Before jumping into this week’s topic, we hosted our F&I and Insurance Managers this week for a 3-day conference. Every dealership, pan-India, was represented.
The Insurance team had a break-through year creating multiple enhancements and new products. The stage is now set for the “Year of Insurance.”
This is a group that works hard / plays hard. Dancing is by far our #1 team building activity, and as we learned, it MUST be Bollywood music (The Bee Gees and Village People did not pull anyone onto the dance floor).
Despite a midnight closure to our program Wednesday evening, this team was up at 7:30 am Thursday morning playing cricket.
There are similarities to baseball, however, the ball is bounced on the ground as it approaches the batter.
This was a serious game which included an umpire.
It was 7° C (44° F) and the grass was wet with dew. But when it comes to cricket, everyone is still a little kid inside.
It was good fun and a great way to start our day.
Last weekend, Greg and I traveled to Aurangabad in the state of Maharashtra. The girls remained in Delhi as Kayla was competing in a tennis tournament, and also hosting 2 competitors from the American School in Doha, Qatar.
The areas in-and-around Aurangabad are loaded with historical significance. And no, this is not the Taj Mahal. This is Bibi-Ka-Maqbara, a mausoleum built in the 1650’s, just as the Taj Mahal was completing construction some 1200 kilometers northeast from here.
Along our quest, Greg’s repeated inquisitiveness opened new discoveries for us. His question of, “What’s that?” soon landed us in a cotton field.
We later found a field of red hot chili peppers. This is why our food is so spicy.
We also interacted with Greg’s favorite commodity – sugar. The harvesting of this sugar cane field was near completion.
Greg jumped in to help.
Swinging a machete is a lot of fun…
… when you don’t have to do it for a living.
The stocks are then loaded onto ox carts for transport to market.
Down the road, we stumbled across a cotton depot.
Greg’s intuition kicked in…
…and he was quickly king of cotton. Imagine how long it took to create this mountain. Every bit was picked by hand.
A bit farther down the road, we discovered a cotton gin.
While the adults and older children are working…
…the younger children fend for themselves.
We see this often — children caring for children.
These are the cotton gins where the seeds are separated from the cotton.
My question of “How old are the girls?” created nervousness and evasiveness. Note the bare feet.
The cotton moves up the conveyor belt…
…and is compressed in the bailer.
It’s banded…
… bagged…
…and then ready for transport.
It takes about 3 minutes to make each bail.
But wait, there’s more. Here’s a mountain of cotton seeds awaiting processing…
…into cotton oil. These machines grind the seeds.
This man is moving cotton oil from one barrel to the next — one bucket at a time.
The remaining seed shells are compacted…
… and transported for cattle feed. Every element is utilized without any waste.
Our cotton factory tour was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise, which we never would have experienced in the U.S. As Greg said, this would have been an attraction (like Disney World).
Later that evening, we tasted the “fruits of our labor” from the sugar cane field. This machine squeezes the juice from the stalks.
The sugar juice is then mixed with lemon and strained.
The result is Incredibility sweet.
Here’s a preview of next week’s blog. The primary destination of our Aurangabad trip was the Ajanta Caves. These amazing structures were carved by hand from rock some 2200 years ago. Look for those details next week. Enjoy. ts
Ukrainian Tom 