Imagine This

Tuesday brought numerous experiences that we will never forget!First the traffic. Try and imagine this. You are driving down any four lane road in Calgary, two lanes going north and two lanes going south, divide by a medal railing fence with numerous opening in it for people to cross at. So on the north side of the road you have two distinct lanes marked by a painted line. Then you have a few Pedestrian, two or three motorcycles,a bicycle, two cars and maybe a rickshaw all trying to squeeze into the same two lanes. Then you come to a three way intersection, with no light system. It is dark and you have twelve lanes of traffic trying to cross against each other. It is pure chaos, yet somehow after several minutes of delay we made it through the intersection. Now we only had to fight to keep moving in the direction of our destination! Once in the clear you only need to worry about the motorcycles, bikes and cars zigzagging in and about as they rush to pass you. Then don't forget about the random cow wandering down the middle or sleeping on the side of the road. I have also learned that there is three distinct types of honking, which everyone does all the time. First is the friendly I am coming up side you honk, or beware as I enter the intersection honk. Then there is the "I am passing please move over" honk, and finally the "what the heck are you doing, get the heck out of my way NOW honk". We have experienced all three. All I can say is that walking or hiring a driver will be the only mode of transportation for us in India!!Next was the trip to the Mundi, a wholesaler's market where most Indians never go, never mind foreign white people or as Tanmaya says "people like you"...LoL. How to describe it?Rows and rows of cement outlets filled to the rafters with spices. At most 6ft by 10ft in size although most appear to be smaller. The proprietor stationed at the front eithern sitting cross legged on the table or at a small table conducts his business accepting order and payments. They sell gunnysacks of spices and if a client is interested in a specific product they will punch a hole into the bottom of the sack so that the purchaser can see the quality at the bottom of the bag as well as the top. If he is satisfied and after several minutes of negotiation a young man will heave the sack onto the weigh scale and the price is fixed. Everything is sold by the kilogram and for cash.The maze of buildings are connected by mud roads and it is literally mud. Puddles of water fill the alleys and men In bare feet pull wagons or pack extremely heavy gunnysacks on their backs. Our guides in their business loafers tiptoed down the alleys in attempt to keep the bottom of their pants dry. It was really very funny as I trompedThrough the mud in my sandals. Yes they would wash. However it was a bit disconcerting to see that the alleys were also used as washroom facilities. I scrubbed my sandals and my feet almost raw when we got home that night. We felt a little bit like animals at the zoo as the men stared as we past by. There was ni women in sight. Tanmaya even engaged the help of a local merchant to help us find the office of a major player who would be willing to answer a few questions for us. While it wasn't scary being there it was definitely intimitating. We wasted no time getting back to our car once we were done with the interviews.Prior to visiting the Mundi we meet with another non-profit organization who started a spice processing plant two years ago. Annapurna Agriculture Innivation PVT, Ltd. They were more than happy to share their insight and give us a tour of their plant. On the drive to the plant the ED shared that they had just become the first organization in India to join Kiva. Now what is interesting about that is that Randy and I both lend to small entrepreneurs by participating in Kiva. We had seen the announcement that India was participating a week before we left Canada but when we tried to participate the site said there was no outstanding requests here. What we learned from the ED was that within 24 hours of posting loan requests all the applications for India had been funded. How fun and coincidental that we would meet with the inaugural company of India on our visit! MAA spices is the name of the spice production company. They are running with a completely different brand name for the company than the non-profit organization because they want to be able to sell and market to all economic status clients and not just get the one time sympathy purchaser or low income shopper. Sounds familiar to the challenge we face at WINS!The spice plant consisted of three small cement buildings forming a u shape and I think the pictures tell more of the story than words can describe. Using very simple equipment and lots of manual labour the company packages over two tons of spices per day. Totally amazing. The office environment for the packaging/shipping department is a covered Cement patio where 5-6 ladies sit cross legged on the ground and place the individual spice packages into packages of 10 in preparation for shipping. I am not sure how they do this for eight hours a day, 6 days a week for less than $100 per month??? But they do!The ED and his team were gracious hosts, explaining all the details of the operation, and the challenges and successes they have had over the last two years. They produce 75 differences products which includes about 15 different spices or blends of spices in several different sizes. After the tour we were invited back into the office for a refreshment and more conversation. So here is the next interesting thing; a special treat is coke with a blend of spices mixed into it. Within two hours it is supposed to help your digestive system. (I think I may have told you about this before). Today I would be offered it twice. Once at the spice plant and later at an equipment dealers, although I think the 2nd offering was mixed with water rather than coke. Just couldn't bring myself to drink it either time. So a quick sip to be polite and the rest left in the glass. I am not sure what it would really do to my system?Our last stop for the day was an equipment dealer in Cuttack. A bit of the challenge was that Tanmaya and our driver weren't 100% sure of where we were going but we got there eventually. Tanmaya was a little shocked when Randy asked if we could get a quote for all the equipment we would need to set up our plant. But how else could we do the plan without knowing what it was going to cost? The dealer was more than happy to prepare a quote and I think this made the whole project even more real for Tanmaya and his team. It was now becoming very real!Booking into the Suryansh hotel, a trip to the spice plant, then back to Cuttack to the Mundi, a visit to the equipment dealer, fighting the traffic back to Bhubaneswar, it was now 7pm at night and we were ready for supper and some relaxation!!