It’s Friday — Tribal Art, Beer, and Fashion

Carmel S
Carmel S
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

Just had some local Bhopal brewed beer (Woodpecker) with the team, so you’ll have to excuse my coherence (or lack thereof) in this blog.

Today I felt much better about our consulting assignment than I have all week. As a team, we spent some time last night reviewing our notes, and this morning we met with the NGO leadership team to discuss and agree on the focus and scope of our work for the next few weeks.

A drawing on the wall in Eklavya

I felt that we were able to extract the most urgent paint point to address, and confirm with the leadership that this would be a good focus for our solutioning work. Also, I suggested a design thinking workshop next week around web and digital strategy, and was glad that the NGO team was enthusiastic about participating. As you can see by the drawing above, the NGO team is a creative, intelligent, and open-minded bunch. The drawings remind me of the design team at work back home who sometimes illustrate sayings on post-its.

For lunch today we branched out in our vegetable repertoire, and tried stewed taro root leaves, and different types of squash.

Taro leaf from the office garden
Lunch with stewed taro leaf

We also got a demonstration of the wonderful science kits that are developed to teach kids science through experimentation. There aren’t proper laboratories in schools in India, so these science kits contain enough equipment (a microscope, chemicals, test-tubes, lenses etc.) to let kids conduct proper experiments in the classroom.

Eklavya Science Kit

The government once told Eklavya that there is no way kids would be able to conduct experiments in school given low budgets — that there could only ever be teacher demonstrations. But they let Eklavya try to come up with an approach, not believing they could do it. Eklayva proved them wrong, and brought experiment and evidence based science education to classrooms across India. Not surprisingly, the science kit is a best seller, but regrettably almost always out of stock.

After work I convinced the team to join me to the multi-art complex / museum near the hotel. We took Ola (like Uber) there, and wandered around the complex in the rain. The art was beautiful — rich and colorful tribal art, but I didn’t get pictures because the guards asked me not to take pictures, after I took the one below.

Lake front, in multi-art complex backyard

Going back we decided to walk. Which of course I was very happy about —it’s the best way to see a place, and I didn’t mind the mud.

Also, I find a lot of fashion inspiration from street style :) .

This sunglasses look is very trendy in Bhopal.

Namaste _^_

Written by

Carmel S

I am a Product Manager at IBM, based in Tel Aviv, Israel. I am in India on a Corporate Service Corps pro-bono consulting assignment.

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