Work, Work, Work

So much for International Labor Day. The team here offered to work on this holiday in exchange for another day off later. So instead of working some from the hotel and then sightseeing, it is off to the office and put in a full day's work.

The IBM office is in an area of Hyderabad called Hitek City. And within Hitek City within an area called MindSpace. There is construction all over the place. New office buildings and a large Westin Hotel right across from the IBM office. The amount of steel and concrete is
unbelievable. The energy consumption must be staggering. But contrast that with street cleaning which involves women with brooms made from palm fronds and lawn care being done by a man cutting the grass by hand with a knife not much bigger than a razor blade!


This is really a country of extremes. The government successfully launched a rocket the other day with 9 satelites it. The 9 satelites were all successfully put into orbit. They are planning on sending an unmanned mission to the moon later this year and eventually put a man in space. Yet there is such incredible poverty - as Luis put it "misery." People sleeping in the street medians and along the sides of the roads. Tents made of discarded plastics and tarps. Corrugated metal structures. All this right next to new and modern office buildings and condominiums.