A training day: Thursday

9.02 By rickshaw to the office; a ‘kermis’ drive of 10 minutes through the hilarious traffic.

9.20 Installation of the latest version of the application on mine laptop. Start other 5 machines to be used by the 7 trainees. One machine always starts scanning the whole harddisk. Another has always to be rebooted.

09.50 Ready to start; wait for the trainees. Planned start: 10.00.

11.10 Everybody has arrived. They are pardoned: they traveled 150 km and left home at 05.00! So I start with a warm welcome. I am glad that Mr. Mahender (staff of MV Foundation) translates mine introduction. These are mostly fieldworkers, living in poor villages (“a village is poor per definition”).

11.40 Power cut! Suddenly it is quiet: the fan, everything is dead. I cannot let them install the application on their own machine. Go on with 7 trainees on 1 laptop. Some has problem with typing: mine keyboard is different. Others are very quick to pick it all up.

12.25 Lunch around the table. The mild spicy food (very tasty) and the warmth makes me sweat.


13.20 Continue story. Mine laptop runs out of power – I switch to the laptop of Geert Jan. It becomes rather warm in the small room. Sometimes I have problem to understanding a fieldworker: he cannot explain me in for me understandable English what he wants to do – so I cannot help him further. Mahender and Ashok are nearby. I have the feeling I have made myself dispensable.

15.10 Noise again: power returned. Everybody gets started on a machine. When each has done the main thing at least once, I finish the training with the subject: making reports. After that they resume the training on their own initiative!


16.10 Powercut again!! Disappointment - an early halt of the training. The fieldworkers who came from far, stay in Hyderabad and will follow the training tomorrow again.At the end I am not unhappy with the result.