Smile and Nod

Gravy Training: Isn't It Nice When Someone Else Foots The Bill?

2010-09-09T13:29:00.013+02:00

After a lovely summer in Geneva that was sadly marred by my lack of a oven or most kitchen basics, I jumped right back on the horse last night. I should explain, I finished my WHO-internship last week and am currently in Hamburg before heading to London tomorrow! I'm incredibly excited to start my Master's (in Political Science/European Studies, if anyone's interested), but I am more excited about my new apartment, smack in the middle of Camden Town! You're all invited to come and stay and visit, and I promise I will make you lovely food. Mmmmh, food. Back to the food.

So last night we had a full table, nine people. There's an industry exhibition going on in Hamburg at the moment, so my Father invited a bunch of his engineering/business friends. Naturally, I decided to go overboard and cook a five-course meal. It's so nice when someone else pays for ingredients! And this time, I put my mother in charge of taking pictures, so there's a photographic record for once! Well, except for the potatoes, which were literally gone before we could snap them, but I prefer to see this as a triumph of my cooking skills. Voila, a meal, Gitte-style.

Amuse-Bouche: Foie Gras with Apricot Compotte

I got the idea for this from Phil's mom, who served it crackerless on these great silver spoons whose handles curved around so they could stand on their own. My mother was pissy that I bought foie gras, one small tin of which cost more than pork tenderloin for nine. But, BUT! I was very frugal at the supermarket and figured I could splurge.. and it was so good!

Fish Course: Rum-Roasted Shrimp, Mango and Pineapple

I did a bad, bad thing. I got this recipe from the cookbook that my mother is giving Majken and Cam for their wedding (congrats, you crazy kids!). I was so paranoid that I'd splash the book (which Mum brought over from Canada) that I ended up memorizing the page number as well as most of the directions. The rum-lime glaze was lovely, but I think I'll marinade the stuff in it as well next time to hold on to the flavour.

Soup Course: Carrot Hokkaido Pumpkin Curry Soup

Aaaaah, Pioneer Woman. How do I love thee? Yet another one of Ree's amazing recipes. She cleaarly has a knack for soups as the other one I've made (Sherried Tomato) is dynamite as well. This is actually supposed to be made with summer squash, but all the supermarket had was Hokkaido pumpkins. A bitch to chop, I'll tell ya! I think I prefer the squash; the pumpkins were good but the resulting soup was a little denser and darker because of it, more of a main than a starter.

Main: Pork Tenderloin on Plum and Apple Compotte with Roasted Garlic Potatoes
Thank god the potato recipe is from Ree, or I wouldn't have has a stand-in shot. They were so good! A little more roasted than in the picture, but in a flavourful way. The meat was great too - I luurve cooking with fruit. The recipe book informs me that the dish is Danish, so I guess my enthusiasm is understandable. I was so pleased this turned out well - and six guests had seconds! After three courses preceding! High five!

Selection of Cheeses

You can see these are already half-eaten; I apologize for my inability to stop and think before eating. I can't help it. Also, I drunkenly threw away the list with the cheese names and so can't give you an exact rundown of what all this was. Clockwise from top right: a Rochebaron, which melted immediately. Some form of Brie that had this amazing truffle cream stuff in the middle. Pecorino Tartufo, which means marbled with truffles (yes, I like truffles. Shut up). Some type of hard cheese called Herzchachhmumblemumble, and a Blue Stilton. Additionally, I decorated the platter with swirls of walnuts and cranberries - totally wrecked by now, of course.

I should also tell you that while cleaning up this morning, I did a bottle count. We went throught nine bottles last night, with seven people drinking. Ooopsies.

That's all for now, I hope you enjoyed the pictures! Let me know if any of the recipes appeal to you, I'd be very happy to share them. And please please call me if you're passing by London so I can have an excuse to cook again! Maybe not with foie gras and truffles, though. Unless you're paying. Hey! I'm a starving student!

Cheers,
Gitte

Les Corsaires

2010-07-04T15:44:00.008+02:00

Part of the perks of spending the summer in Geneva is the proximity to Lac Leman. Below are some pictures of the sail I did yesterday, on an Yngling-class boat. I'm putting these up for the benefit of my parents, who are doing some sailing of their own in Scotland and can't open large email attachments.

Me on the foredeck - notice how calm it is! Also, do the sails look familiar?

My crew - Thomas, Amy and Melissa.

It was really fun once the wind picked up - lots of maneuvering!

It was a really lovely boat.

Back on dry land and ready to cheer on Germany!

Gravy Training: Dinner for Six

2010-03-20T21:15:00.014+01:00

As many of you know, I love to have dinner parties. There's something incredibly satisfying about sitting in front of a whole table of people scarfing down food you've made yourself. Of course, coming from Denmark I tend to have rather grandiose conceptions of what constitutes a dinner party menu - But I can't just have two courses! There's no starch on this plate!
Another thing I do is test out recipes on unsuspecting guests. As I was reminded recently, Emily Post said never to test-run a recipe on people you're not related to by blood (and even then, be cautious), but honestly, given how much good ingredients cost, who's going to cook beef stew for one? So I generally cook on the fly and trust the source.

Anyway, last Friday I held a dinner party with four courses, the most I've attempted outside of my Mom's kitchen. I got started a little late (hello, grocery shopping at 4.30!) so thank god I had a willing sous-chef in the form of my friend Dave. Dave, who's recently gotten into cooking had specifically requested some form of fowl (my specialty and my weakness), so I told him he was welcome to come over and watch/help out.

The menu was as follows:

Grilled Salmon with Whiskey Carrots
So I recently found the best way in the world to do fish. For this, I rubbed the raw salmon with olive oil, red wine vinegar, cracked pepper and kosher salt, and then placed it directly on the oven rack (place a shallow baking dish below to catch any drippings). This is easier if the fish has skin, which mine didn't.
The carrots are sliced and then caramelised in a pan with brown sugar and a generous helping of whiskey. Even better than it sounds, actually!

Sliced Roasted Duck Breast on a Bed of Stuffing

This was a new recipe to me. First, make stuffing - homemade is better but the box stuff will do just fine in a pinch. Then roll duck breasts in salt, pepper and flour and brown them in a hot pan for a few moments. Then make a nest for the stuffing using aluminium foil place the duck breasts on top, seal it tightly and pop in the oven.

Braised Beef Short Ribs with Rosemary Potatoes and Baby Spinach
Salad with Lime Dressing

I forgot to take a picture of the last two courses, so I'm including Pioneer Woman's picture of the braised beef short ribs from her recipe. Almost melted off the bone, it was so divine! The rosemary potatoes were small new potatoes, boiled and then fried whole in oil with rosemary, and the lime dressing had olive oil, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, a dash of mustard and lime juice.

Roasted Rum-Caramelised Pineapple with Vanilla Ice Cream.
Another one I forgot to take pictures of.. It went super-fast. This is a recipe Katie's Mom gave me way back when, and is my go-to idiot's dessert because it's so fast and easy yet tastes divine. Basically you slice up the pineapple, sprinkle it with butter and brown sugar, pour rum over top and stick it in the oven. Heaven!

I've never posted food-related stuff before, but I might start doing it more often. Yea or nay?

Cheers,
Gitte

New Internship!!

2010-03-03T19:12:00.004+01:00

It's that time of year again! I have just been tentatively confirmed for an internship at a UN special agency in Geneva! More information once everything's been confirmed, but my tentative start date is May 12th and then on until I know where I'm going to grad school.
So if you're in Europe this summer, hit me up!

Geneva Baby!!
Cheers,
Gitte

Okay, So, the War of 1812, Yeah?

2010-01-30T20:57:00.004+01:00

From what I can tell by my lightning-fast internetting is that the Brits didn't want the US trading with Napoleanic French during the wars in Europe, so the US invaded Upper Canada. They were not only repulsed but the Canadians drove them back across the border, marched to Washington DC and burned down the White House. They then retreated but managed to capture some outposts in Maine and other areas. Then the war in Europe came to an end, there was no more reason for the US-Canada war, so Canada gave back the captured territory.
Right?

So, how did THAT become THIS?

From a seemingly disastrous decision to declare war to the glory of the stars and stripes, THE HISTORY CHANNEL® PRESENTS: THE WAR OF 1812 chronicles of one of america's most defining moments. Only 30 years after gaining independence, the upstart United States found itself once again battling Great Britain. At stake were the future of emocracy (sic) and America's Manifest Destiny. Pitted against the world's most powerful nation, victory seemed unlikely. But then Andrew Jackson's brilliant leadership, a lone sniper, and one of the most lopsided victories in military history turned the tide of the war.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Implementing a "Community-Based Approach" - But For Real

2010-01-26T04:10:00.009+01:00

'Tis the season, fa la la.. No, not Christmas season, Internship Hunting Season! Once again it's time to start panicking about (or, if you're not a member of the Witt family, to start vaguely contemplating) one's summer internship plans. I'm a little calmer this time around partially because I've done it before and partially because the majority of my worrying is allocated to grad school.

Anyway, the search has led me to start looking around various sectors for possibilities, in the course of which I've been reading a lot about different agencies, NGOs, and approaches. After last summer's NGO, which lacked the most basic oversight or accountability and was deadlocked by personality clashes, I now realise that I've got a real soft spot if I find an organisation that stresses an open and cooperative approach to whatever their area. It's because of this that one particular NGO, Partners in Health, stuck in my head.

Partners in Health is an NGO that provides medical aid and health care to poor areas of the world using a community-based approach that goes beyond the bare bones of providing materials. They provide both medical treatment and health information and coordinate with the surrounding community - employing special "community health workers" to get out the word - in order to effectively reach the largest number of people. They also invest in the community themselves This also means that they can be very reactive to a given community's needs. After a whole semester studying social capital I've become very aware of the huge effect communities have on how available services are used and how effective they can be, and it's really great to see that knowledge filter through to provision of medical care to the poor.

Anyway, they're sending updates on their work in Haiti (they're running the hospitals in Port-Au-Prince in the name of the WHO there as well) to their network every few days. Today's was so great, I thought I'd share it with you. The update describes PIH's recent emotional support services in Haiti. It illustrates so nicely how you can incorporate a community-based approach in an aid situation without, as people argue, diverting away resources from the more necessary practical work.

In the midst of all of the distress the earthquake brought in its initial days, the immediate response of many in the countryside was to rush to Port-au-Prince to look for family and friends—a very natural response given the circumstances.
For our patients receiving treatment for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) at one of two treatment centers in the Central Plateau, this was not an option. Their illness requires a two-year treatment regimen, the first of which is administered as an inpatient. For them, leaving in search of their families was out of the question. Without communication capabilities and only listening to radio reports explaining the extent of the destruction, one can only imagine how distressing these first few days were for them.
In the days since, as cell phone service improved and patients were able to reach their families, many learned of the sudden and untimely death of their family and friends. One of our patients, Benjamin, who has been battling tuberculosis off and on for 18 years, learned that he lost 10 family members. Others lost siblings, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, cousins, friends. In their grief, they immediately started asking themselves why were they saved from this tragedy and not others? How would they continue to live? Why did some people have to die in an instant while they have been able to receive life-saving treatment for their deadly illness? Should they abandon treatment and give up on life?
The Zanmi Lasante staff at the Monseigneur Decoste Infectious Disease Pavilion at the St. Therese Hospital in Hinche immediately recognized their patients' anguish and called on the support of Zanmi Lasante's head psychologist and Director of Psychosocial Support Services, Father Eddy Eustache, to help work with their patients.
Drawing on a technique he has used at PIH's Rwanda project working with genocide survivors, Father Eddy led us in a memorial service remembering the lives of all those we had lost in this unthinkable disaster. Patients and staff alike sang songs, read scripture, shared stories of their memories of their loved ones, and in arguably the most moving part of the service, lit candles for each of the people we had lost while reading their names out loud. To conclude, staff provided words of encouragement and advice for patients on continuing to adhere to treatment and find support in each other.
Efforts such as these are part of a more comprehensive psychosocial support plan for Zanmi Lasante staff, patients, and their families as we work together to address the psychological impact that the earthquake has had on everyone in Haiti.

Cate Oswald
Program Manager for Psychosocial Support and Mental Health, Haiti

Thumbs up to PIH for recognising that small things like organising a memorial service not only help the individuals that directly benefit, but smooth the way towards an eventual reconstruction of Haiti by strengthening the local community, which in the long run is the only "actor" that can guarantee that Haiti not only climbs back from this disaster but uses it as a jumping board for improving society as a whole in a lasting way.

I.. I don't know how I feel about this.

2010-01-24T03:22:00.002+01:00

...
Nope, still speechless.

My Road-Trip Mix Tape

2010-01-16T20:35:00.003+01:00

Back when I was in Europe, we would spend and astounding amount of time traveling. Every second weekend we would take a 3 1/2 hour train to Germany and back for the weekend. The trainrides were fun, but on special occasions our parents would come and take us home or pick us up. The drive took about four hours, but we always brought a stash of CD to play - and sing along to!

Since coming to North America I've come to recognise and vigorously bemoan the lack of travel options close by. Ottawa is two hours, but even Toronto is six, and New York can easily take eight to ten. If you're hitting the road, what would you put on?

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk

Also known as the Witt Family Theme Song, the relentless base will send you flying down the road with the energy revved up to "high".

All Star by Smash Mou th

Don't lie - everyone knows the lyrics to this song. Complete with scrunched up faces and gesticulating hands, you realise that you're young, the world is awesome and you have no idea where you might end up.

Night Time (Is the Right Time) by Ray Charles

The dizzying intro notes and swinging melody will have you swaying in the car seat with your eyes closed, mouth pursed seductively. Bums gyrate in seats and even the most preppy kids will realise that deep within them slumbers a belter of the blues.

Celebrating South of the Ankle

2010-01-16T17:56:00.004+01:00

My Timberland Winter Boots

I've had these for something like four years now, and I'm dreading the day they finally break down. Finding good solid winter boots for Montreal? Tricky. Finding good, solid, pretty winter boots? Makes life just that much more awesome.

My "Gossip Girl" Knee-High Flat Boots

Every girl who saw that episode with Serena was forever imprinted with the image of these gorgeous boots - soft grey suede, flat thin wooded heel, above the knee loose-fitting boots. And I found them in Amsterdam for 75 Euros.

My Tiger-Striped Running Heels

The shoes I love most are usually boots, as I tend to destroy high heels within a few years. An exception are my lovey Zara tiger-striped heels, which not only have longevity but currently hold the title of "Running Heels" as they are so comfortable I could jog in them. You know. If I jogged.

My Soundtrack - Another Plinky Post

2009-07-09T16:18:00.003+02:00

I get these prompts into my inbox every day, in an attempt to jolt myself into blogging. Every so often I'll find one that I actually like. The question this time was

"What three songs are on your summer soundtrack?"

My answer:

A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill by Jens Lekman

This song just sounds like a Scandinavian summer night, sitting outside in a field with your friends, drinking beers and laughing. I love that the artist brought his friends into the studio to give it the right ambiance.

Slow Hands by Interpol

This song is an amazing, high-octane song that I'd love to dance to live.. Like at one of the hundreds of summer festivals?

Between the Bars by Madeleine Peyroux

It's evocative of sitting on a stone terrace somewhere, with gorgeous red wine in a carafe, and enjoying the last bit of the sunset.

How about you? What's on your summer soundtrack?
Cheers,
Gitte

The Theme Song From Pingu Is Running Through My Head

2009-07-09T09:51:00.000+02:00

Hey three people who read my blog!

Since my academic musings aren’t particularly popular, here’s some silliness for a Thursday morning for you:

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, my blog now has penguins. You can’t spot them? Look over to the left. The left of the monitor, not the girl sitting next to you at the coffee shop. (should that be coffeeshop since I’m in Holland?) Anyway, back to penguins. Cute, waddling, clueless little penguins that will follow your mouse around. Minions, you might say.
And I think these minions –two adults, three kids- need names. So suggest a name or two in the comments and a few days from now I’ll announce the winning names. First prize will be a pair of wooden clogs, and the four runners-up will be tulip seeds that can be grown in small flowerpots. If no one enters (or I don’t like your submission) I’ll take the money and go drinking with it. So please, suggest a name and save a liver.

Get creative!
Cheers,
Gitte

My Latest Addiction - With Some Musing to Boot

2009-07-07T09:43:00.005+02:00

If you haven't seen this on my facebook yet, you must must must check out Radio Free Europe's The Week In Facebook.

Basically they lay out the past week's events, from big stuff like the Iranian protests (check the archives) to silly news like Michael Jackson's death which gets snuck in. It's an interesting combination of deadly serious news and a supposedly unserious time-waster.

In my opinion the combination is very clever, as bringing together these two things illuminates facets of both.
On the one side is the comparison of world politics to human drama, intrigue and frivolity. This falls in easily with the state-human comparison which is so common in PoliSci, as well as the projection of a human personality on states. We all do thing unconsciously - Russia is being belligerent, Iran is playing a dangerous game, etc.. It's connected to the realist line of thinking that black-boxes the state, that is to assume that a state is a unitary actor rather than an amalgamation of decision-makers, but instead of ignoring the evident differences in approaches, we imbue this imaginary actor with a personality to explain its idiosyncrasies. It's an anthropomorphism that has become a commonly accepted way of thinking about world politics, and can even be found in some scholarly research.

The other thing that is demonstrated here is how our methods of communication have changed to the extent that formerly frivolous channels have become a medium for serious communication. Recently on a message board I frequent, someone lamented missing out on a friend's wedding because they had failed to check their facebook and had thus missed the invite. Many people were horrified that such an 'informal' medium be used for such a formal event, but as our reliance on internet communication increases, so does the importance we attach to those communications. Not answering an email is now almost, if not just as bad as not answering a letter, and amongst people of my generation (and probably even more so for those even younger) facebook is becoming the main way we stay in touch with our closest friends. As with every new technology, what starts out as a novelty evolves into a fully legitimate communication tool with its own etiquette and norms. Facebook is still relatively new, and it remains to be seen what staying power it has, but it is increasingly becoming indispensable for the management of communication amongst younger people.

And let's face it, a status update is much easier to parse than a long-winded speech.

Buzzing Around From Talk to Talk

2009-07-06T11:22:00.009+02:00

The best thing about working in The Hague is the huge amount of conferences, events, protests and such that happen every day. The best part about working at an NGO is that we're encouraged to go to them.

Already I've attended a debate (held at the Peace Palace!) called "The End of Impunity", which had the Deputy Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, the former Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY, Richard Goldstone and Chief Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Stephen Rapp as their panel. I also went to an Iranian Solidarity rally as a representative of our Iranian minorities, and so on.

Today we've got two more events to attend. The first is a demonstration in front of the Chinese Embassy opposing the crackdown on protestors in Xinjian. The group being oppressed are the Uyghurs, an ethnic group from East Turkestan who is a member.
The second event is a talk by Jan de Hoop Scheffer, the Secretary-General of NATO, entitled "NATO: Securing Our Future". I love that just being in this city gives me the opportunity to go and hear influential people speak.

Also, I've got a poll running over there ---->
to see what you all would like me to write about in future. Do you want to see more fun, lighthearted stuff like the Plinky posts (see post before this one)? More day-to-day reporting on what I'm up to, or more analysis and thoughts on the issues I encounter at work? Please do comment and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Gitte

If I were invisible, I'd so geek out.

2009-07-06T10:12:00.002+02:00

I'd head off to the G8 summit in Italy. What were you expecting, locker rooms?

I would love to see how the current world leaders interact - both in the formal meeting rooms and late at night over some drinks. We all know that the decisions announced at the G8 summits are actually prepared way in advance, and that the summit itself is little more than a photo op, but how awesome would it be to see Merkel and Sarkozy or Obama and Brown just shoot the breeze?

Echo! Echo..echo..ech..e...

2009-07-01T17:33:00.010+02:00

*Cough cough*

So. Yes. I have been shamed (shamed I tell you!) into giving my blog a bit of CPR and see if I can get this thing kicking again. I have to say I'm kind of amazed people took the time to get annoyed about my lack of writing - this goes hand in hand with my assumption that no one looks at my facebook profile either. Then again, a disproportionate number of the people shaming me don't have facebook profiles (hi Dad!).

Here's a picture of a hamster eating fancy pasta to say I'm sorry.

I was definitely much more prolific last summer, but thank goodness I actually have useful tasks this go around around, so I spend less time surfing and obsessively refreshing my facebook.

I'll write more about my current life etc later, but for now let me introduce you to someone who has become very special to me.

Pioneer Woman.
Also known as Ree or PDub. More specifically, I've fallen in love with her cooking page. Pioneer Woman lives out on a ranch somewhere and spends her time cooking and taking amazing pictures. She also takes amazing pictures of what she is cooking. My favourite thing about her recipes is that she posts pictures of the process at each step (beautiful, beautiful pictures) which makes not only for fabulous food porn but for a very comforting walkthrough of the recipe. Add the way she talks directly to you in a Peg-Bracken-but-happy-and-likes-cooking-way, and you've got hours of surfing pleasure.
I made her awesome Olive Cheese Bread for a Murder Mystery dinner party I was invited to, and became the most popular person on the spot. Plus I may or may not have used the provision of the recipe to bribe my way into a few extra clues ;)
Do yourself a favour and make something of hers. You'll die fat and happy, I promise.

This weekend I'm headed up to Denmark (for the first time in ten months! How have I survived!) for my Brother's Dimission, or Graduation. It's a very big deal in Denmark, which translates into around fancy outfits, a hundred people, a beach and an open bar. Sounds like my kind of scene?
You are so right.

Cheers,
Gitte

When you know it's time

2009-04-21T18:32:00.003+02:00

We've all been there. You're at a house party, a bar or a club, and suddenly it hits you - you have to get out of there. Start the long walk home, grabbing some poutine on the way to soak up whatever you drank in the last half-hour, call a cab, whatever. It's time to call it quits.

Double Vision
Once you have to squint and close one eye to get a grip on the room, it's time to leave.

Your friends have mysteriously disappeared and you're left talking to that sketchy group of guys in the corner
Being the person who closes down the bar is admirable, but once your gang is gone, you might want to consider the reasons they left.

Spilling your beer
Seriously, once you've lost control of that libation cup, your choice is to either dowse yourself completely and declare yourself Poseidon, King of the Sea, or dab it off and call it quits.

What are your top three indicators that you're better off going to bed?

One day I'll roll up in a Trabant

2009-04-21T18:04:00.003+02:00

Okay, so as you all know I tend to get lazy and not post stuff for quite some time. However, in order to keep you, my rapacious readers, entertained, I've joined Plinky, an inspiration website that gives you silly, funny and/or serious prompts that you can fill out and post at your leisure. So from now on I'll have proper intrepid blogging interspersed with plinky-prompts. Here's the first one to give you an idea.

What's my dream ride?

A Trabant. No really, and I'll tell you why.

There's something super old-timey and fun about them, that evokes the excitement of finally getting a car and driving through a countryside that, though marred by ugly Soviet-style buildings, is beautiful and full of possibility.

Any way I can get it in hybrid?

Word Cloud for this blog

2009-04-12T00:24:00.005+02:00

So I'm an obsessive reader of a Montreal-based blog called The Tragically Unhip, and one of their posts a while back was a wordle-generated word cloud. Basically, what the wordle-algorithm does is generate a cloud of words from a chunk of text, with the size of the words corresponding to their use. It's kind of a fun way to get the gist of a blog, essay or whatever.

So, here's the world cloud for the first page of Smile and Nod:

You can also click on the image to see it in a higher resolution.

I'm amazed at a few of the prominently-featured words here, especially "since", "etc" and Gitte. Also, I'm a little ashamed that "like" is featured so prominently. And what is up with "two"?

Anyway, I'll probably post a few more of these as the summer goes on, to see how the tone of the blog gradually changes from Indian to Dutch.

Cheers,
Gitte

I'm baaaaack!

2009-04-11T23:08:00.002+02:00

Hey everyone, and welcome back from a long hiatus!

As anyone who read this blog knows, I spent last summer working with a Micro-Finance organisation in India. Overall it was a fabulous learning experience, although as this blog chronicles, the trip had its ups and downs. However, despite the culture shock and the paleness of my skin post-trip, in hindsight I am glad that I went.

Anyway, skip forward to this summer, and I have yet another awesome internship lined up, albeit under wildly different circumstances. I'll be spending the entire four months (from the 4th of May til the 29th of August) in The Hague, working for an internationally-geared NGO.

As I did last year, I won't be divulging the name of the organisation or my co-workers (those of you who know me personally know it anyway). However, I can tell you that it's a UN-affiliated NGO that works with statesless nations and peoples and attempts to ensure them adequate and fair representation within international organisations.

It's going to be quite the different internship from last year. For one, I'm going from one of the poorest areas of the world to one of the richest. Also, the detail that I'm most excited about is the level of freedom I'll have. I've organised a room for the summer, but in this case my dear landlady doesn't care what I do as long as I'm quiet and don't punch holes in the wall. Amsterdam is only an hour away, and places like Delft and Utrecht, Leiden and Rotterdam not much further. I'm also hoping to manage at least a few trips and reunions this summer, so if you're in Europe, I'd love to see you! I've been compulsively checking ryanair and the like, and with Amsterdam-London going for 130 Euros, and Amsterdam-Copen going for 810 kr, there's no excuse for some good-old-fashioned boozing and catching up.

Hope you'll all enjoy my intrepid reporting from the centre of the Netherlands!

Cheers,
Gitte

I'm too tired to think of a witty title..

2008-07-30T12:50:00.003+02:00

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

Officer Krupke, I'm down on my knees!

2008-07-26T11:12:00.003+02:00

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

Blog-like musings

2008-07-22T06:24:00.006+02:00

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

It's a Sad Day When a 19-year-old Ends Up Supervising Two MBAs

2008-07-17T14:56:00.005+02:00

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?

Character is the important eligibility for being staff member of GMFI, if you will loose your character you will automatically loose your job.

2008-07-16T18:07:00.005+02:00

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 India:

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

RE Names, or how I take a leaf out of old British novels

2008-07-11T10:22:00.008+02:00

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

Top Three Odd Indian Behaviours I've Noticed (I'm in a grouchy mood this morning, forgive me)

2008-07-09T06:17:00.008+02:00

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

Yay a fellow blog!

2008-07-08T09:55:00.002+02:00

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

MicroFinance and the Varanasi Kerfuffle

2008-07-08T08:10:00.004+02:00

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

June 21st to 21rd; I relocate from Mumbai to Hyderabad, with a stopover in the lap of luxury

2008-07-04T12:19:00.005+02:00

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.

First Post! and summary of the week June 11th to 20th

2008-07-02T10:27:00.008+02:00

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!