Jalsa! The District 3060 Conference

Photos of the 3060 District Conference.

Thanks,

Blake

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2275591021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Vapi

And on to Vapi!

Blake

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2275410021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Surat

And on to Surat!

Blake

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2276368021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Vadodara

And now the photos from Vadodara!

Blake

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2275638021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Anand, and Ahmedabad

Here are some photos from our day trip to Ahmedabad, and our time in Anand.

Volcano!

Blake

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2276061021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Wadwan City and Surendrenagar

Photos of our time in Wadwan City and Surendrenagar.

Thanks,

Blake

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2275430021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Sassan Gir and the trip between Rajkot and Porbandar

More photos.
There are some good shots of Asiatic lions, including a good video.

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2275481021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Blake

Porbandar

Ok,
Some photos from our GSE visit to Porbandar. Please visit the link for the album. I've had some difficulty with the links coming through, so you may have to copy the link into your browser.
Thanks,
Blake
(http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2276524021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/)

Bhavnagar!

Ok,
I have some pictures from Bhavnagar. Hopefully some of you are still on the email notification list.

Thanks,

Blake
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2274894021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Adding photos on the web

I know,
I've been terrible about getting back on here to provide a concise wrap up of this amazing adventure. I have a little free time this week, at least in the evenings, so I'm going to start uploading photos onto a new Snapfish account. I'm organizing the albums by city, so hopefully that isn't too cumbersome. Also, my Indian friends, this initially is only my photographs, so please let us know of photos or places you want more pictures of, and we'll expand the albums accordingly. Hopefully everyone is still on the notification list and will get this. Stay tuned!

First album will be Rajkot.

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2117212021/a=2323473021_2323473021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The End is not the End

I'm sorry that we slowed down on the posting at the end, but we had greater difficulty finding time for the internet in our last two stays in Surat and Vapi, as we spent a number of our nights out with Rotarians enjoying dinner and company.

Now that the GSE trip has wrapped up, and the team has gone on separate vacations, we will look to complete the journey in the blogosphere when we return to reality. Thank God for journals to help fill in the blank spots in our memories! Not only do we have more stories about the people, places and good works we've seen, but we also have our impressions, final thoughts, and a little about our travels after GSE.

Karen (my wife) and I are currently in Jaipur staying with Rotarian Chandresh Nagar and his lovely family, after having visited with Rotarians in Delhi (more on them in a separate post!) and Agra while sightseeing. We will venture further into the state of Rajasthan with visits to Udaipur, Jodhpur, and Jaisalmer, before wrapping up our time in India. It truly has been life altering. I hope everyone has enjoyed our trip, and our writing, and hope that you will stick around for the finale.

Blake and Team

A New Star in the Galaxy from District 3060

My friend, Rotarian Ruchir Jani, was elected "Rotarian of the Year" from District 3060 in Gurajat , India, today. Ruchir is a founding member of Rotary Vapi - Riverside. We were very lucky to Ruchir as our coordinator and he excelled at fielding all our questions and schedule changes, in addition to his responsibilities for the conference. We are forever indebted to Ruchir for his grace, thoroughness, and his friendship, in particular.

District 6900 GSE Team Meets Rotary International President (2011-2012)

The team was fortunate to meet with Kalyan Banerjee today. Kalyan is RI President elect for 2011-12 and his home club is here in Vapi. He has just returned from the States and is busy preparing for the District 3060 Conference. He and his wife were kind enough to give us time and open their home to the team. Evidently, Kalyan is not too busy to get involved with the team's personal travel plans post GSE. Many thanks to Ruchir Jani, our GSE coordinator in Vapi for arranging the meeting.

Next stop-the District Conference where will meet the inbound team to 3060 from Sri Lanka, the outbound team headed for our district 6900 from Gujarat 3060, and say goodbye to our friends here in Gujarat.

Diamonds and fancy clothes

Surat is a city with a rich history. It was India's largest trading port before Bombay gained strength. During our visit to Surat we were met memorable sights and people. We toured Venus Jewels, an impressive diamond polishing factory. Surat polishes more than 70 percent of the world's diamonds. Sadly they did not provide free samples :).

We also visited Rivaa Exports Ltd., a manufacturer of women's clothing. We saw how the embroidery is stitched.

And we got a look at how the fabric is dyed.

Thanks to GSE Coordinator and my host Yatish Parekh for his wonderful programming. I really enjoyed all the laughs we shared!

I will miss the whole family!

This morning we move to a new city, Vapi. The District Conference is not far away, Jan. 29-31. It will be sad to say goodbye to India and all our new friends.

Smiles in Surat

Last night we made our presentation to the 11 Rotary clubs of Surat. It was a high-profile event as we were fortunate to have District Governor Maj. S.K. Sharma in attendance. Our GSE leader Bill Barney presented Maj. Sharma with "Marshes of Glynn," a painting by Charlene Hall, wife of Past District Governor and Polio Challenge Coordinator Robert Hall of District 6900.

It was certainly an Indian-Southern affair as the Rotary Friendship (Family) Exchange team from North Carolina joined us for the evening.

It was also good to see our "best friend" Past District Governor Kulbandhu Sharma. Thanks to him for all his dedication to our GSE team.

Today is Republic Day in India, so we have some free time. I hope to post more pictures from our adventures in Surat later in the afternoon. But for now we are off to a textile factory ...

Team at aadharshila

Some of the smartest, most creative branding professionals in India, at aadharshila

Baroda and vocational visit to aadharshila

I love Baroda. After visiting the city palace yesterday, we spent quality time with our host families. You can see mine to the right: Kavita (homoeopathic doctor), me (Whitney), Savir (VP marketing Inox India), Ashna, Jingle (adorable cocker spaniel), and Tanvi. Ashna and Tanvi are identical twins, and both are athletic and artistic. It will be very hard to leave such a warm, vibrant family and city.

The power of Rotary is incredible. It just so happens that my wonderful host Savir Julka and Alok Desai, CEO of Baroda's leading branding agency aadharshila, are fellow Rotarians at RC Baroda Metro. As a PR professional for Atlanta's communication firm Jackson Spalding, I loved spending the day with Alok's team of designers and client service representatives, comparing business strategies, creative processes and even firm cultures. It is a true privilege to shadow others in the same professional half way around the world. Thank you to Alok and his team for spending time with me.

JSers, it's great to see friendly faces from Baroda working hard for great clients like ours. They eat lunch together each day as many of our PROI partners do, and they welcomed me to the table. They gave a special shout out to JS Creative, Cultivation and Communication!

Some Have Better Connections Than Others!

Many thanks to Blake; aka 'Black Bear' for his lengthy posts. He speaks for the team on our general impressions and we are grateful he has the ability to find connections without interruption and sufficient bandwidth. Rotary continues to astonish us with its breadth and dynamic reach for community betterment. We are humbled at every turn.

Anand to Vadodara (Baroda)

We wrapped up our much needed R and R on Wednesday morning. Whitney and I were able to spend a few hours at the pool for some color, so hopefully we won't look so pasty in our photos. I hear it's pretty chilly in the States right now. Must be tough! The pyramid in the photo was a little strange. Apparently a room for meditation, it had a single plastic lawn chair centered under the peak of the pyramid. Groovy... After our midtrip rest break at the hotel we stayed with our hosts in Anand for only one day and night. It was very unfortunate scheduling that had our rest time taken out of our Anand visit, but we made the most of it.

We visited two sites before the main event Wednesday. The first was a hospital that, through matching grants with other Rotary clubs, is able to perform eye surgery to remove cataracts, and to also insert artificial lenses. It's a prestigious enough hospital that they receive paying customers, which also helps finance additional surgeries on the poor. The doctors routinely visit area villages for eye exams, which is how they identify their surgery candidates. Truly great work. Also, I'm having enough trouble with uploading photos, so I'm not going to delete this one, despite something happening to my hair, and Amy looking away...

Our next stop was the Vallabhbhai Patel and Veer Vithalbhai Patel Memorial. I had never heard of the brothers, and I thought I knew a good bit about Indian Independence. Vallabhbhai Patel was later known as Sardar Patel (Sardar means leader) for his roll as the Iron Man of India. He was instrumental in Indian unification after Indian Independence, as the princely states still existed and had to be coerced into joining the India instead of splintering. Sardar was the third man behind Gandhi and Nehru, and would have been chosen as India's first Prime Minister, but Gandhi decided it should be Nehru. The memorial was a huge building with an auditorium, and had banners with quotes from him and about him, above news articles and his and his brother's personal history. Around Anand and Baroda is where all of the Patels come from, so nearly everyone we run into is a Patel. It's amazing how regional last names are here.

Rotary club of Anand Round Town has for the past 16 years put on a song, dance, and arts competition for the areas schools, which host 50,000 students. It's a big deal, and is televised regionally to over 100,000 homes. It's a labor of love that gives these students an avenue to express their talents, at great expense to the Round Town club. We were invited onto the stage to address the students and to say a little bit about ourselves, so hopefully we can get a copy of that video! The photo is of their Michael Jackson tribute.

My host's son, Harsh, was the emcee for the event, and was a natural, despite professing to be nervous. You can see my host Himent and his sone Harsh posing with me in this photo. We are trying to convince him to do grad school at Georgia Tech, as he is finishing up his undergrad in Mechanical Engineering. Himent and I stayed up late philosiphizing, and discussing the differences and similarities of our two cultures. I'm dragging a bit today, but I'm glad I got to make the most of the one day.

We drove to Vadodara this morning, a city the British had anglicized to Baroda. Like Bombay becoming Mumbai, Baroda is becoming Vadodara again. The city is bustling, but it's one of the cleanest we've seen in India thus far. It was once the seat of the state of Vadodara, and had/has a Maharaja. We were fortunate enough to visit our first palace in India here.

The name of the palace is Lukshmi Vilas Palace, if you want to google or Wikipedia it. The photo doesn't do the scale justice. I had to walk about 400 yards away to get the whole thing in one frame, and the tiny little people in the grass below the center are about 100 yards from the palace. The tower is 300 feet tall. Truly massive.

The current Maharaja and the family live on the second floor, and tours only cover the ground floor. It's a beautiful structure in need of a serious renovation, but since it's still private, the family hasn't been keeping it up. There were cracked windows, and grass was growing out of the joints in the stonework. We couldn't take pictures inside, so this is all I can show you. You'll have to visit yourself to see more. The audio tour had clips from the Maharaja talking about the difficulties in growing up in such a large home, such as it taking thirty minutes to get his tea served because the servants have to walk so far. Man, it's a rough life.

We aren't sure on the history, but I think that when Sardar Patel forced the unification of the princely states into India shortly after independence from Britain, The Maharajas got to keep their estates and titles, but no longer ruled. I need to get a book on laying out the formation of India. It's very complicated.

There is a nicely manicured golf course around the grounds of the palace. I believe Bill gets to play it tomorrow morning, and personally I hope he shanks every ball, lucky jerk. :-) I'm going to try to upload a video of the palace, as one photo isn't enough, and it should appear at the bottom. This will be our first video, if it works, as we've been bandwidth constrained to say the least. Oh well, it failed... Here is another photo from closer up.

We are here Vadodara until Sunday morning, when we will take our first and only train ride to Surat, the diamond capital of India. I can see the emails from Karen now, and it just got expensive! Near Vadodara is Champaner/Pavagadh, a UNESCO World Heritage site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavagadh. It wasn't on the schedule, as the Vadodara club has a lot of projects for us to see, but they are very graciously trying to fit a visit in and work with us. Hopefully it will work out, as we certainly don't want to miss out on any Rotary projects.

Well, it's getting late, and I need the rest. This darn post took over two hours because of the photos. Hope you enjoy the update!

Since I finally cleaned the salt from my shoes, I thought it was time to post my pictures of the Rotary windmill project. My teammates (Blake and Whitney) did a good job of describing the alternative energy endeavor, but you might like this visual interpretation.

The life of a salt farmer is meager. A typical family makes around $500 a year.

Laborers like this young girl will suffer severe health ailments from the acidic salt water. Notice how she toils barefoot.

The Rotary windmill project gives hope of a better life by cutting down fuel costs.