Sunday was actually a day of some mild action. I was delighted on Saturday when Mrs. T-- informed me we were going on a picnic with the K---'s, some colleagues/friends of theirs that I've met once or twice. Finally I was getting out of the House! The plan was to go see a waterfall, then a stop at a temple where we'd have lunch.
This month is apparently Shiva Month, a four-week-long festival which includes a pilgrimage for the very pious. Guys around my age get dressed up in flaming orange clothes and walk barefoot to a Temple dedicated to Shiva (this can take anywhere between two days to the whole month), bringing with them water from their native village. Once there they perform all kinds of rituals and prayers, culminating in pouring the water they've brought over the statues in the temple. The huge numbers of pilgrims in orange clothing make a very striking contrast to the lush vegetation around them (yes, I have pictures).
The K--'s arrived at 8 a.m., and we all (that is, Mrs. T--, myself, and B--, the servant) piled in to the jeep, and started the three/four-hour drive. Getting around has been a real pain lately, because they've shut the main Trans-India road that runs through Varanasi for the use of the pilgrims. This means that all the smaller roads around the main road are absolutely jammed with assorted goods carriers, busses and the like.
We arrived at what I think was a national park around midday, and walked to a viewing plattform/staircase from which we could see the waterfall. It wasn't a big one, more a series of small downward-tending rapids through a smallish canyon. There were a lot of people about, eating, swimming in the pools between rapids (only the men though), and generally hanging about. I stood with the Indians at this viewing plattform for a while (and took a few pictures), and they all seemed very surprised when I said I wanted to take the stairs (the vertical difference was about 20 metres, if that) down and see the falls up close.
After I had indulged my unnatural desire (apparently it was the proximity of the falls to the riff-raff that was bothering my companions) I ran back up the stairs and we went back to the car.
We then drove to the Shiva Temple. The area surrounding it had been transformed into something of a fairground for the occasion of the festival. I walked to the temple with my companions, then stood in the shade of it while they performed their prayers. I wasn't in the least bored though, as there was something of a mosh-pit going on right beside it. Somehow the pilgrims had rigged up a DJ's turntable and some huge speakers next to the temple, and they were blasting lively Hindi music, with about 30 young pilgrims dancing with abandon. Imagine how our Sailor-boys dance in Hamburg when they're wasted, mixed with one part amphetamines, one part religious ecstacy and two parts jerky shoulder-movements. It was pretty fantastic to see so many guys dancing with such pure joy, and for a moment I felt happy and connected to the bustle going on around me. Then I caught sight of a group of about seven pilgrims staring and pointing at me, and making lewd gestures. There's no way I'll ever be anything but a spectacle and an oddity in India.
I also realised that I haven't been dancing in, like, forever. Anyone willing to take me when I get home?
We left the temple (I got a piece of holy thread wrapped around my wrist and a dab of colour on my forehead to mark my visit) and had our picnic at a table by one of the food-stalls in the area, after which we drove home. The roads had gotten worse since we left, so it took about six hours in total. Most of us dozed off.
Also, I'm very satisfied today, since I finally managed to get out and buy boy-appropriate presents! Yes Gentlemen, I have finally found some semi-suitable stuff for y'all. Seriously though, girls are so much easier - scarves, jewellery, ubiquitous stuff. I'll have you know I had to fight some serious battles to be allowed out of the house (and to go downtown!) during the festival, so no bitching about your prezzies.
Cannot wait to come home, I miss you all so much!
Cheers, and many many Hugs,
Gitte
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Officer Krupke, I'm down on my knees!
Finally, something truly blogworthy! My life's been pretty monotone the past few weeks, but I guess you should never complain about that kind of thing, lest something interesting happens. Ah well, I guess misfortunes and mishaps make for the best kind of blogging, eh?
Today was (hopefully) the last day of data collection, and Tweedle-Dum and I set out to interview four clients. Tweedle-Dee was absent, him being called to court - yes, court. I didn't enquire too closely. We've set out each day with a driver and a rented car, and driven about an hour into the countryside - most of GMFI's clients are rural. We were interviewing the third client (a real success-story - a seamstress/electrician couple with a big brick house in a market area) when the branch manager who'd been accompanying us was taken into huddled consultation with a bunch of people outside. When we finished the interview, we went out to join him, in order to drive to the final client- and were told our driver'd been arrested!
Apparently the driver had parked illegally, and when the police came to tell him off, he "use many ill words, Ma'am." We stood for a while as Tweedle-Dum and the branch manager consulted what to do, a crowd slowly forming around us. Tweedle-Dum managed to communicate to me that she thought it best to try and call the office and have them organise for a driver to come and pick us up. I suggested we go to the police station and see what could be done. Maybe we could induce the police to drive us home, since it wasn't our fault the driver was an idiot? Tweedle-Dum seemed shocked at the suggestion, and tried to say we should avoid dealing with the police at all costs. "Nonsense!", said I, the good little Western girl who's used to trusting authority figures, "I'm sure the police will be sympathetic and helpful!". I convinced the branch manager to take us (and our entourage the crowd) to the police station to see what was what.
We arrived (some thirty people strong at this point) and were pointed to the senior officer. With Tweedle-Dum translating, I managed to convey our situation and ask for his advice. Miracle of miracles, he was helpfulness itself! He agreed that it was terrible we should suffer for someone else's idiocy, and though our driver was an idiot we shouldn't be inconvenienced. I asked whether he could arrange for transportation for us, and instead he gave the order to set our driver free! While we waited, he apologized again and again, saying his junior officers were too quick too take offense, and normally Indians didn't cause such problems. Hah! Once our driver appear, apparently not in the least chastened, since he immediately stalked to his car, we were saluted out of the quarters and given a police escort to the main road. I couldn't help giggling at the whole affair. Tweedle-Dum seemed bewildered at the politeness of the officials, and I couldn't help but wonder at how fast the police officer had let a man out of jail purely because I had asked nicely. Hah.
Otherwise there's not much to report. I got down to the bookstore this afternoon, and bought Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels, The Pickwick Papers, Mansfield Park, and Robinson Crusoe. Let's see how many of them I finish before I come home (next Saturday, whee!)
Much love to you all,
Cheers,
Gitte
Today was (hopefully) the last day of data collection, and Tweedle-Dum and I set out to interview four clients. Tweedle-Dee was absent, him being called to court - yes, court. I didn't enquire too closely. We've set out each day with a driver and a rented car, and driven about an hour into the countryside - most of GMFI's clients are rural. We were interviewing the third client (a real success-story - a seamstress/electrician couple with a big brick house in a market area) when the branch manager who'd been accompanying us was taken into huddled consultation with a bunch of people outside. When we finished the interview, we went out to join him, in order to drive to the final client- and were told our driver'd been arrested!
Apparently the driver had parked illegally, and when the police came to tell him off, he "use many ill words, Ma'am." We stood for a while as Tweedle-Dum and the branch manager consulted what to do, a crowd slowly forming around us. Tweedle-Dum managed to communicate to me that she thought it best to try and call the office and have them organise for a driver to come and pick us up. I suggested we go to the police station and see what could be done. Maybe we could induce the police to drive us home, since it wasn't our fault the driver was an idiot? Tweedle-Dum seemed shocked at the suggestion, and tried to say we should avoid dealing with the police at all costs. "Nonsense!", said I, the good little Western girl who's used to trusting authority figures, "I'm sure the police will be sympathetic and helpful!". I convinced the branch manager to take us (and our entourage the crowd) to the police station to see what was what.
We arrived (some thirty people strong at this point) and were pointed to the senior officer. With Tweedle-Dum translating, I managed to convey our situation and ask for his advice. Miracle of miracles, he was helpfulness itself! He agreed that it was terrible we should suffer for someone else's idiocy, and though our driver was an idiot we shouldn't be inconvenienced. I asked whether he could arrange for transportation for us, and instead he gave the order to set our driver free! While we waited, he apologized again and again, saying his junior officers were too quick too take offense, and normally Indians didn't cause such problems. Hah! Once our driver appear, apparently not in the least chastened, since he immediately stalked to his car, we were saluted out of the quarters and given a police escort to the main road. I couldn't help giggling at the whole affair. Tweedle-Dum seemed bewildered at the politeness of the officials, and I couldn't help but wonder at how fast the police officer had let a man out of jail purely because I had asked nicely. Hah.
Otherwise there's not much to report. I got down to the bookstore this afternoon, and bought Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels, The Pickwick Papers, Mansfield Park, and Robinson Crusoe. Let's see how many of them I finish before I come home (next Saturday, whee!)
Much love to you all,
Cheers,
Gitte
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Blog-like musings
Hey all, I've been accused of not updating in a while, and I guess the reason being that not much happens around here. I go out into the field everyday, manage far less than planned (Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum absorb about 20% of what they're told), and return home to an afternoon of data entry, an evening of reading, and go to bed by ten. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But I figured I might as well share some impressions I've had.
It's odd to feel on a daily basis how I swing wildly between optimism and deep depression as regards the situation of the poor here. What's even weirder is how my notion of "poor" fluctuates even more. When driving/shopping/just sitting on the balcony, I'm constantly surrounded by squalour (I found out last week that apparently this house isn't connected to the sewers- I thought it best not to enquire more), the kind that would absolutely shock me if I saw it anywhere else. But because I'm supervising these interviews for the better part of each day, I spend at least three to four hours in the houses of the poorest of the poor of the poor. So the pigs rolling around in muck next to the GMFI house don't even register. But even more to the point, the family of four living in a one-room mud hovel over eight feet at the highest point with a roof of old tiles don't register, because they qualify as non-poor.
Let that sink in for a second.
They don't count as poor.
According to that usual "one-dollar-a-day" standard
They're not poor.
A house like that is what our clients aspire to. And the loans that we give them (a first loan is usually Rs. 6000, or about 100 Euros) are enough to buy them a milk-producing buffalo, which catapults them straight into the moderately poor category.
What boggles me is that I don't think I ever grasped just how many people in the world are really and truly poor by our standards- when you hear the "dollar-a-day" thing, it's just a cover, because honestly, the people four times as well off are still dirt-poor.
It's hard to explain my thinking because I'm using the word poor to denote two different things, but the point I'm trying to make is that I feel mighty weird scolding a Branch Manager for taking on a new client because they're too "rich" for the programme (to be clear, GMFI's goal is "poverty-reduction", so they work exclusively below the poverty line), when I can see with my own eyes that they have nothing.
So, downer for today.
Another thing I've noticed is how, paradoxically, I seem to be able to cope with the weather/countryside better than the Indians can. It's monsoon season, which means it rains at least a couple of hours everyday (but not at a fixed time like in the tropics), and there's mud everywhere. Since we're in the countryside, we often have to walk a ways from the car to the client, if the roads can't take the car. I figured this out on, like, the second day, and have worn my sailing shoes every day since. Mind, we're not talking a lot of mud, but you make squeltchy noises when you walk, and around a centimetre at the bottom of your shoe gets dirty. Big whoop. I've seen a lot worse - at Herluf even!
But Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum haven't quite figured this out yet - after a week of the same routine. Dee still shows up wearing leather dress shoes and Dum wears these preposterous high-heeled (white! white!) sandals Every. Damn. Day. So they hate walking anywhere, it takes forever since they daintily hop around in an effort not to get their shoes dirty, and after every walk they ask for water to wash off their shoes, despite the fact that in an hour's time we're gonna walk back the same way. I'm honestly wondering how dim they really are.
It's the same story with the rain, they have an almost Witch of the West-like phobia of a couple of drops getting on their head. Hello, it's your country, how is it the Firangi (that's Hindi for foreigner) is better able to cope than you are? Gah.
I'm not going to go into detail on all the varied and creative ways these two manage to be incompetent, but suffice it to say I could hold a lecture series on the subject.
Let's talk about something pleasant, yes?
So it's official, I'm flying back to Europe on the 2nd! I have a layover in Delhi (where I'll probs be at the Airport hotel - I might faint with joy when I finally see my first western-style toilet in six weeks) and arrive in Hamburg on the 3rd. I'm scheduled to be in DK the weekends of the 16th and 23rd, and I'm flying back to Mtl the first.
I can't wait to see everyone again, and dazzle you with the beauty of my two Saris! :P you better believe I'm going to find occasion to wear them. Often.
Lots of hugs and such,
Gitte
But I figured I might as well share some impressions I've had.
It's odd to feel on a daily basis how I swing wildly between optimism and deep depression as regards the situation of the poor here. What's even weirder is how my notion of "poor" fluctuates even more. When driving/shopping/just sitting on the balcony, I'm constantly surrounded by squalour (I found out last week that apparently this house isn't connected to the sewers- I thought it best not to enquire more), the kind that would absolutely shock me if I saw it anywhere else. But because I'm supervising these interviews for the better part of each day, I spend at least three to four hours in the houses of the poorest of the poor of the poor. So the pigs rolling around in muck next to the GMFI house don't even register. But even more to the point, the family of four living in a one-room mud hovel over eight feet at the highest point with a roof of old tiles don't register, because they qualify as non-poor.
Let that sink in for a second.
They don't count as poor.
According to that usual "one-dollar-a-day" standard
They're not poor.
A house like that is what our clients aspire to. And the loans that we give them (a first loan is usually Rs. 6000, or about 100 Euros) are enough to buy them a milk-producing buffalo, which catapults them straight into the moderately poor category.
What boggles me is that I don't think I ever grasped just how many people in the world are really and truly poor by our standards- when you hear the "dollar-a-day" thing, it's just a cover, because honestly, the people four times as well off are still dirt-poor.
It's hard to explain my thinking because I'm using the word poor to denote two different things, but the point I'm trying to make is that I feel mighty weird scolding a Branch Manager for taking on a new client because they're too "rich" for the programme (to be clear, GMFI's goal is "poverty-reduction", so they work exclusively below the poverty line), when I can see with my own eyes that they have nothing.
So, downer for today.
Another thing I've noticed is how, paradoxically, I seem to be able to cope with the weather/countryside better than the Indians can. It's monsoon season, which means it rains at least a couple of hours everyday (but not at a fixed time like in the tropics), and there's mud everywhere. Since we're in the countryside, we often have to walk a ways from the car to the client, if the roads can't take the car. I figured this out on, like, the second day, and have worn my sailing shoes every day since. Mind, we're not talking a lot of mud, but you make squeltchy noises when you walk, and around a centimetre at the bottom of your shoe gets dirty. Big whoop. I've seen a lot worse - at Herluf even!
But Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum haven't quite figured this out yet - after a week of the same routine. Dee still shows up wearing leather dress shoes and Dum wears these preposterous high-heeled (white! white!) sandals Every. Damn. Day. So they hate walking anywhere, it takes forever since they daintily hop around in an effort not to get their shoes dirty, and after every walk they ask for water to wash off their shoes, despite the fact that in an hour's time we're gonna walk back the same way. I'm honestly wondering how dim they really are.
It's the same story with the rain, they have an almost Witch of the West-like phobia of a couple of drops getting on their head. Hello, it's your country, how is it the Firangi (that's Hindi for foreigner) is better able to cope than you are? Gah.
I'm not going to go into detail on all the varied and creative ways these two manage to be incompetent, but suffice it to say I could hold a lecture series on the subject.
Let's talk about something pleasant, yes?
So it's official, I'm flying back to Europe on the 2nd! I have a layover in Delhi (where I'll probs be at the Airport hotel - I might faint with joy when I finally see my first western-style toilet in six weeks) and arrive in Hamburg on the 3rd. I'm scheduled to be in DK the weekends of the 16th and 23rd, and I'm flying back to Mtl the first.
I can't wait to see everyone again, and dazzle you with the beauty of my two Saris! :P you better believe I'm going to find occasion to wear them. Often.
Lots of hugs and such,
Gitte
Thursday, July 17, 2008
It's a Sad Day When a 19-year-old Ends Up Supervising Two MBAs
So I just got back from the field work today, and Jesus H. Christ let me tell you this is not a country in which I ever hope to do business. Scratch that, I could certainly do business with the poor women, since they’re motivated and thus work efficiently. It’s the glacial pace and inefficiency of the Middle Management that has me absolutely gobsmacked.
It started yesterday. We (being Coworker #1 and #2, (CW #1 & #2 hereafter) as well as myself) had a meeting with the Professor, to plan the pilot-testing of the Impact Assessment Questionnaire. We had decided to do this pilot-testing last week already and decided on the dates, and in preparation for this I went over the Questionnaire with a fine-tooth comb looking for grammatical and other small mistakes (The professor had also modified it previously). I had handed in this improved Questionnaire for translating. Imagine my surprise then, when we find that the translated Questionnaire wasn’t the copy I had changed, or even the copy the professor had changed, but the format it had had two months ago! So after the meeting I gave CW #1 & #2 (Damn, now I wish I'd called them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, but that seems a tad harsh) my improved questionnaire as well as some other things the professor wanted to change so they could incorporate it into the translated version, instead of re-translating the improved one (this had been my first suggestions since the formatting had changed drastically, but they were loath to do this). They were to reformat it and bring it to me so I could check it before setting out this morning. No prizes for those who guess that I spent all afternoon waiting in vain for the new version.
This morning they showed up fifteen minutes before we were to leave with a copy for me to “check” – except they’d already printed out fifteen copies (why so many? We were only going to interview two clients!) and there was no time to make any changes. Needless to say it was riddled with errors, from faulty formatting to spelling mistakes to repeated questions etc etc. But oh well.
Then when we got to interviewing, the process slowed down even more. The interviews should ideally take about half an hour to forty-five minutes. We spend two and a quarter hours with the first client. CW #1 would ask a question, translate the answer for the professor and myself, relay it in Hindi to CW #2, who would then begin searching for the area to imput the data, and write it down while CW #1 watched. Then, once CW#1 & #2 were both satisfied that the answer had been recorded (which took a while, since sometimes both would lose the thread and patiently wait five minutes for the other one), CW #1 would start searching for the next question. Also, their unfamiliarity with the questionnaire was incredible. They’d both spent at least as much time on it as I; but couldn’t remember simple things like what areas the questionnaire covered. Also, they would ask questions to which they already knew the answer (Sample: “How many children do you have?” “Two, one five and one three” “Okay, and how old are your children?”), get confused if we pointed out they should record what they’d just been told instead of asking again, and record patently incompatible answers.
What ticked me off the most is that the interview is supposed to be conducted with the client – that is, the woman who receives the loan. In fact, part of the whole idea is to promote women’s empowerment (some of the questions even go in this direction, as in “do you feel more respected etc etc)). This isn’t much of a problem with mature clients (those who’ve gone through several cycles) – they’ve grown confident enough to tell their husbands to eff off while they deal with Generic Microfinance institution. But with the new clients (and we’re interviewing those as a control group, natch) you have to be very clear when dealing with them that you’re there to deal with the wives alone. Get the answers from her, not him, etc. So I got more and more agitated when CW #1 started addressing the questions to the husband and recording his answers, bypassing the new client altogether. I kept on intervening, saying “No, speak to the client only. Do not let him give you the answer” and CW would say “yes, yes!” only to drift back into conversation with him again. Grrrrargh!! Microfinance: UR DOIN IT RONG.
Then on the way back from the field, at around two p.m., CW #2 goes “By the way Professor, I won’t be here from tomorrow, lasting all of next week”. Um. But the Professor (who’s only here for about a week, and who has other things to deal with besides this silly pilot project) came out today especially to train you in dealing with the questionnaire, so you’d be able to do it next week. Why bother coming today if you can’t be part of the team!?! The thing that kills me is that when we were told what dates we were going to run the pilot test, this guy said “I’m on leave these and these days”, and I said “Oh, you’d better tell Mr. T--- or the Professor so we can get someone else”. I also told Mr. T--- that there seemed to be some scheduling conflicts. Since this guy stayed, I assumed he’d figured it out. Obviously not. So we effectively wasted half a day in training this guy for no reason. What. The. Festering. Fuck.
Then when we got back, it took them one and a half hours to give me a working soft copy of the questionnaire so I could fix the stuff we found that morning. Just take that in for a second. ONE AND A HALF HOURS to find the file on their computers, put it on a USB stick and carry it over to me. After an hour I got very pissy and stood next to them while they copied over the files, hoping it’d go quicker if I nagged. It did, marginally.
I then got to spend a delightful two hours doing something I’m not qualified to do. Apart from spelling etc etc changes, a lot of the stuff was formatting (boxes, tables, bullet points), which I’m not brilliant at at the best of times. But this file clearly hadn’t been put together right, it just looked right, if you know what I mean. Instead of using the shift key, there were wonky spaces, boxes of text superimposed on tables instead of integrated, etc. A real mess. I gave them the job of modifying it yesterday, since I’m so bad at that kind of stuff, but since I ended up waiting in vain, I decided “Selbst ist die Frau”, frankly there was no way I’d screw up worse than they would, and then at least it’d be my screw-up and I’d know how to change it back. So now I rock at Microsoft Word.
The downside is that while I was doing that, I had no time to do my actual bloody work, which was the tabulation of the data we received today.
I don’t give a damn what y’all might say about my neurotic time-management, at least shit gets DONE. Fuck me India, there’s no way you’ll be the next USA with a work-ethic like this.
You know what kills me? These people have MBAs. Isn’t People Management fun?
Cheers (or not),
Gitte
P.S. Y'all are chicken. Why has no one answered my poll?
It started yesterday. We (being Coworker #1 and #2, (CW #1 & #2 hereafter) as well as myself) had a meeting with the Professor, to plan the pilot-testing of the Impact Assessment Questionnaire. We had decided to do this pilot-testing last week already and decided on the dates, and in preparation for this I went over the Questionnaire with a fine-tooth comb looking for grammatical and other small mistakes (The professor had also modified it previously). I had handed in this improved Questionnaire for translating. Imagine my surprise then, when we find that the translated Questionnaire wasn’t the copy I had changed, or even the copy the professor had changed, but the format it had had two months ago! So after the meeting I gave CW #1 & #2 (Damn, now I wish I'd called them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, but that seems a tad harsh) my improved questionnaire as well as some other things the professor wanted to change so they could incorporate it into the translated version, instead of re-translating the improved one (this had been my first suggestions since the formatting had changed drastically, but they were loath to do this). They were to reformat it and bring it to me so I could check it before setting out this morning. No prizes for those who guess that I spent all afternoon waiting in vain for the new version.
This morning they showed up fifteen minutes before we were to leave with a copy for me to “check” – except they’d already printed out fifteen copies (why so many? We were only going to interview two clients!) and there was no time to make any changes. Needless to say it was riddled with errors, from faulty formatting to spelling mistakes to repeated questions etc etc. But oh well.
Then when we got to interviewing, the process slowed down even more. The interviews should ideally take about half an hour to forty-five minutes. We spend two and a quarter hours with the first client. CW #1 would ask a question, translate the answer for the professor and myself, relay it in Hindi to CW #2, who would then begin searching for the area to imput the data, and write it down while CW #1 watched. Then, once CW#1 & #2 were both satisfied that the answer had been recorded (which took a while, since sometimes both would lose the thread and patiently wait five minutes for the other one), CW #1 would start searching for the next question. Also, their unfamiliarity with the questionnaire was incredible. They’d both spent at least as much time on it as I; but couldn’t remember simple things like what areas the questionnaire covered. Also, they would ask questions to which they already knew the answer (Sample: “How many children do you have?” “Two, one five and one three” “Okay, and how old are your children?”), get confused if we pointed out they should record what they’d just been told instead of asking again, and record patently incompatible answers.
What ticked me off the most is that the interview is supposed to be conducted with the client – that is, the woman who receives the loan. In fact, part of the whole idea is to promote women’s empowerment (some of the questions even go in this direction, as in “do you feel more respected etc etc)). This isn’t much of a problem with mature clients (those who’ve gone through several cycles) – they’ve grown confident enough to tell their husbands to eff off while they deal with Generic Microfinance institution. But with the new clients (and we’re interviewing those as a control group, natch) you have to be very clear when dealing with them that you’re there to deal with the wives alone. Get the answers from her, not him, etc. So I got more and more agitated when CW #1 started addressing the questions to the husband and recording his answers, bypassing the new client altogether. I kept on intervening, saying “No, speak to the client only. Do not let him give you the answer” and CW would say “yes, yes!” only to drift back into conversation with him again. Grrrrargh!! Microfinance: UR DOIN IT RONG.
Then on the way back from the field, at around two p.m., CW #2 goes “By the way Professor, I won’t be here from tomorrow, lasting all of next week”. Um. But the Professor (who’s only here for about a week, and who has other things to deal with besides this silly pilot project) came out today especially to train you in dealing with the questionnaire, so you’d be able to do it next week. Why bother coming today if you can’t be part of the team!?! The thing that kills me is that when we were told what dates we were going to run the pilot test, this guy said “I’m on leave these and these days”, and I said “Oh, you’d better tell Mr. T--- or the Professor so we can get someone else”. I also told Mr. T--- that there seemed to be some scheduling conflicts. Since this guy stayed, I assumed he’d figured it out. Obviously not. So we effectively wasted half a day in training this guy for no reason. What. The. Festering. Fuck.
Then when we got back, it took them one and a half hours to give me a working soft copy of the questionnaire so I could fix the stuff we found that morning. Just take that in for a second. ONE AND A HALF HOURS to find the file on their computers, put it on a USB stick and carry it over to me. After an hour I got very pissy and stood next to them while they copied over the files, hoping it’d go quicker if I nagged. It did, marginally.
I then got to spend a delightful two hours doing something I’m not qualified to do. Apart from spelling etc etc changes, a lot of the stuff was formatting (boxes, tables, bullet points), which I’m not brilliant at at the best of times. But this file clearly hadn’t been put together right, it just looked right, if you know what I mean. Instead of using the shift key, there were wonky spaces, boxes of text superimposed on tables instead of integrated, etc. A real mess. I gave them the job of modifying it yesterday, since I’m so bad at that kind of stuff, but since I ended up waiting in vain, I decided “Selbst ist die Frau”, frankly there was no way I’d screw up worse than they would, and then at least it’d be my screw-up and I’d know how to change it back. So now I rock at Microsoft Word.
The downside is that while I was doing that, I had no time to do my actual bloody work, which was the tabulation of the data we received today.
I don’t give a damn what y’all might say about my neurotic time-management, at least shit gets DONE. Fuck me India, there’s no way you’ll be the next USA with a work-ethic like this.
You know what kills me? These people have MBAs. Isn’t People Management fun?
Cheers (or not),
Gitte
P.S. Y'all are chicken. Why has no one answered my poll?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Character is the important eligibility for being staff member of GMFI, if you will loose your character you will automatically loose your job.
Okay, so I know I haven’t updated the blog in a while; for the very good reason that nothing much happens here. Basically, my life has been following the same pattern for two weeks:
I get up at nine, get dressed, have breakfast and walk through the hall to the office at nine-thirty. I spend the morning at the computer (which many of you will have deduced considering the amount of time I spend on facebook), have lunch with the T---‘s at one, back to work at two, finish around five-thirty, have dinner, and spend the rest of the evening reading/surfing the ‘net. Saturday I only work until two, and in the afternoon I go shopping with Mrs. T---.
I spent the first two weeks in a kind of limbo, with no real work to do. The Impact Assessment Study I was supposed to help with was cancelled due to lack of manpower (they needed to people to conduct the interviews, and since I don’t speak Hindi I couldn’t exactly be of much use), so I decided to copy-edit pretty much every English publication the company has (Annual Reports, Operations Manuals and the like), which, though necessary (see title), was unutterably dull. As many of you know, I kind of hit a wall this weekend in terms of frustration, but things are looking up. Mr. G---, the Chairman of the company (a Canadian, incidentally!) arrived yesterday, and he’s decided to launch a pilot study of the Impact Assessment Questionnaire, so it seems I’ll probably have enough work for a week or two. I still might come home a little earlier though; surfing the Internet for eight hours a day is something I can do at home as well :)
My evenings are quite monotonous. The T---‘s really don’t like me leaving the compound, since they don’t think it’s safe. I snapped yesterday and just quietly said I was going out for a walk (something I’ve asked about before but haven’t done because they reacted negatively and I didn’t want another Varanasi Kerfuffle). Today I was about to do the same when Mrs. T--- suggested I walk for half an hour on the roof if I was craving exercise, since “The street very Danger!”. Sigh.
The upside to this is that I’ve finally gotten to do a “Summer of the Classics”. Penguin Classic Paperbacks go for about Rs. 50 or 1$ Canadian here, so I’ve loaded up on them instead. So far I’ve read Frankenstein, Candide, Crime and Punishment, Fanny Hill, the complete Sherlock Holmes, Journey to the Centre of the Earth (which starts in Hamburg and Copenhagen! How cool is that? And how did I never know this?), The Europeans by Henry James and Persuasion by Austen. I still have Moll Flanders, Northanger Abbey and Kipling’s Kim, but I think I’ll have to pay the bookstore another visit on Saturday. Any suggestions for must-reads?
Some random observations/anecdotes about/from
I never realized just how much we take electricity for granted in the developed world. Here the power goes out about four to five times a day, and though the generators usually kick in after three minutes, sometimes they don’t. Last week the power was out for four hours in the morning, and since everything is on computers here all work came to a halt. I spent the morning sitting with the other office workers, singing. That’s right. Everyone took a turn singing a song (I sang “House of the Rising Sun” since it was the first thing that came to mind – thank goodness they didn’t understand the lyrics or they’d have been scandalized!), and I can confirm that music is very different here. Not bad – in fact, they were all quite good singers – just very different in terms of scales and melody. Also, everyone seems to know massive amounts of songs. They spent about two hours playing a kind of game where one person sings a song, then the next person sings a song that starts with the last letter of the song before. It never took them more than five seconds to come up with one, and everyone seemed to know every song, and chimed right in. I’m guessing it’s partly due to every single movie having several songs it it; but interesting nevertheless.
Also, phones here get spam! I get several messages a day about ringtones etc, but I also get these update-like messages that say stuff like “Lifetime Achievement Awards – Like or Dislike?”, “Tips for meeting the love of your life”, “What was the name of the actress in Jab We Met?” etc etc. Very very odd, and kind of annoying. The worst is random phone-calls from what I think are Telemarketers. I'll admit I've yelled some choice danish profanities at them when they disregard my requests for English and babble on in Hindi. I honestly have no idea what they want; They could be telling me I won the lottery for all I know.
I should have some more interesting stuff from tomorrow though. We're getting up early and going to a village to conduct the first interviews. I'll be bringing along my trusty camera, and I'll have the professor along to translate. So yay!
Speak to you all soon, and please keep the updates coming!
Cheers, Hugs, Knus,
Gitte
Friday, July 11, 2008
RE Names, or how I take a leaf out of old British novels
Important - if you're reading any old posts, you'll see that I've changed the names both of the Bank/Microfinance Group I'm working with, as well as the names of the families. I've done this because
a) both Generic Big Bank and the families I'm staying with are pretty high-profile, especially in India, and I don't want my little blog to cause problems for them in any way, because M-- is to India like the woman who ran HP is to the US (except, you know, popular). She's on Youtube even!
b) none of the Indian's'll be able to find the blog - I'm not sure I want them knowing the full extent of my reactions to India. Everyone's been super-nice, and I don't think I've portrayed anyone negatively, but the Varanasi Kerfuffle made it clear that I have no idea what Indians may/may not take offense to. I'd rather not deepen my knowledge of the former.
So please, I know you all know which Bank I'm working for and the names involved, but since this blog is open-access, no mention of it in the comments. Thanks Guys!
Cheers,
Gitte
a) both Generic Big Bank and the families I'm staying with are pretty high-profile, especially in India, and I don't want my little blog to cause problems for them in any way, because M-- is to India like the woman who ran HP is to the US (except, you know, popular). She's on Youtube even!
b) none of the Indian's'll be able to find the blog - I'm not sure I want them knowing the full extent of my reactions to India. Everyone's been super-nice, and I don't think I've portrayed anyone negatively, but the Varanasi Kerfuffle made it clear that I have no idea what Indians may/may not take offense to. I'd rather not deepen my knowledge of the former.
So please, I know you all know which Bank I'm working for and the names involved, but since this blog is open-access, no mention of it in the comments. Thanks Guys!
Cheers,
Gitte
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Top Three Odd Indian Behaviours I've Noticed (I'm in a grouchy mood this morning, forgive me)
These kind of CultureShock lists are all over the net, but I felt inspired to write my own this morning, for I'm in a fairly grouchy mood. Bear with me, and no I really do like it here, just not after a bad night's sleep. On the bright side, I was originally going to put five, but I could only think of three.
1) The Head Wobble
Yes, I know it's meant to convey assent. I know it means "I gotcha mate", "You're right" and generally "I am in complete concordance with your statement/explanation/wishes". That doesn't stop it like looking like a shake of the head out of the corner of my eye. So if I'm explaining something to someone, and they wobble, it feels like they're telling me "You're as wrong as the 30th of February". I get an urge to turn around and say "What? What don't you get?"
2) When Their Phone Rings
When someone's phone rings in both Europe and North America, especially in social situations, people tend to jump and try to answer it as fast as possible, to minimise the bleating of their not-very-often-polyphonic ring tone. Indians however will let the ringing swell before they become aware of the phone ringing. They'll get it out of their pocket/bag in no particular hurry, and then look at it a full, calm five seconds before answering it. They're evaluating who it is and whether they should answer, I get it, but dude, the whole centre meeting doesn't need to hear your tinny "Fuer Elise".
3) They Pathologically Can't Say No
I've been to three Sari shops now, two in Hyderabad and one in Varanasi, and the first thing I ask for is something in a dark blue silk. They bring me some pretty light blues, and I request darker. "Royal Blue, Navy Blue, Midnight Blue" I say. They smile, wobble and come back with shades in pale blue to turquoise. Occasionally periwinkle. "No,” I say, thinking it's a communication thing, "darker. Like night sky." More wobbles and azures. I look up the Hindi word for darker, for night, for navy even, and try to convey the shade I'm looking for. I feel like the perfect dumb tourist. Finally some nice customer next to me leans over and explains in broken English that they don't have Navy blue, the colour's not popular here. "Why don't they just say so, instead of saying "One minute Ma'am"?" I bleat. She smiles and wobbles.
"They just don't want to disappoint you.”
UPDATE: I just found this tidbit while copy-editing a training manual
Learn to Say “No”- Prioritise activities and say no to unimportant things.
See, even employers realise they have a problem with this. I am not crazy! Yay!
Cheers, Gitte
1) The Head Wobble
Yes, I know it's meant to convey assent. I know it means "I gotcha mate", "You're right" and generally "I am in complete concordance with your statement/explanation/wishes". That doesn't stop it like looking like a shake of the head out of the corner of my eye. So if I'm explaining something to someone, and they wobble, it feels like they're telling me "You're as wrong as the 30th of February". I get an urge to turn around and say "What? What don't you get?"
2) When Their Phone Rings
When someone's phone rings in both Europe and North America, especially in social situations, people tend to jump and try to answer it as fast as possible, to minimise the bleating of their not-very-often-polyphonic ring tone. Indians however will let the ringing swell before they become aware of the phone ringing. They'll get it out of their pocket/bag in no particular hurry, and then look at it a full, calm five seconds before answering it. They're evaluating who it is and whether they should answer, I get it, but dude, the whole centre meeting doesn't need to hear your tinny "Fuer Elise".
3) They Pathologically Can't Say No
I've been to three Sari shops now, two in Hyderabad and one in Varanasi, and the first thing I ask for is something in a dark blue silk. They bring me some pretty light blues, and I request darker. "Royal Blue, Navy Blue, Midnight Blue" I say. They smile, wobble and come back with shades in pale blue to turquoise. Occasionally periwinkle. "No,” I say, thinking it's a communication thing, "darker. Like night sky." More wobbles and azures. I look up the Hindi word for darker, for night, for navy even, and try to convey the shade I'm looking for. I feel like the perfect dumb tourist. Finally some nice customer next to me leans over and explains in broken English that they don't have Navy blue, the colour's not popular here. "Why don't they just say so, instead of saying "One minute Ma'am"?" I bleat. She smiles and wobbles.
"They just don't want to disappoint you.”
UPDATE: I just found this tidbit while copy-editing a training manual
Learn to Say “No”- Prioritise activities and say no to unimportant things.
See, even employers realise they have a problem with this. I am not crazy! Yay!
Cheers, Gitte
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Yay a fellow blog!
See, my nagging sister thing works, my brother and Støtt (who is called Christian in the Blog - damn danes and their names) have started a blog of their own. You can find it at
http://interrailherluf.blog.de/
Cheers,
Gitte
http://interrailherluf.blog.de/
Cheers,
Gitte
MicroFinance and the Varanasi Kerfuffle
After dinner my Dad got in a car to the airport and I went home with the P--- family. Tuesday I went off to work with the Hyderabad office of Generic Big Bank (GBB) (whom I had met the previous week in Mumbai – they had only arrived back Monday night, which is why I had the day off). Much to my chagrin, I was set down with – you guessed it – more reports to read. I “worked” until about mid-afternoon, when S--- came to pick me up.
The next day was a visit to an MFI (that’s Microfinance Institution) called Nirantara that GBB was considering lending money to. I was picked up at a quarter to six a.m. (with a huge bag of snacks, fruits etc from the P--- family and strict admonishments to touch no water etc that I was offered) and we (myself and the Hyderabad team) started the three-hour drive. We drove from Hyderabad in the province of Andhra Pradesh to the area around Bidar in the province of Karnataka, where the MFI is located. We got there around nine, and after preliminaries (exchange of business cards, which the Indians seem to adore) went to our first centre meeting.
See, this is how the so-called “Grameen model” of microfinance works. You get between 5 to 20 women together in a so-called Self-Help Group or SHG in the lingo. The Microfinance Institution (MFI, remember) then lends smallish amounts of money to the women. A first time loan is typically around 10,000 rupees – 150Euros, 1000 Dkr or around 200$ Canadian. The women are then supposed to use the money to find a micro-enterprise - usually buying a buffalo for milk, a sowing machine, a rickshaw, a grocery store or the like. They then pay back the principal loan plus interest in small weekly instalments – typically around 160 rupees. Once they’ve paid back their loan, they can apply for another, larger one, to reinvest, and so on. The women in the SHG cross-guarantee each other, meaning that if one defects or can’t pay her instalments, the others will make up the difference. This serves two purposes. The first is obviously to lessen the risk of the MFI (most are run as non-profit businesses, and need demonstrably low levels of portfolio at risk in their loans in order to lend money from banks themselves – trust me, no-one’s getting rich off of this). The second is that this means the main mechanism to ensure the correct handling of money is peer pressure (odd how something we all think of as negative can be good, eh?). The other women might pay back a defaulter’s loan, but they then won’t let her take out another one, since they see a higher risk of losing money again. The MFI collects these weekly instalments at weekly (hard to guess, eh?) so-called “centre meetings”, where an employee of the MFI come to the village or district or whatever and collects the money. It’s all highly formalised with documents and so on (most centre meetings I’ve been to even open and finish with prayers).
Anyway, we went to our first centre meeting, in an urban slum in Bidar. It’s a predominantly Muslim area, and all the women were wearing burkhas which they removed once they steppe inside. The meeting was held in a clients’ home, and we all squatted on the floor while the Centre Manager (the MFI employee) and the Group Leader (a woman appointed collectively by the SHG to keep the group’s documents safe and act as the mouthpiece of the SHG) went through the accounts etc. After the formal business was done, the head of Nirantara asked whether the women would mind staying and talking about the programme for a while. Most of them stayed the CEO introduced my coworker, explaining that he was from GBB, and that they lent to Nirantara in the same was that Nirantara lent to the women. Coworker asked all kinds of questions, as did I (through Coworker of course. My lack of Hindi is becoming a bigger and bigger problem), including what business they did (many were involved in beef shops, seeing as this was a Muslim area. Another had a bakery, another a shawl-knitting business, and so on). They then asked a bunch about me. They’d been curious from the moment I walked in the door, pale thing that I am (another thing, this paleness business. I’m white as a ghost since I haven’t had any chance to tan, and they all seem to think it’s fabulous. Me, not so much) and asked all kinds of questions, from where I’m from to whether I was married (and why not? When was I getting married?), how long I’d been in India, etc etc etc. After the meeting we went to see a few of the businesses, and then on to a second meeting, which was much of the same. At this meeting however, there were several husbands hanging around, looking distinctly displeased. I asked why and Coworker answered that they weren’t pleased that their wives were showing their faces (not even their hair, mind you) to the men from Nirantara. One in particular was known to be a drunkard, and was mad that his wife was keeping the money from her grocery shop from him in order to pay for her children’s schooling. He felt that as head of the household he should have charge of the money, and be free to do with it as he pleased. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s unemployed. I’m not even going to comment on this kind of thinking, which is very, very common as far as I can tell.
Anyway, after a morning of centre meetings we went to lunch (I had a south Indian Thali, which is a big metal platter with various curries on it. So freakin’ spicy) and headed back to the office, where we were shown Nirantara’s bookkeeping and computer system. Coworker went over it with a fine-tooth comb, in discussion with the Branch Manager, and since it was all in Hindi I’ll admit my interest wavered slightly. I can now say with absolute certainty that I will never become an accountant. Whew, dodged a bullet on that one. We then spent a while with the CEO in the evening, going over their (somewhat ambitious) extension plans, and the GBB team pointed out weaknesses in the system that they’d found. We drove back to Hyderabad, and arrived home at around midnight.
The next day was more reading in the morning, and in the evening I went out with S---, her mother and her aunt to do some Sari-shopping. Now, you all know I have a thing for pretty clothes and getting gussied up. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that my tastes in Salwar Kameez and Saris is decidedly old-fashioned and stayed. I wanted simple fabrics with only a minimal amount of decoration, preferably combining no more than two colours, or one with a metallic finish. The fashion taste in India, in contrast, runs strongly towards wild multicoloured ensembles, crazy embroidery, and enough stitched sequins to make Liza Minelli’s heart beat faster. I finally found an affordable Sari I liked (so pretty! iridescent green and red with a gold thread finish), and was measured for the blouse, or choli. Once again, I betrayed my uncool-factor by requesting slightly longer sleeves (that is, about an inch above the elbow), which I’m told are matronly. I did apparently make up for it while they measured my chest area, quipping that that I didn’t mind showing off!
The next day was more reading in the morning (I know, I was as bored as you are now), and in the afternoon S--- took me to Golconda Fort, a huge ancient fortress (a bit like the Alhambra, actually) just outside the main city. It was stunning, especially the detailed stone carvings etc that I have a marked weakness for. It was the kind of place you with you had a few days and a sketchbook to appreciate properly. The only think that marred the experience were the renewed stares. In fact, one group of young guys took to following us (S---, our guide and I) and snapping pictures of me. For the first time in my life I wished I was Muslim, and could retreat behind the comforting veil of a burkha. My opinion on those has really changed drastically.
In the evening S--- and her Mum dressed me up in a red and gold Sari of theirs, since mine was still at the tailor’s, and we went for a scrumptious dinner at P---’s club. The next day I got up early and flew to Varanasi via Delhi.
Here I’d better report on what I'm calling the “Varanasi kerfuffle”. I am staying with the CEO of Generic Microfinance Institution (GMFI) in Varanasi, a Mr. T--- and his wife (they live in a residence in the GMFI building, and there’s a guest room for GMFI people). I was scheduled to arrive on Saturday. Friday morning there comes a communiqué that wires had somehow gotten crossed, and neither Mr. nor Mrs. T--- would in fact be in Varanasi until late Sunday evening, and would it be possible for me to come on Monday/Tuesday instead? I was told this, and my immediate thought was “why change the flights when it’s such a hassle? I’ll go anyway, find myself a nice hotel and do my own thing for a few days!” I called my Mum, who concurred. Why make everyone go into overdrive to change my plans a day in advance when I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself for a few days? Not only did I not want to be an inconvenience, I’ll admit that I relished the prospect of being in my own for a few days. The families I’ve been with have all been extraordinarily nice, but staying with strangers continuously, however sweet, for two months at a time is a little trying. I called the secretary who was going to rebook me and said not to worry, I’d figure it out. She sounded a little surprised, and asked whether she should find me a hotel. I again said no worries, and that I was going to pick one from my Lonely Planet guidebook. I thought then that the matter was settled.
Later that day, while at Golconda fort, Maneesha from the Mumbai office called to “talk” about my planned two-day vacation. She said they were all very worried about me, they’d have to send someone to go with me, it wasn’t completely safe, did I want to stay in the GMFI compound and wait for the T---s, why would I want to go to Varanasi on my own, et cetera, et cetera. I was polite, but very firm (I’ll admit I was surprised at this reaction – I had agreed with my parents on what I was going to do, why was this woman from an office I had left calling and trying to interfere with my plans?), and simply said I wanted a few days on my own, that I thought it too much of an inconvenience to them to have them change my flight, that I promised I would be safe, stay in a reputable hotel etc etc. Seriously though, I did not (and still don’t) get the fuss (nor, as I would later find out, did I grasp the full extent of it). I’m nineteen years old, overly cautious, as many of you know, have a full pocket of money and a phone connection to not only my parents but a full company’s worth of people willing to mobilise should I get myself into a scrape. Plus, Varanasi is one of the biggest tourist-areas in India, since it’s such a holy city, and I was confident of being fine. I flew to Australia on my own at 12, fercrissake! Surely I’d be able to handle two days in a nice hotel. So I politely declined any help, and did my best to assure Maneesha that my mangled body would not be found floating in the Ganges a week hence by promising an airport pick-up, not to go out after dark, not to talk to stranger etc etc, and thought no more about it.
Then later (you can see where this is headed, can’t you?), I get a call from my mother, saying she received an email from M--- (who at this point was in Europe on an Another GBB (the guys who bought the original GBB) top-brass meeting, and really had better things to think about) saying that her team was all in an uproar and basically wtf was going on. I couldn't believe she'd had to be dragged into all this drama! My phone call had apparently done nothing to calm them, and instead they’d started emailing with Varanasi, Mr. T--- etc etc to try and figure out how to stop me from staying my own. I think at one point they were trying to get Mr. T--- to come back early. This is where I got W. T. F. and a little angry. (you probably can tell I’m still irked by the whole affair – I’ve never felt so babied in my life) Thank God for my parents, since they were both on my side in this. My mom wrote a lovely email to both M--- and the whole team, apologising for all the fuss, stating that we’d only wanted to cut down on inconveniences to them, and how sorry we were that we’d instead created even more. But she was sure I’d be fine on my own, blah blah blah. Thank God I had no email access; since I’m not sure I’d have been able to be as sweet and calm about it. My mother is truly angelic.
Anyway, after this stir probably earned me the dislike of the Mumbai team (I later called and sincerely apologised to the team, and M--- as well. I did feel terrible that this had created so much inconvenience, precisely the thing I’d tried to avoid), I set off for Varanasi. I was booked into a Heritage hotel called the Palace on Ganges in the inner city, next to the (you guessed it) Ganges, and had arranged for a car to come and pick me up from the airport. My purchasing power in India is off the hook (the exchange rate is around Rs.65 per Euro, but the PP is around Rs.20 a Euro), and I’ll admit I was excited at the prospect of living so far above my usual means for a few days. I didn’t know the half of it. I arrived at the hotel, which was fine, and quickly got changed into my new Sari. I then asked for a taxi and went to… The Taj. Yeah baby. You see, my Lonely Planet guidebook stated that the restaurant in the Taj is amazing (and good value), and the small hotel bar is both named after and decorated by John Prinsep, who illustrated the Ghats beautifully. Imagine my disappointment when I got there and was told the restaurant was closed for a private function, their alternate restaurant wasn’t open yet, and neither was the bar. I sighed, but decided to make the best of the situation and at least exchange some currency while I was there, since amazingly hotels have much better value than most high-street exchanges.
I was exchanging money and chatting with the clerk when he asked me my room number. I sheepishly admitted that I wasn’t a guest, just there for the restaurant, and joked that the Taj was too expensive for me. He asked me where I was staying, what I was paying and whether I was alone. I told him, he went off to consult the manager, came back and said “Ma’am, we can offer you a room for Rs. 3000” (about 46 Euros, and only Rs.500 more than I was paying at the Palace on Ganges). HELL YEAH!
I stammered my thanks, reserved my room and dashed back to the Palace on Ganges (which, though nice, was no five-star hotel) to get my bags. I couldn’t believe it!
My stroke of luck was actually seriously well-timed, since I got sick on Sunday, and the nice surroundings made it a lot easier to bear.
That's all for now, tune in next time as I move to the GMFI compound and discover just how fond the Indians are of the present continuous!
Hugs, Knus,
Gitte
P.S. Y'all are seriously boring when it comes to comments on my blog. Not only have they been seriously lacking, but no one's offered any suggestions for the new poll. Boo.
I want news from you all, and the problem with blogging is that it's seriously one-sided. So pretty pretty please drop me a line telling me about your summer.
P.P.S. Also, a pre-plug for my brother, who hass just started off on his Interrail tour, which will take him and his friend Støtt through the depths of Eastern Europe (I'm still not happy about the planned excursion to Kosovo, guys). I've been promised a blog, and this is my public way of shaming it into existence. Get on it!
Knus
The next day was a visit to an MFI (that’s Microfinance Institution) called Nirantara that GBB was considering lending money to. I was picked up at a quarter to six a.m. (with a huge bag of snacks, fruits etc from the P--- family and strict admonishments to touch no water etc that I was offered) and we (myself and the Hyderabad team) started the three-hour drive. We drove from Hyderabad in the province of Andhra Pradesh to the area around Bidar in the province of Karnataka, where the MFI is located. We got there around nine, and after preliminaries (exchange of business cards, which the Indians seem to adore) went to our first centre meeting.
See, this is how the so-called “Grameen model” of microfinance works. You get between 5 to 20 women together in a so-called Self-Help Group or SHG in the lingo. The Microfinance Institution (MFI, remember) then lends smallish amounts of money to the women. A first time loan is typically around 10,000 rupees – 150Euros, 1000 Dkr or around 200$ Canadian. The women are then supposed to use the money to find a micro-enterprise - usually buying a buffalo for milk, a sowing machine, a rickshaw, a grocery store or the like. They then pay back the principal loan plus interest in small weekly instalments – typically around 160 rupees. Once they’ve paid back their loan, they can apply for another, larger one, to reinvest, and so on. The women in the SHG cross-guarantee each other, meaning that if one defects or can’t pay her instalments, the others will make up the difference. This serves two purposes. The first is obviously to lessen the risk of the MFI (most are run as non-profit businesses, and need demonstrably low levels of portfolio at risk in their loans in order to lend money from banks themselves – trust me, no-one’s getting rich off of this). The second is that this means the main mechanism to ensure the correct handling of money is peer pressure (odd how something we all think of as negative can be good, eh?). The other women might pay back a defaulter’s loan, but they then won’t let her take out another one, since they see a higher risk of losing money again. The MFI collects these weekly instalments at weekly (hard to guess, eh?) so-called “centre meetings”, where an employee of the MFI come to the village or district or whatever and collects the money. It’s all highly formalised with documents and so on (most centre meetings I’ve been to even open and finish with prayers).
Anyway, we went to our first centre meeting, in an urban slum in Bidar. It’s a predominantly Muslim area, and all the women were wearing burkhas which they removed once they steppe inside. The meeting was held in a clients’ home, and we all squatted on the floor while the Centre Manager (the MFI employee) and the Group Leader (a woman appointed collectively by the SHG to keep the group’s documents safe and act as the mouthpiece of the SHG) went through the accounts etc. After the formal business was done, the head of Nirantara asked whether the women would mind staying and talking about the programme for a while. Most of them stayed the CEO introduced my coworker, explaining that he was from GBB, and that they lent to Nirantara in the same was that Nirantara lent to the women. Coworker asked all kinds of questions, as did I (through Coworker of course. My lack of Hindi is becoming a bigger and bigger problem), including what business they did (many were involved in beef shops, seeing as this was a Muslim area. Another had a bakery, another a shawl-knitting business, and so on). They then asked a bunch about me. They’d been curious from the moment I walked in the door, pale thing that I am (another thing, this paleness business. I’m white as a ghost since I haven’t had any chance to tan, and they all seem to think it’s fabulous. Me, not so much) and asked all kinds of questions, from where I’m from to whether I was married (and why not? When was I getting married?), how long I’d been in India, etc etc etc. After the meeting we went to see a few of the businesses, and then on to a second meeting, which was much of the same. At this meeting however, there were several husbands hanging around, looking distinctly displeased. I asked why and Coworker answered that they weren’t pleased that their wives were showing their faces (not even their hair, mind you) to the men from Nirantara. One in particular was known to be a drunkard, and was mad that his wife was keeping the money from her grocery shop from him in order to pay for her children’s schooling. He felt that as head of the household he should have charge of the money, and be free to do with it as he pleased. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s unemployed. I’m not even going to comment on this kind of thinking, which is very, very common as far as I can tell.
Anyway, after a morning of centre meetings we went to lunch (I had a south Indian Thali, which is a big metal platter with various curries on it. So freakin’ spicy) and headed back to the office, where we were shown Nirantara’s bookkeeping and computer system. Coworker went over it with a fine-tooth comb, in discussion with the Branch Manager, and since it was all in Hindi I’ll admit my interest wavered slightly. I can now say with absolute certainty that I will never become an accountant. Whew, dodged a bullet on that one. We then spent a while with the CEO in the evening, going over their (somewhat ambitious) extension plans, and the GBB team pointed out weaknesses in the system that they’d found. We drove back to Hyderabad, and arrived home at around midnight.
The next day was more reading in the morning, and in the evening I went out with S---, her mother and her aunt to do some Sari-shopping. Now, you all know I have a thing for pretty clothes and getting gussied up. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that my tastes in Salwar Kameez and Saris is decidedly old-fashioned and stayed. I wanted simple fabrics with only a minimal amount of decoration, preferably combining no more than two colours, or one with a metallic finish. The fashion taste in India, in contrast, runs strongly towards wild multicoloured ensembles, crazy embroidery, and enough stitched sequins to make Liza Minelli’s heart beat faster. I finally found an affordable Sari I liked (so pretty! iridescent green and red with a gold thread finish), and was measured for the blouse, or choli. Once again, I betrayed my uncool-factor by requesting slightly longer sleeves (that is, about an inch above the elbow), which I’m told are matronly. I did apparently make up for it while they measured my chest area, quipping that that I didn’t mind showing off!
The next day was more reading in the morning (I know, I was as bored as you are now), and in the afternoon S--- took me to Golconda Fort, a huge ancient fortress (a bit like the Alhambra, actually) just outside the main city. It was stunning, especially the detailed stone carvings etc that I have a marked weakness for. It was the kind of place you with you had a few days and a sketchbook to appreciate properly. The only think that marred the experience were the renewed stares. In fact, one group of young guys took to following us (S---, our guide and I) and snapping pictures of me. For the first time in my life I wished I was Muslim, and could retreat behind the comforting veil of a burkha. My opinion on those has really changed drastically.
In the evening S--- and her Mum dressed me up in a red and gold Sari of theirs, since mine was still at the tailor’s, and we went for a scrumptious dinner at P---’s club. The next day I got up early and flew to Varanasi via Delhi.
Here I’d better report on what I'm calling the “Varanasi kerfuffle”. I am staying with the CEO of Generic Microfinance Institution (GMFI) in Varanasi, a Mr. T--- and his wife (they live in a residence in the GMFI building, and there’s a guest room for GMFI people). I was scheduled to arrive on Saturday. Friday morning there comes a communiqué that wires had somehow gotten crossed, and neither Mr. nor Mrs. T--- would in fact be in Varanasi until late Sunday evening, and would it be possible for me to come on Monday/Tuesday instead? I was told this, and my immediate thought was “why change the flights when it’s such a hassle? I’ll go anyway, find myself a nice hotel and do my own thing for a few days!” I called my Mum, who concurred. Why make everyone go into overdrive to change my plans a day in advance when I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself for a few days? Not only did I not want to be an inconvenience, I’ll admit that I relished the prospect of being in my own for a few days. The families I’ve been with have all been extraordinarily nice, but staying with strangers continuously, however sweet, for two months at a time is a little trying. I called the secretary who was going to rebook me and said not to worry, I’d figure it out. She sounded a little surprised, and asked whether she should find me a hotel. I again said no worries, and that I was going to pick one from my Lonely Planet guidebook. I thought then that the matter was settled.
Later that day, while at Golconda fort, Maneesha from the Mumbai office called to “talk” about my planned two-day vacation. She said they were all very worried about me, they’d have to send someone to go with me, it wasn’t completely safe, did I want to stay in the GMFI compound and wait for the T---s, why would I want to go to Varanasi on my own, et cetera, et cetera. I was polite, but very firm (I’ll admit I was surprised at this reaction – I had agreed with my parents on what I was going to do, why was this woman from an office I had left calling and trying to interfere with my plans?), and simply said I wanted a few days on my own, that I thought it too much of an inconvenience to them to have them change my flight, that I promised I would be safe, stay in a reputable hotel etc etc. Seriously though, I did not (and still don’t) get the fuss (nor, as I would later find out, did I grasp the full extent of it). I’m nineteen years old, overly cautious, as many of you know, have a full pocket of money and a phone connection to not only my parents but a full company’s worth of people willing to mobilise should I get myself into a scrape. Plus, Varanasi is one of the biggest tourist-areas in India, since it’s such a holy city, and I was confident of being fine. I flew to Australia on my own at 12, fercrissake! Surely I’d be able to handle two days in a nice hotel. So I politely declined any help, and did my best to assure Maneesha that my mangled body would not be found floating in the Ganges a week hence by promising an airport pick-up, not to go out after dark, not to talk to stranger etc etc, and thought no more about it.
Then later (you can see where this is headed, can’t you?), I get a call from my mother, saying she received an email from M--- (who at this point was in Europe on an Another GBB (the guys who bought the original GBB) top-brass meeting, and really had better things to think about) saying that her team was all in an uproar and basically wtf was going on. I couldn't believe she'd had to be dragged into all this drama! My phone call had apparently done nothing to calm them, and instead they’d started emailing with Varanasi, Mr. T--- etc etc to try and figure out how to stop me from staying my own. I think at one point they were trying to get Mr. T--- to come back early. This is where I got W. T. F. and a little angry. (you probably can tell I’m still irked by the whole affair – I’ve never felt so babied in my life) Thank God for my parents, since they were both on my side in this. My mom wrote a lovely email to both M--- and the whole team, apologising for all the fuss, stating that we’d only wanted to cut down on inconveniences to them, and how sorry we were that we’d instead created even more. But she was sure I’d be fine on my own, blah blah blah. Thank God I had no email access; since I’m not sure I’d have been able to be as sweet and calm about it. My mother is truly angelic.
Anyway, after this stir probably earned me the dislike of the Mumbai team (I later called and sincerely apologised to the team, and M--- as well. I did feel terrible that this had created so much inconvenience, precisely the thing I’d tried to avoid), I set off for Varanasi. I was booked into a Heritage hotel called the Palace on Ganges in the inner city, next to the (you guessed it) Ganges, and had arranged for a car to come and pick me up from the airport. My purchasing power in India is off the hook (the exchange rate is around Rs.65 per Euro, but the PP is around Rs.20 a Euro), and I’ll admit I was excited at the prospect of living so far above my usual means for a few days. I didn’t know the half of it. I arrived at the hotel, which was fine, and quickly got changed into my new Sari. I then asked for a taxi and went to… The Taj. Yeah baby. You see, my Lonely Planet guidebook stated that the restaurant in the Taj is amazing (and good value), and the small hotel bar is both named after and decorated by John Prinsep, who illustrated the Ghats beautifully. Imagine my disappointment when I got there and was told the restaurant was closed for a private function, their alternate restaurant wasn’t open yet, and neither was the bar. I sighed, but decided to make the best of the situation and at least exchange some currency while I was there, since amazingly hotels have much better value than most high-street exchanges.
I was exchanging money and chatting with the clerk when he asked me my room number. I sheepishly admitted that I wasn’t a guest, just there for the restaurant, and joked that the Taj was too expensive for me. He asked me where I was staying, what I was paying and whether I was alone. I told him, he went off to consult the manager, came back and said “Ma’am, we can offer you a room for Rs. 3000” (about 46 Euros, and only Rs.500 more than I was paying at the Palace on Ganges). HELL YEAH!
I stammered my thanks, reserved my room and dashed back to the Palace on Ganges (which, though nice, was no five-star hotel) to get my bags. I couldn’t believe it!
My stroke of luck was actually seriously well-timed, since I got sick on Sunday, and the nice surroundings made it a lot easier to bear.
That's all for now, tune in next time as I move to the GMFI compound and discover just how fond the Indians are of the present continuous!
Hugs, Knus,
Gitte
P.S. Y'all are seriously boring when it comes to comments on my blog. Not only have they been seriously lacking, but no one's offered any suggestions for the new poll. Boo.
I want news from you all, and the problem with blogging is that it's seriously one-sided. So pretty pretty please drop me a line telling me about your summer.
P.P.S. Also, a pre-plug for my brother, who hass just started off on his Interrail tour, which will take him and his friend Støtt through the depths of Eastern Europe (I'm still not happy about the planned excursion to Kosovo, guys). I've been promised a blog, and this is my public way of shaming it into existence. Get on it!
Knus
Friday, July 4, 2008
June 21st to 21rd; I relocate from Mumbai to Hyderabad, with a stopover in the lap of luxury
Saturday morning I was all in a tizzy. K---, the head of the Magic Hands programme was scheduled to give a half-hour “debrief” of the events of the prior day at 8.45 a.m. sharp, and had decided to delegate the actual writing of the thing to me. I spent around three hours Friday night writing the thing (once again, God bless my bullshitting skills, courtesy of MUN!) but had to email it to myself via a hacked IPO connection since the S--- household has no printer. I asked M--- whether we could get to the hotel around 10-15 min earlier so I could rush to the business centre and print out the speech (you can see where this is going, can’t you?). It got later and later, and I was freaking out. The one constructive thing I’d been tasked to do so far and I was going to mess it up by being late! We arrived at the hotel at 8.50, but of course no one was remotely ready, or even there, and my nervousness had been umsonst (for nothing), as the Germans say. I got everything printed and ready, and when we started at 9.15 sharp, K--- (whom I had handed the papers to moments before) announced that instead of the debrief, she was going to let one of the speakers from yesterday take questions instead. Sigh.
The rest of the day went smoothly. An Australian-Indian guy who works for Al Gore’s Climate Project (whom I saw on Television last weekend, actually) held the “An Inconvenient Truth” talk, and in the afternoon Prof. David Gibbons (Canadian, yay!) from Cashpor held his talk on Microfinance. I’m going to post a big thing on Microfinance itself later, so no details, but it was nice. After the closing speeches and such, I jumped into the car with M--- and her husband, and headed to the Taj hotel, across town. They were going to a Business India function hosted by Generic Big Bank, and I was going to meet MY DAD :D
But first, a bit on the Taj, Mumbai’s famous five-star hotel. Jonathan (Damsgaard, duh) was actually the first one to tell me the apocryphal story. It is told that Tata, the richest businessman in India, was refused entry to Mumbai’s fanciest hotel, with the words “No Dogs or Indians allowed”. So, being rich beyond belief, he decided to build a nicer hotel right next to it. Heh.
Anyway, my Dad had had business in Delhi and Hyderabad and decided to stop over in Mumbai, picking me up along the way. He was scheduled to arrive at the hotel by 9, but I felt grimy and craved a shower, so I brazenly went up t the front desk and asked permission to use the room, despite offering no credit card or passport etc. Amazingly, they accepted my McGill ID as legit and let me in! Heaven. I should mention that the S--- family has two (adorable and crazy) cats, which I am unfortunately allergic to. So sleeping was always a bit of an issue there, and I was thoroughly relishing the prospect of breathing through the night. I showered, changed, went for drinks at the “Sea Lounge” – a flapper-style lounge with breathtaking views (where I charged two glasses of wine to my Dad’s room, heh!) and, once he arrived, went for dinner with my Dad. It was really lovely to speak Danish for a change, and not to have to watch what I was saying for fear of giving offence.
The next day we slept late (what what!) and used the hotel pool before having lunch with the S---’s at a delightful colonial-era club. You see, my Dad and M--- met when he was studying at DTU in Copen and she was interning at some Danish company for a few months. (Først Vibeke og nu M---? Min Far har virkelig gamle kaerester hele verdenen over, ikke? :P) After lunch we were driven to the airport and Dad and I caught our flight to Hyderabad. Once there, we were picked up and shuttled to the hotel.
Monday morning my Dad went off on business (he’s running a joint venture with a German competitor of ours, Reitz) while I was picked up by S---, my Dad’s associate’s daughter. She’s in her late twenties, and just came back from the US (where she’s lived for 9 years) a few months ago. She showed me around the city including a museum with a collection that seemed to rival the Louvre in the sheer number of objects. My favourite thing was a statue called the veiled Rebecca, a female figure in marble with a thin veil over her face, but where you can still see the features and expression clearly. Very cool (click the link! click the link!). The afternoon was spent with my Dad, and in the evening we met my Dad’s German business associate Herr Pollman for drinks before all of us going out to dinner with the Indian associate (P---) and his family (S--- et al).
By the way, in case any of you ever go to India, two observations:
1) South Indian food is considerably spicier than North Indian food
2) Unlike our spicy foods, the hotness of a dish is not immediately discernible upon tasting; rather, it takes about 45 seconds for your taste buds to relay the spiciness to your brain (and pain centres) and the sensation to build (and build and build and build). Therefore, do not try a bit of a dish, think “Hey, I can totally handle this!” and shovel a whole load down your gullet. Just… Don’t.
That's all for now, tune in next time when I finally start real work, see the poorest of the poor, and cause a stir as a single gal about Varanasi!
Please keep your comments coming, they're a heartwarming piece of home over here. Miss you all and can't wait to see you again!
Hugs, Knus,
Gitte
P.S. The poll for presents is still up, and so far the guys have obviously come out strongly for the dagger, with jewellery and a scarf the top choices for the gals. Got an idea for the next poll? You could WIN.. well nothing but I'll credit you, and maybe buy you a pretty postcard or something.
The rest of the day went smoothly. An Australian-Indian guy who works for Al Gore’s Climate Project (whom I saw on Television last weekend, actually) held the “An Inconvenient Truth” talk, and in the afternoon Prof. David Gibbons (Canadian, yay!) from Cashpor held his talk on Microfinance. I’m going to post a big thing on Microfinance itself later, so no details, but it was nice. After the closing speeches and such, I jumped into the car with M--- and her husband, and headed to the Taj hotel, across town. They were going to a Business India function hosted by Generic Big Bank, and I was going to meet MY DAD :D
But first, a bit on the Taj, Mumbai’s famous five-star hotel. Jonathan (Damsgaard, duh) was actually the first one to tell me the apocryphal story. It is told that Tata, the richest businessman in India, was refused entry to Mumbai’s fanciest hotel, with the words “No Dogs or Indians allowed”. So, being rich beyond belief, he decided to build a nicer hotel right next to it. Heh.
Anyway, my Dad had had business in Delhi and Hyderabad and decided to stop over in Mumbai, picking me up along the way. He was scheduled to arrive at the hotel by 9, but I felt grimy and craved a shower, so I brazenly went up t the front desk and asked permission to use the room, despite offering no credit card or passport etc. Amazingly, they accepted my McGill ID as legit and let me in! Heaven. I should mention that the S--- family has two (adorable and crazy) cats, which I am unfortunately allergic to. So sleeping was always a bit of an issue there, and I was thoroughly relishing the prospect of breathing through the night. I showered, changed, went for drinks at the “Sea Lounge” – a flapper-style lounge with breathtaking views (where I charged two glasses of wine to my Dad’s room, heh!) and, once he arrived, went for dinner with my Dad. It was really lovely to speak Danish for a change, and not to have to watch what I was saying for fear of giving offence.
The next day we slept late (what what!) and used the hotel pool before having lunch with the S---’s at a delightful colonial-era club. You see, my Dad and M--- met when he was studying at DTU in Copen and she was interning at some Danish company for a few months. (Først Vibeke og nu M---? Min Far har virkelig gamle kaerester hele verdenen over, ikke? :P) After lunch we were driven to the airport and Dad and I caught our flight to Hyderabad. Once there, we were picked up and shuttled to the hotel.
Monday morning my Dad went off on business (he’s running a joint venture with a German competitor of ours, Reitz) while I was picked up by S---, my Dad’s associate’s daughter. She’s in her late twenties, and just came back from the US (where she’s lived for 9 years) a few months ago. She showed me around the city including a museum with a collection that seemed to rival the Louvre in the sheer number of objects. My favourite thing was a statue called the veiled Rebecca, a female figure in marble with a thin veil over her face, but where you can still see the features and expression clearly. Very cool (click the link! click the link!). The afternoon was spent with my Dad, and in the evening we met my Dad’s German business associate Herr Pollman for drinks before all of us going out to dinner with the Indian associate (P---) and his family (S--- et al).
By the way, in case any of you ever go to India, two observations:
1) South Indian food is considerably spicier than North Indian food
2) Unlike our spicy foods, the hotness of a dish is not immediately discernible upon tasting; rather, it takes about 45 seconds for your taste buds to relay the spiciness to your brain (and pain centres) and the sensation to build (and build and build and build). Therefore, do not try a bit of a dish, think “Hey, I can totally handle this!” and shovel a whole load down your gullet. Just… Don’t.
That's all for now, tune in next time when I finally start real work, see the poorest of the poor, and cause a stir as a single gal about Varanasi!
Please keep your comments coming, they're a heartwarming piece of home over here. Miss you all and can't wait to see you again!
Hugs, Knus,
Gitte
P.S. The poll for presents is still up, and so far the guys have obviously come out strongly for the dagger, with jewellery and a scarf the top choices for the gals. Got an idea for the next poll? You could WIN.. well nothing but I'll credit you, and maybe buy you a pretty postcard or something.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
First Post! and summary of the week June 11th to 20th
So, I've decided that since my internet is sporadic in the extreme here in India (even in the nice houses, the power goes out a few times a day), and instead of attempting to communicate with everyone individually over facebook/email (a task I'm decidedly not up to, and my employers probably would resent), I'm going to post my trip report, observations, musings, rants etc etc here for everyone to read. I'll be writing in whenever I can, which right now seems to be once a week maybe. I hope you all enjoy it, and please leave comments etc so I know I'm not all alone on this hot, muggy side of the world.
Off I go
I left Hamburg around mid-afternoon on June the 11th. Mum and I had a hurried lunch before my departure, while watching Yes Minister (a birthday present I hadn’t had the time to enjoy yet), and finished up with a piece of Nusstorte which Mum bought as a surprise. I was my usual nervous self about the time, so Mum dropped me off at the terminal while she went to find a parking spot. In retrospect, as usual, this was unnecessary, since I had to wait less than five minutes in the line-up to check in. I guess Wednesday afternoon is not exactly a busy time. To kill time before my flight Mum and I did the customary shop in the airport newspaper/bookstore (where I got a good book – A Thousand Splendid Suns – as well as a bad one – Chasing Harvey Winston (sp?), terrible chick lit which I later leave at the S---'s House). After buying half the shop, we went up to the restaurant-thing that looks over the terminal area (how is it that in 18 years of flying out of that airport I’ve never been there before?) and had a cup of tea and a chat. Once there was ten minutes left ‘til boarding, we said goodbye and I went through Security. I had a brief stop-over in Munich, where I grabbed a nice dinner.
I arrived in Mumbai in the early morning of June the twelfth, and was picked up at the airport by A--- and P---. We drove to their apartment (located in the absolute swankiest, most expensive and high profile part of Mumbai) and after showing me the place they gave me time to crash. I did so gratefully, but asked to be woken up in an hour or so since I’d flown through the night and wanted to get on IST as quickly as possible. My one-hour nap turned into a six-hour dead sleep, and when I got up and apologized for sleeping so long (“I hope I didn’t inconvenience you!”), their reaction is a laidback “Well, you obviously needed the sleep!” Amazing to a daughter of the Witt family, and my first clue as to people’s general approach to time and punctuality here. Once I’d woken up, P--- took me into Mumbai for some shopping as I’d expressed the wish to buy some Indian clothes (Lonely Planet asserts it dramatically cuts down on stares, but so far they’re staring anyway – quite uncomfortable). We exchanged some money at Thomas Cooke and head for a store called CottonWorld, and another called Fabindia. Here I picked up some kurtas (tunic-like side-slitted tops that go to just above your knee which you wear over normal pants) and a salwar kameez (an outfit that consists of a longer kurta that goes down past your knees, a pair of drawstring pants that are huge at the waist and very, very tight at the ankles, as well as a scarf called a dupatta). We headed home for a nice relaxing dinner with the family.
The next day I got up and headed to my new office, escorted by M---. She introduced me to the staff and got me settled. The staff were friendly, and set me down with their 2007-2008 Sustainability report, which details Generic Big Bank’s work towards conservation, carbon reduction and Microfinance, as well as the mechanisms they use to ensure due diligence, etc. It was relatively interesting, but when I finished it within three hours there was some head-scratching as to what to do with me. They ransacked the office and filled my desk with every Microfinance report, study, survey and analysis they could find. I spent the rest of the day reading, and at around twenty to six Karishma, the secretary, told me M---’s secretary called and said M--- would come by to pick me up in fifteen to twenty minutes (the rest of my time in Mumbai I took taxis home from work, but that day was A---’s birthday so it was deemed easier to simply pick me up). When M--- hadn’t arrived by six, I started getting nervous. I knew we were supposed to see a movie in town at a quarter to eight, and I was afraid I was to have taken a taxi after all, but had misunderstood. I started panicking quietly, thinking I might hold up the whole thing, causing us to miss the birthday movie, dinner reservation, or what have you. At six thirty, I asked Karishma to call M---’s office and find out if and/or when she’d left. I figured if she’d left more than ten minutes ago, I was going to take a cab. But of course she’d merely gotten delayed, and said she’d be there in another ten. Chalk up another notch in favour of "Gitte seriously just needs to chill".
Fifteen minutes later we sped back towards the house, which we reached at a quarter past seven. We were told to change very quickly, but oddly no one seemed to be stressed about the fact that the movie started in half an hour, the minimum time needed just to get to the theatre! I changed at lightning-speed (wonder where I acquired that talent?) and waited in astonishment (but kept my mouth shut) as the family languidly changed. We were going to see a Hindi movie, and I decided just to go with it, since I knew I wouldn’t get half the plot anyway, so what was a quarter of an hour? At seven-thirty we set off, and got to the movie theatre by eight. The movie had started, but this didn’t bother any of the family. I really envy how laidback everyone is. It's a very fatalistic "well, if we're meant to make it we will!" which is totally foreign to my teutonic notions of keeping time.
The movie was hilariously terrible, and I was astonished to find that I could understand most of the plot despite the language. I guess the fine art of the gasp-with-a-look-of-[insert emotion here]-as-the-camera-pulls-in-for-a-close-up-and-the-music-swells acting is as alive as ever. The funniest part of the movie, for me, was the music sequence at the end. The other songs had been fantastically camp as well, but as the credits began to roll the hero was shown riding into a 70’s-style disco (complete with glittering ball and backup dancers) on a unicorn, wearing a baby blue tuxedo jacket, white pants, a white shirt and a maroon ascot. That outfit sent me over the edge. After the movie we drove to Busaba, a trendy restaurant downtown where we had a scrumptious dinner.
The next day I slept quite late, as did the rest of the family. They were all planning on having a slow day, but urged me to take the driver and do some sightseeing. So I left and went to the Prince of Wales museum, stopping at the Gateway of India first. This was my first experience as a lone white girl, and even though I was prepared for it the amount of people trying to talk to me or take my picture was a little daunting. The museums was a little more relaxing, as I got an audio tour and thus could jam the headphones on and politely ignore anyone who spoke to me. But the stares still galled me. Especially one group of women and children could not get enough of a look. Doesn’t anyone teach their kids it’s rude to stare, much less follow someone around? At times I felt more like an exhibit than a visitor. There were a couple of other foreigners in the building however, which was nice, and the museum itself was quite interesting. In the evening, the family’s yoga instructor came, and we, M---, P--- and I spend an hour contorted in various positions on the floor. It was quite nice, except since I had to take off my glasses I couldn’t see and had to have the movements described to me. The teacher even praised me for being flexible!
Sunday morning the yoga teacher came again, and in the afternoon I decided to go for a walk to some neighborhood sites, which the family seemed to think was a novel idea. They offered me the driver, but I declined, explaining that it was the walk, and not the sites, that I craved. I spent around an hour and a half outside, and when I got back I was sweaty, exhausted (Malabar Hill where they live is just that –a hill- and I’d gone up and down a fair bit) and pleased. In the evening the S--- family took me out for authentic Mumbai street food. First we went to Kailash Parbat, a place that’s apparently been around since independence. I tried a Jalebi, which are whorls of dough deep-fried in sugar syrup (pretty good, though way too sweet for my taste), and something called Pani Puri, which Kailash Parbat is famous for. You know the thinness and consistency of the dough you make won-tons out of? Imagine a hollow ball of that dough, which a guy punches a small hole into. He scoops up a bunch of chickpeas with this new bowl-like thing, ladles some form of syrupy gravy into it, and dunks the whole thing into a bowl of spiced water. Then you put the whole think into your mouth at once. The first bite shatters the dough-thingy and vaguely flavoured water runs into your mouth. Apparently people adore this, but frankly I thought the taste was closest to sweet oyster juice. Then we went to Bade Miya, a street grill that serves kebabs fresh off the coals. We ate quickly, and I burned my fingers (no cutlery, and you eat standing up) as well as my mouth, but was so worth it. The last place we went was Baghdadi, a small no-frills canteen where we had rice, naan bread, and chicken curry.
Monday was more of the same at work, a lot of dry, yet still quite interesting reading. After work I walked to the Vodaphone store, determined to get a SIM card for my phone. I had gone on Saturday, but been told I needed a passport-sized picture to get the card. So I went to get my picture taken for the phone, only to get to the phone store and have them tell me that their computer sys was down and could I come back tomorrow? I went home.
Tuesday was quite interesting. I spent most of the day observing Generic Big Bank (GBB) meetings. Another Generic Big Bank (AGBB) bought GBB six months ago, and a guy from their Corporate Social Responsibility division (which GBB calls Sustainability) was there to assess the portfolio. Lots of Presentations etc, which for me were very interesting and illuminating. The coolest thing for me though, was to hear one of the reasons AGBB is heavily involved with CSR to start with. Apart from the ethical concerns (which, believe it or no, do play a part – the people running these kind of divisions do care), there’s a firm business angle to it. It seems that AGBB hold a significant part of the student banking market in both the UK and the US, and precisely that group is the most vulnerable from “NGO agitation”, so to speak. Pretty cool that what originally drove AGBB to CSR was a student protest staged outside their HQ with kids pretending to be dead polar bears. Since the student market responds so rapidly to NGO campaigns, CSR in part seeks to preempt that. Go student power! At the end of the day I went back to the Vodaphone store again to get my card. I waited over 45 minutes at the store, and by the end I’d the impression that the good people of Mumbai have never in their lives seen a white girl before, judging by the once again ubiquitous stares.
Wednesday was more reading, and another trip to the Vodaphone store as the SIM card hadn’t been activated yet. They day before they’d assured me that activation would only take two hours, but as my phone was still inactive 24 hours later I was more than a little pissed. Thursday was the last work day, and –guess what?- a last trip to the Vodaphone store. I had been so excited about my phone working that I promptly used all the minutes on my world calling card and needed another.
Friday I got up and left the house with P---, and we headed to the Trident/Hilton/Oberoi (apparently the hotel has switched owners/names a lot, so it’s now called any of these three things). The sustainability team had organized a two-day Employee Volunteer Training programme, dubbed “Magic Hands”. GBB employees, (about 94 in all) from all over India came (voluntarily, natch) to learn about Biodiversity, Climate Change and Microfinance (the three main points of the Sustainability portfolio) and how they could help. The first stop was a visit to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, about an hour away (but still within the city’s borders) We were scheduled to leave the hotel by bus at 11 am., so we got out of there by a quarter to 12, meaning the whole schedule started off late (and would gradually get later and later). P--- and I had lots of fun on the way up. I demonstrated French-braiding to her, and we dared each other to steal the chocolate bars on the seats next to us that the organizers/animators had as prizes for the volunteers. Once at the park, we had a very inspiring talk by a man whose name I’ve forgotten, but is one of India’s (and the world’s) foremost authorities on biodiversity and conservation. We then drove out to a road where we started a “one-hour-walk” (which took two and a half because we stopped every three feet for information on something, and walked at a glacial pace the rest of the time). Since we were in staggered groups, and I was in the last one, I walked ahead on my own (bypassing two other groups) and managed to be the first to spot monkeys. I also saw a civet and several birds whose names I have now forgotten. I joined the first group at the busses (which had driven ahead) and once everyone was there we drove back towards the hotel. I drove back in a car with M---, P--- and a fellow called Bittu (another well-known conservationist), and as we neared the hotel we found out that, though late, we were about 45 minutes ahead of the rest of the group. So P--- and I jumped out about a block before the hotel and went to a place called Café Mocha, where we shared a water-pipe and a drink, before walking over to the hotel. During the appetizers a man named Pavan (also very famous, who works for a European commission on biodiversity and how to harness market forces to preserve it) spoke about the economics of conservation. Then during dinner they screened the movie “Planet Earth” – parts of which are identical to the series. Originally we were going to see “The 11th Hour”, but I think the impression was that this was too depressing after a long day of dismal statistics.
That's all (all? all? yes, this was quite long, wasn't it?) for now, keep your eyes peeled for more from the depths of India!
Off I go
I left Hamburg around mid-afternoon on June the 11th. Mum and I had a hurried lunch before my departure, while watching Yes Minister (a birthday present I hadn’t had the time to enjoy yet), and finished up with a piece of Nusstorte which Mum bought as a surprise. I was my usual nervous self about the time, so Mum dropped me off at the terminal while she went to find a parking spot. In retrospect, as usual, this was unnecessary, since I had to wait less than five minutes in the line-up to check in. I guess Wednesday afternoon is not exactly a busy time. To kill time before my flight Mum and I did the customary shop in the airport newspaper/bookstore (where I got a good book – A Thousand Splendid Suns – as well as a bad one – Chasing Harvey Winston (sp?), terrible chick lit which I later leave at the S---'s House). After buying half the shop, we went up to the restaurant-thing that looks over the terminal area (how is it that in 18 years of flying out of that airport I’ve never been there before?) and had a cup of tea and a chat. Once there was ten minutes left ‘til boarding, we said goodbye and I went through Security. I had a brief stop-over in Munich, where I grabbed a nice dinner.
I arrived in Mumbai in the early morning of June the twelfth, and was picked up at the airport by A--- and P---. We drove to their apartment (located in the absolute swankiest, most expensive and high profile part of Mumbai) and after showing me the place they gave me time to crash. I did so gratefully, but asked to be woken up in an hour or so since I’d flown through the night and wanted to get on IST as quickly as possible. My one-hour nap turned into a six-hour dead sleep, and when I got up and apologized for sleeping so long (“I hope I didn’t inconvenience you!”), their reaction is a laidback “Well, you obviously needed the sleep!” Amazing to a daughter of the Witt family, and my first clue as to people’s general approach to time and punctuality here. Once I’d woken up, P--- took me into Mumbai for some shopping as I’d expressed the wish to buy some Indian clothes (Lonely Planet asserts it dramatically cuts down on stares, but so far they’re staring anyway – quite uncomfortable). We exchanged some money at Thomas Cooke and head for a store called CottonWorld, and another called Fabindia. Here I picked up some kurtas (tunic-like side-slitted tops that go to just above your knee which you wear over normal pants) and a salwar kameez (an outfit that consists of a longer kurta that goes down past your knees, a pair of drawstring pants that are huge at the waist and very, very tight at the ankles, as well as a scarf called a dupatta). We headed home for a nice relaxing dinner with the family.
The next day I got up and headed to my new office, escorted by M---. She introduced me to the staff and got me settled. The staff were friendly, and set me down with their 2007-2008 Sustainability report, which details Generic Big Bank’s work towards conservation, carbon reduction and Microfinance, as well as the mechanisms they use to ensure due diligence, etc. It was relatively interesting, but when I finished it within three hours there was some head-scratching as to what to do with me. They ransacked the office and filled my desk with every Microfinance report, study, survey and analysis they could find. I spent the rest of the day reading, and at around twenty to six Karishma, the secretary, told me M---’s secretary called and said M--- would come by to pick me up in fifteen to twenty minutes (the rest of my time in Mumbai I took taxis home from work, but that day was A---’s birthday so it was deemed easier to simply pick me up). When M--- hadn’t arrived by six, I started getting nervous. I knew we were supposed to see a movie in town at a quarter to eight, and I was afraid I was to have taken a taxi after all, but had misunderstood. I started panicking quietly, thinking I might hold up the whole thing, causing us to miss the birthday movie, dinner reservation, or what have you. At six thirty, I asked Karishma to call M---’s office and find out if and/or when she’d left. I figured if she’d left more than ten minutes ago, I was going to take a cab. But of course she’d merely gotten delayed, and said she’d be there in another ten. Chalk up another notch in favour of "Gitte seriously just needs to chill".
Fifteen minutes later we sped back towards the house, which we reached at a quarter past seven. We were told to change very quickly, but oddly no one seemed to be stressed about the fact that the movie started in half an hour, the minimum time needed just to get to the theatre! I changed at lightning-speed (wonder where I acquired that talent?) and waited in astonishment (but kept my mouth shut) as the family languidly changed. We were going to see a Hindi movie, and I decided just to go with it, since I knew I wouldn’t get half the plot anyway, so what was a quarter of an hour? At seven-thirty we set off, and got to the movie theatre by eight. The movie had started, but this didn’t bother any of the family. I really envy how laidback everyone is. It's a very fatalistic "well, if we're meant to make it we will!" which is totally foreign to my teutonic notions of keeping time.
The movie was hilariously terrible, and I was astonished to find that I could understand most of the plot despite the language. I guess the fine art of the gasp-with-a-look-of-[insert emotion here]-as-the-camera-pulls-in-for-a-close-up-and-the-music-swells acting is as alive as ever. The funniest part of the movie, for me, was the music sequence at the end. The other songs had been fantastically camp as well, but as the credits began to roll the hero was shown riding into a 70’s-style disco (complete with glittering ball and backup dancers) on a unicorn, wearing a baby blue tuxedo jacket, white pants, a white shirt and a maroon ascot. That outfit sent me over the edge. After the movie we drove to Busaba, a trendy restaurant downtown where we had a scrumptious dinner.
The next day I slept quite late, as did the rest of the family. They were all planning on having a slow day, but urged me to take the driver and do some sightseeing. So I left and went to the Prince of Wales museum, stopping at the Gateway of India first. This was my first experience as a lone white girl, and even though I was prepared for it the amount of people trying to talk to me or take my picture was a little daunting. The museums was a little more relaxing, as I got an audio tour and thus could jam the headphones on and politely ignore anyone who spoke to me. But the stares still galled me. Especially one group of women and children could not get enough of a look. Doesn’t anyone teach their kids it’s rude to stare, much less follow someone around? At times I felt more like an exhibit than a visitor. There were a couple of other foreigners in the building however, which was nice, and the museum itself was quite interesting. In the evening, the family’s yoga instructor came, and we, M---, P--- and I spend an hour contorted in various positions on the floor. It was quite nice, except since I had to take off my glasses I couldn’t see and had to have the movements described to me. The teacher even praised me for being flexible!
Sunday morning the yoga teacher came again, and in the afternoon I decided to go for a walk to some neighborhood sites, which the family seemed to think was a novel idea. They offered me the driver, but I declined, explaining that it was the walk, and not the sites, that I craved. I spent around an hour and a half outside, and when I got back I was sweaty, exhausted (Malabar Hill where they live is just that –a hill- and I’d gone up and down a fair bit) and pleased. In the evening the S--- family took me out for authentic Mumbai street food. First we went to Kailash Parbat, a place that’s apparently been around since independence. I tried a Jalebi, which are whorls of dough deep-fried in sugar syrup (pretty good, though way too sweet for my taste), and something called Pani Puri, which Kailash Parbat is famous for. You know the thinness and consistency of the dough you make won-tons out of? Imagine a hollow ball of that dough, which a guy punches a small hole into. He scoops up a bunch of chickpeas with this new bowl-like thing, ladles some form of syrupy gravy into it, and dunks the whole thing into a bowl of spiced water. Then you put the whole think into your mouth at once. The first bite shatters the dough-thingy and vaguely flavoured water runs into your mouth. Apparently people adore this, but frankly I thought the taste was closest to sweet oyster juice. Then we went to Bade Miya, a street grill that serves kebabs fresh off the coals. We ate quickly, and I burned my fingers (no cutlery, and you eat standing up) as well as my mouth, but was so worth it. The last place we went was Baghdadi, a small no-frills canteen where we had rice, naan bread, and chicken curry.
Monday was more of the same at work, a lot of dry, yet still quite interesting reading. After work I walked to the Vodaphone store, determined to get a SIM card for my phone. I had gone on Saturday, but been told I needed a passport-sized picture to get the card. So I went to get my picture taken for the phone, only to get to the phone store and have them tell me that their computer sys was down and could I come back tomorrow? I went home.
Tuesday was quite interesting. I spent most of the day observing Generic Big Bank (GBB) meetings. Another Generic Big Bank (AGBB) bought GBB six months ago, and a guy from their Corporate Social Responsibility division (which GBB calls Sustainability) was there to assess the portfolio. Lots of Presentations etc, which for me were very interesting and illuminating. The coolest thing for me though, was to hear one of the reasons AGBB is heavily involved with CSR to start with. Apart from the ethical concerns (which, believe it or no, do play a part – the people running these kind of divisions do care), there’s a firm business angle to it. It seems that AGBB hold a significant part of the student banking market in both the UK and the US, and precisely that group is the most vulnerable from “NGO agitation”, so to speak. Pretty cool that what originally drove AGBB to CSR was a student protest staged outside their HQ with kids pretending to be dead polar bears. Since the student market responds so rapidly to NGO campaigns, CSR in part seeks to preempt that. Go student power! At the end of the day I went back to the Vodaphone store again to get my card. I waited over 45 minutes at the store, and by the end I’d the impression that the good people of Mumbai have never in their lives seen a white girl before, judging by the once again ubiquitous stares.
Wednesday was more reading, and another trip to the Vodaphone store as the SIM card hadn’t been activated yet. They day before they’d assured me that activation would only take two hours, but as my phone was still inactive 24 hours later I was more than a little pissed. Thursday was the last work day, and –guess what?- a last trip to the Vodaphone store. I had been so excited about my phone working that I promptly used all the minutes on my world calling card and needed another.
Friday I got up and left the house with P---, and we headed to the Trident/Hilton/Oberoi (apparently the hotel has switched owners/names a lot, so it’s now called any of these three things). The sustainability team had organized a two-day Employee Volunteer Training programme, dubbed “Magic Hands”. GBB employees, (about 94 in all) from all over India came (voluntarily, natch) to learn about Biodiversity, Climate Change and Microfinance (the three main points of the Sustainability portfolio) and how they could help. The first stop was a visit to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, about an hour away (but still within the city’s borders) We were scheduled to leave the hotel by bus at 11 am., so we got out of there by a quarter to 12, meaning the whole schedule started off late (and would gradually get later and later). P--- and I had lots of fun on the way up. I demonstrated French-braiding to her, and we dared each other to steal the chocolate bars on the seats next to us that the organizers/animators had as prizes for the volunteers. Once at the park, we had a very inspiring talk by a man whose name I’ve forgotten, but is one of India’s (and the world’s) foremost authorities on biodiversity and conservation. We then drove out to a road where we started a “one-hour-walk” (which took two and a half because we stopped every three feet for information on something, and walked at a glacial pace the rest of the time). Since we were in staggered groups, and I was in the last one, I walked ahead on my own (bypassing two other groups) and managed to be the first to spot monkeys. I also saw a civet and several birds whose names I have now forgotten. I joined the first group at the busses (which had driven ahead) and once everyone was there we drove back towards the hotel. I drove back in a car with M---, P--- and a fellow called Bittu (another well-known conservationist), and as we neared the hotel we found out that, though late, we were about 45 minutes ahead of the rest of the group. So P--- and I jumped out about a block before the hotel and went to a place called Café Mocha, where we shared a water-pipe and a drink, before walking over to the hotel. During the appetizers a man named Pavan (also very famous, who works for a European commission on biodiversity and how to harness market forces to preserve it) spoke about the economics of conservation. Then during dinner they screened the movie “Planet Earth” – parts of which are identical to the series. Originally we were going to see “The 11th Hour”, but I think the impression was that this was too depressing after a long day of dismal statistics.
That's all (all? all? yes, this was quite long, wasn't it?) for now, keep your eyes peeled for more from the depths of India!
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