Welcome to Incredible India!

Incredible is right! Incredibly polluted, littered, crowded, stinky, traffic-jammed, horn-honking, ugly city (at lease New Delhi) that I’ve ever seen. There are over a billion people in India with 15 million in the New Delhi area and incompetence is the norm that I’ve witnessed. Needless to say, the JCI 63rd World Congress in Incredible India is not going well. We at JCI Headquarters knew beforehand that our work was cut out for us but we never imagined how difficult it would be to get simple cooperation from the JCI India Congress Organizing Committee (COC) who had pledged to put on the most magnificent Congress ever since they won the bid 2 years ago. There has been one problem after another causing JCI HQ team unbelievable stress because although it is being hosted by JCI India who is supposed to provide all the logistics, transportation, meals, etc., when things go wrong, we take the flak.

When I arrived after almost 24 hours of travel time and walked out of the airport to catch our van, the first thing that hit me was the smog. At first I thought it was fog and I didn’t realize what it was because I have never experienced anything like it before. Now I truly understand the meaning of the word acrid because that’s the only way to describe it. India used to be a British territory so they drive very fast on the opposite side of the road in three lanes weaving in out of traffic and honk and weave and honk and weave. It’s really very scary but I experienced this type of driving last year in Istanbul. We got here at night and since I find it difficult to sleep on airplanes, I was tired enough to go to bed. There is an 11-1/2 hour time difference so I thought I could just go to sleep and nip the jet lag in the bud. We checked into the Parkland Safdarjung Hotel and I was exhausted so I just about collapsed in the hard bed ready to sleep for the night. I was asleep within minutes and awakened soon after by a loud clang that seemed to be coming through the ceiling. As I was trying to get back to sleep I heard all the traffic & horn-honking. The periodic clang & horns continued throughout the night which made for a miserable night’s rest for me. When the same clanging happened the next night, I called the desk & demanded it stop so the guy came to my room to figure out what the noise was and come to find it was the boiler. I’m not sure I even know what the heck a boiler is. At the least, I though they were something out of the distant past!

I was pretty impressed with the first meal I had because it was really quite tasty. Famous last words. I’m so sick of Indian food that I’ve skipped several meals and you all know that is very unusual for me! We were able to get someone to bring us KFC into the office one night and you would’ve thought we all died and gone to heaven. Even all my foreign co-workers were in ecstasy! There was one day when Zsolt, who is our employee in Budapest told me the club sandwich & French fries at our hotel were very good and I was quite skeptical because this is the same guy who ate raw octopus with the tentacles hanging out of his mouth when we were in Japan. But I trusted him & ordered it and was happy that it was excellent – maybe the best club sandwich I’ve ever had.

I’ve been working long hours, getting little sleep and it finally caught up with me the other day when I was really emotional and on the verge of tears all day long. I was working registration and you’d think there was a big sign in front of my spot marked “Complaint Department” because a lot of members were bitching about one thing or another. I don’t know why they come to me because there is a help desk right across from me & others around but it may be that since I don’t look Indian they think I might be able to do something for them. Either that or they recognize me from year-to-year but I’m not sure why they choose me. Finally, when I closed registration and went back up to the office, our Audit Committee Chairman, Jun Takahashi was there to count & sign off on the cash. He said I looked like I needed a hug and that’s all it took – I was in tears. After I complained about the complainers I calmed down and was able to laugh about it. Jun suggested that next year we have a “Complaint Counter” and man it with a deaf person.

I’m writing this blog a little each day as registration slows down but it could be pages and pages so I will cut it off. The only fun thing I’ve done in the week that I’ve been here is to ride an elephant. We are all going to take a bus trip to the Taj Mahal on Monday which will be a good way to end this horrendous Congress. I can’t wait to get home to my soft bed, quiet house, clean air, and, of course, Jim.

P.S. The Congress site is voted on two years before the actual date and last year in Turkey, Tunisia and Quebec were the contenders. Unfortunately, there are politics in JCI and “the family” instructed their National Organizations how to vote so next year it will be in Tunisia which is destined to be worse. Needless to say, I was rooting for Quebec….