cars, trucks, and some animals (we have seen donkeys, horses, cattle, and even an elephant so far) ... at least that is what is on the road in front of the hotel and the roads we take to the office. Sounds similar to Paraguay right. Well, most of the roads here are paved not dirt. Except they are not even. Front page of the paper today actually was discussing how bad the roads are here and that infrastructure investments need to be made.

Speaking of news in India, since I woke up at 2:30 am here are some headlines of their tv yesterday

Taxi drivers in Mumbai go on strike because the airport moved the stand 1km away. Apparently this is seen as the first step to favoring the private taxis and thus the strike. Along with the taxi story is a story on the first female cab driver in the country. The fog in Delhi is so bad the past few days that flights have been grounded. So now there is an uproar from the press because of the investments made in the new CAT-3B technology which is desinged for fog landings is going unused. And some airlines are swithching planes from boeing to airbus. So the pilots are mad that the boeing pilots will get demoted. And finally, a smoking ban for movies was instituded and some guy named Amitabh is being fined for smoking a cigar in a movie.

The office here is ok. Looks and feels like a cubicle nation just like the US. The 25 minute car ride from the hotel to the office is crazy. The poverty you see is a little more visable then what I saw in Paraguay. It might be the difference between rural poverty and urban poverty. Here the houses/shacks people live in are made of aluminum that was probably discarded from somebody's roof. In Paraguay, much of the rural poverty I saw still had people living in a stone structure of some sort. After going through poverty, you make a quick turn, go through a security gate and you are in the middle of an suburban office park with serveral buildings 8-12 stories high. For lunch everyone goes to the cafeteria (which becomes a break room later in the day with a ping pong table). Food is free. I tried a few different things but I have no idea what it is. The bread here, i think it is baratha, is really good. I haven't picked up my own to make PB&J sandwiches yet which is a true test but I will eventually.

In the training class today, as part of the introductions, I asked everyone to submit their favorite dish so I will start trying some of these out and see how it goes. Tomorrow is Global Volunteer day and we will be building something water related to help a village capture more water and prevent drought. I will let you know how it goes.