Today I spent the morning in the hotel doing GE work then off to another factory for meetings in the afternoon, then off to Chennai. Could not help to be a little sad that I was leaving Bangalore, strange as it may seem.
After the day before hanging with the former slaves, the work I was doing just did not seem to be that important.
Want to talk a bit more about that. I asked for an interpretor to be able to talk to a young adult male who was with his family but seemed bored out of mind.
21 years old
Working a laborer - days wages not slave wages. He had been freed with his family less than one year back
Likes to watch movies
Interestingly, he had a cell phone and played with it just like any other young person.
So back to Day 5, I visited another GE factory, WIPRO GE. I am amazed how Bangalore is GEHC in minature. I think almost every product in the company portfolio is represented here.
Off to airport in Bangalore. Check-in went great. Security was another matter, and then it got worse.
Every airport has its own system. In this airport, you put your stuff to be scanned on the conveyor, and you're given a card with a number, then you get back in line again. Simple, if you knew it beforehand. I, of course, grabbed a bin and stood in the line with the bin to everyone's smiles. Eventually someone clued me into what should happen.
After going through metal detector, noticed my bag had not come to the end of the scanner and was sitting on the floor. I got the security guys attention, and he told me to wait a minute while he talked to someone. He came back and said that I had scissors in my bag. I was really surprized since I did not bring any scissors, so we started to search through the bag to find what looked like scissors. He is pulling out my underwear and Bible and laying it aside as he searches. Finally he pulls out the GE supplied medical kit and I know . . . There are medical scissors with the bandages. They debated for a while but eventually said I could keep them since they had blunted ends. Whew. Then off to the gate
I am sitting at gate glad I had a little extra time and all of the sudden, I was wondering with all of the problems at the security checkpoint if I had gotten my laptop. A quick check . . . Oh no! I went back to security, and a man motioned for me to follow. I little while away, there was a group of security officers gathered around my computer with it open, pressing buttons, etc. They were trying to get a name to page me! Unfortunately, they had sort of messed it up, but eventually got it back working. What a relief.
Flight to Chennai was short. But a little problem in airport. My flight had been moved up by the airline by about 1.5 hours and I sent a note to my host but not heard from them. Short version of the story, my driver was 15 minutes late even past the later arrival time so I was two hours standing outside the airport in 85 degree 90 percent humidity weather sweating to death. I was not allowed to reenter the terminal, so nothing to do but wait and hope someone comes. I was about to get my own taxi and since the taxi booth outside seemed to have closed, I thought I would try to see if they would let me back inside. As I am heading for the door, there was a guy holding a sign with my name. What a relief, and then it starting pouring down rain.
Wet and tired, finally arrived at Hindustan Bible Institute and could not wait to get to bed.
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