We just finished up orientation and are now onto doing some work in the office. I thought I'd outline what a typical day would be so that you can understand a bit more about what I'm doing here.
In the morning I wake up due to the sun. I usually use my phone for an alarm and also a sense of time, but as I don't have a phone right now, I wake up usually at 7 thinking I've over slept and am late for work. Then, I get out of the cold bed since the temperature is roughly 0-10 degrees right now and the houses do not have any central heating. That means we get warmth from blankets, bottles of boiled water and sometimes the Bukari - furnace. Needless to say, I've caught a cold since I'm not used to this weather and I've learned now that I should be wearing my winter coat 24/7 and especially in the office, to keep myself warm. After waking up, I change into clothes that have been sitting in the cold over night and are what we call refrigerated. I enjoy some exercise with walking about 5-20 minutes up the steep mountain - the time varies depending on which path I take and how much I want to be out of breath by the time I get to the office. Once at the office I take about 30 minutes to 1 hr to catch my breath since the air is very thin up here.
Office time starts at 8:30am and I usually get in about 7:00-7:30 depending on when I wake up. We start the morning off with singing worship songs in both English and Hindi and then take turns leading the devotional studies / bible studies of the day. After that we get onto doing work and/or other important things as a regular office would operate. The tasks that Stephen and I have been given so far is to update/create a more formal office standard that new staff and interns will be able to follow in order to understand the office better. This will be until next Friday when we are to leave for our project trip to Bihar. There are two sites we'll be working with. One is 700sqft and the other is 1.7 acres. The project trip will be for a few weeks and once we get back we have 3 months to finish both projects. The office is made up of both Architects and Engineers, 10 people total.
12:30pm. My favorite time of the day =) Lunch is prepared by one of the woman that lives in the area. Every lunch she makes an amazing Indian dish. I had only eaten Indian food twice in Canada, and it was okay there. It doesn't really compare to here. We're taught not to say "I love that dish" or having favoritism over a specific type of Indian food otherwise the cook will only make that one dish and it may not even be that good. When these situations come up, the boss man gets very angry.
6:30pm. My other favorite time of the day - dinner time! We have a wide variety of different dishes for dinner going from lasagna to various Indian foods to chow mien. Usually the office hours end around dinner time and then we eat dinner together and after that we can do whatever we want. So far the interns haven't had much time to explore the area too much and so after 6:30pm we usually just stay in the office to use the internet. The office is one of the only buildings in the area with wireless. Unfortunately the wireless is dependent on the electricity supply and the electricity is very unstable and can send surges of anywhere from 100v to 400v and destroy equipment that is not able to handle those surges. Each desk has voltage stabilizers which keep the voltage at a consistent rate but still the power dies for long periods of time. So far this has been the routine of the day with the guys walking back to our dorms at about 10 to sleep. It'll definitely get more exciting as of next Friday when the real work begins =) I'm excited to see what's going to happen and how traveling on dirty trains, surverying and dealing with the Indian clients are going to be like. Hope you're all well and I miss you all!
In the morning I wake up due to the sun. I usually use my phone for an alarm and also a sense of time, but as I don't have a phone right now, I wake up usually at 7 thinking I've over slept and am late for work. Then, I get out of the cold bed since the temperature is roughly 0-10 degrees right now and the houses do not have any central heating. That means we get warmth from blankets, bottles of boiled water and sometimes the Bukari - furnace. Needless to say, I've caught a cold since I'm not used to this weather and I've learned now that I should be wearing my winter coat 24/7 and especially in the office, to keep myself warm. After waking up, I change into clothes that have been sitting in the cold over night and are what we call refrigerated. I enjoy some exercise with walking about 5-20 minutes up the steep mountain - the time varies depending on which path I take and how much I want to be out of breath by the time I get to the office. Once at the office I take about 30 minutes to 1 hr to catch my breath since the air is very thin up here.
Office time starts at 8:30am and I usually get in about 7:00-7:30 depending on when I wake up. We start the morning off with singing worship songs in both English and Hindi and then take turns leading the devotional studies / bible studies of the day. After that we get onto doing work and/or other important things as a regular office would operate. The tasks that Stephen and I have been given so far is to update/create a more formal office standard that new staff and interns will be able to follow in order to understand the office better. This will be until next Friday when we are to leave for our project trip to Bihar. There are two sites we'll be working with. One is 700sqft and the other is 1.7 acres. The project trip will be for a few weeks and once we get back we have 3 months to finish both projects. The office is made up of both Architects and Engineers, 10 people total.
12:30pm. My favorite time of the day =) Lunch is prepared by one of the woman that lives in the area. Every lunch she makes an amazing Indian dish. I had only eaten Indian food twice in Canada, and it was okay there. It doesn't really compare to here. We're taught not to say "I love that dish" or having favoritism over a specific type of Indian food otherwise the cook will only make that one dish and it may not even be that good. When these situations come up, the boss man gets very angry.
6:30pm. My other favorite time of the day - dinner time! We have a wide variety of different dishes for dinner going from lasagna to various Indian foods to chow mien. Usually the office hours end around dinner time and then we eat dinner together and after that we can do whatever we want. So far the interns haven't had much time to explore the area too much and so after 6:30pm we usually just stay in the office to use the internet. The office is one of the only buildings in the area with wireless. Unfortunately the wireless is dependent on the electricity supply and the electricity is very unstable and can send surges of anywhere from 100v to 400v and destroy equipment that is not able to handle those surges. Each desk has voltage stabilizers which keep the voltage at a consistent rate but still the power dies for long periods of time. So far this has been the routine of the day with the guys walking back to our dorms at about 10 to sleep. It'll definitely get more exciting as of next Friday when the real work begins =) I'm excited to see what's going to happen and how traveling on dirty trains, surverying and dealing with the Indian clients are going to be like. Hope you're all well and I miss you all!
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