Manufacturing vocational visits

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Trip Start Jan 02, 2010 Previous
Entry Trip End Feb 02, 2010

  Gudur, Andhra Pradesh, India
Saturday, January 30, 2010

I had excellent vocational visits in Gudur this morning. First I went to a sawmill where shipping crates and other wood products. They import teak from the Amazon rainforest and Nigeria because it is less expensive than local teak, Balarsha. Balarsha grows more slowly and has a finer grain. If I understood correctly it cost 3500 Rs per cubic foot. The imported teak costs 1600 Rs per cubic foot. The sawmill owner was kind enough to give me a sample of each type of teak.

The shop next to the sawmill sells pesticides. They have backpack sprayers that we've seen laborers using in the field.

We stopped at another woodworking shop that made custom furniture such as hand carved doors and decorated sofas, chairs, and beds.

I then went to a women's college and a met with one of the women who leads the college. She displayed great pride with her college and the students. It was great to visit with her because she showed strong leadership for others around her.

The next stop was a huge foundry, Nelcast. An engineer provided me with a personal tour of the entire factory. I was able to see pattern making, sand molding, incoming steel scrap, steel melting, pouring, and cooling. A wide variety of transmission housings, water pipes, and tractor castings were shown in the display room. It was great to talk with an engineer since we had very little language difficulty because of our shared manufacturing backgrounds.

Two Gudur Rotarians accompanied me on my visits this morning and were very kind in their assistance. On the drive home we stopped so that I could see a camel that was used to provide rides for children. Even my host hasn't seen a camel in Gudur!

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