Exports, crazy train, AIESEC relapse & prom

Hello everyone out there!

I am sorry for not updating you in a while; I have been out traveling!

Two weeks ago I went to a training in LED lights at our manufacturing plant outside Delhi. I got to know about it the same day as I was going, which was stressful since I was in urgent need of getting the laundry done since I was about to leave for a one week's conference! And my sister usually complains that I don't plan far enough ahead, so I guess I am starting to understand how she feels with me now!

I have started to get the feeling that Indian people expect foreigners to have very high requirements. My "guide" for the training day thought it was near to impossible to find an OK hotel for my budget, and the place he found was 10 times as good as what I could have asked for. When I ask people about restaurants they start to talk about 5 star ones, etc. I wish people didn't feel like they have to get out of their ways to make me comfortable, even though I appreciate the effort. I have no problem sleeping in a sitting position amongst the bags in a train.

Good thing with work now is that it is more clear what I have to do. I will start to research the Swedish market so we can start looking at exports.

Last week I went to an AIESEC conference. The train ride there was just crazy! We were 25 people or so crammed into a few seats playing a lot of different games. There were no AC so it was extremely hot. Sleeping on hard plastic bunks in that temperature made me just as wet as a swim would have!

The conference in itself was nothing but amazing. Now I have to new families and one more country. LC Jaipur, my Fictious LC (Home group), and India. Compared to Swedish AIESEC conferences this one was so much more focused on having fun and bonding the members. There was a Talent Night where the LCs could show off their non-AIESEC related talents, long plenary sessions with fun and interactive content, and finally a prom the last night. Everyone was so excited about the prom that it kind of became the focus of the conference.

My fictious LC

Me and Saloni on the prom

I had the experience of getting auctioned away for the prom, but it was fine since I ended up with the girl I was going to ask anyway! It could have had something to do with me asking the organizers to go and encourage her to participate specifically. ;-) Saloni is a fun and energized person who became the president of her fictious Local Committee, and was brave enough to also apply for president of all the delegates (FMCP)!

During the conference I managed to finally lose my self-image of not being that good at small talk or striking up random conversations. The result was that I probably ended up speaking with 200 people or so! I guess the releasing factor was all the friendly Indian people and the natural attention given by being a foreigner, but I also felt a change of mindset in myself.

Now I am back in Jaipur again and ready to work. This week we have two big fairs to attend that will go on for the rest of the week. I had planned to go to Agra with two guys from Norway and Denmark, but now I got to know the fair goes on even on Sunday...

See you soon!

Survived the first week!

First week passed and I am still alive!

Now it feels like I got the hang of the life over here. Work is going good, getting back and forth from work is no problem, I have gotten into things socially, and you know what? I have found the supermarket! Below is my first complete self cooked meal!

I don't know how you think it looks, but I think it looks great! I have to admit it did not taste super well though, since it was way too spicy! Funny that first time I thought the food was too spicy in India was when I cooked it myself... For the connoisseurs out there that are wondering what this is I am happy to anounce that I will share the secret for free. It is instant noodles with fresh onions, tomatos, chilies, and..... a lot of spices. Stay in tune for next week's master piece.

The only thing that makes me feel a bit out of place at the moment is getting around the city. To get somewhere I need to use the auto rickshaws, and I don't know what to find where, or how the things are connecting. It might sound expensive to use taxi everytime you want to go somewhere, but it is not that bad. If you spend 2 minutes bargaining it is no problem to get the price down from 100 rupees to 50 rupees. (14 SEK to 7 SEK for you Swede's) It is funny that if you are 6 people going somewhere you can get quite far for 1 SEK each! I am considering getting an Indian drivers licence for motorbike and to buy one, since it would add so much freedom to be able to get around by myself without having to bargain with drivers thinking I am a tourist.

Since I, as most people here, am working Saturdays today was the first day off. For most of the day me and a guy I met from Norway, Preben, went for some sightseeing. We went to the fortresses Amber and Jaigahr. They were HUGE and were built in the 16th century or so. Besides getting to see some marvelous architecture we got to see things such as the worlds largest cannon on wheels, and water tanks built 400-500 years ago gathering 2.2 million litres of rain water through an advanced gathering system in the mountain.

Amber fort from a bottom view

The inner courtyard 1

The inner courtyard 2

Sitting in a window in another courtyard

 Picture of Amber fort taken from Jaigarh fort

Standing on the top of the top!

The largest cannon on wheels in the world. The barrel is 6 meters long, it weighs 50 tons and is charged with 100 kg gunpowder and 50 kg bullets. I wonder what you shoot at from the top of a mountain with that! Ever heard about the saying 'Shooting mosquitos with cannons'?

After the sightseeing we went to play some football; interns vs locals. We won with 5-0 and I was the goal keeper of the second half! :)

The winning team!

Two of my flatmates, Daike and Keite from Japan (Sorry for spelling guys!)

All in all it has been a great week. At work I have been to a big amount of sales meetings. Two of them was a bit outside the city, and on the way there I saw 34 elephants! It got me wondering why you have an elephant to ride on when you can fit as much people on a horse. I guess the elephants is India's answer to USA's SUV's!

Now I am starting to feel that I understand the products we are marketing and that I could start to sell by myself soon. One meeting was quite scary though. After having followed to 10 meetings or so (9 in Hindi) and having had no time to read about any detailed information about our solutions I was asked 15 seconds before entering the meeting if I would like to hold the meeting. It was a very important meeting since selling there would be a good reference and give us much credibility. Of course I said no thanks! Then my colleague introduced me as an R&D (Research and Development) expert from Sweden. That wasn't a literal lie depending on the interpretation since I do market research, and business development, but we were meeting the chief engineer and the intention was to give the impression that I was a technical person. Guess if I had to do everything I could to avoid technical discussions! I should get an Oscar for my act of being a confused technical foreigner with a hard time to communicate properly in English and a hard time to cope with the heat.

This was a great week, so I cannot wait to start the second one tomorrow!

Where do I get to buy real food?!

Hello again!

Another interesting day has passed, and I though I would share some highlights with you!

The day started with getting up at 6.45 to get early to te office for some training on solar water heaters before the normal action started. Now I know everything about vacuum tubes and aluminium nitrid coating! ;-)

For the rest of the day I went to different sales meetings around the city, on the bike as usual. Since we need to bring samples at some meetings the bike gets a bit packed at times. Take a look at the picture below! And people here don't understand why I would like to buy a helmet even though I am not required to by law...

Most of the sales meetings have unfortunately ends up in Hindi, so I am not really adding much value at the moment. I manage to pick of a few things here and there though, and getting to hear what happened in the meeting afterwards are giving some hints about what is important and not for customers. Indian business culture also seems to be quite interesting. There are pretty much no small talk or social talk at all, it just jumps right into technical details and negotiation. One meeting was about two minutes, and many do not last more than 10-15 minutes. On the other hand I have only been here for two days, so it is a bit early to draw conclusions.

One of the products of the company I am working for is solar lanterns. The project is mainly targeting NGOs for supplying the rural areas with poor lighting conditions. Many people are facing issues of health problems, fire accidents, and poor lighting making it hard to live during night time, among other issues, since the normal source of lighting for many are burning kerosene. (Fotogen for Swedish speakers) These lights are both cheap and very effective for addressing many social issue. The main "problem" though is that all the costs are up-front and then adds no costs for the rest of its lifetime except change of relatively cheap batteries every two years or so. Many poor do not have the possibility for that kind of investment even if the payback is less than a year and then free and sage lighting for decades, hence the use of NGOs for distribution.

At night I tried to scout around for shopping food, which turned out harder than one could expect. There are small stores at kiosk size every here and there with a very limited asortment. You cannot browse the goods easilly and you just have to tell the shop keeper what you want, which was hard since I had no clue what I could buy. I asked around a bit and got to know that there should be some bigger super market around, even though no one seems to know where. Soon I will find somewhere to buy other things than bread, cheese and eggs!

Stay in tune, and I'll send you another update as soon as I have enough interesting things to share!