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Walking in the Air

I love goodbyes. Can’t really pinpoint it, but it must be this glorious feeling of transitioning from one realm to the next, without really being sure what lies ahead, that excites me. The tear of the one I part with breaks my heart with a bitter sweetness that tenderly tickles my own eyes and nose. A joint of fear to loose everything that the past built and refined, to exit all safety of staying, hits my chest like free-falling on a rollercoaster. Or an airplane. Then the engine kicks in like an earthquake and makes me sink deep, deeper into my seat, like a loving hand on my sternum. I am a daredevil, so I listen to punk while taking off. Always the same song. Finally, the crescendo, feels like Walking in the Air. And off I am, gone without turning back, for a second free of worries, to some time that has yet to define me. I do love goodbyes. I am always the one leaving.

Pancakes Please

The small kitchen room is filled to the brim with the smell of fried dough and warm bananas. Rutvik and I are squatting on the floor around the small stove and talking about how we want to design our next pancake. It turned out to be a little more challenging to create banana pancakes than we initially thought it would, especially considering that none of us seemed quite sure how to do regular pancakes in the first place. But three trips to the nearby village to get bananas, sugar, eggs and again bananas – because the other guys just ate them all up – turned out to be worth it and we even somehow got the twist of how to creatauburn-mark-free pancakes with a nice and mushy banana filling inside. Praveen enters the kitchen, a plate in his hand. “Can I have one more?”. We look at him suspiciously and then at the already dangerously empty pot of dough. Both Rutvik and I haven’t had more than a few test bites of the pancakes we made so far and which we prepared so hard-headedly for. “It’s so delicious!”, Praveen continues in his broken English. “Maybe half?”. His smile wins us over and as he leaves the kitchen, excited like a child over his piece of brown, warm, sweet dough, all our worries disappear like flour in the wind. In the end we actually get to eat the last small pancakes ourselves, before going to help the men at the construction site. They are building a community kitchen which is soon to become the new social center of the village. In the heat of the rising midday sun work is harder than it should be, but the plastering of the beautifully twisted pillars turns out to be a quite fun and rewarding learning experience and I feel good about my work and what I’ve learned when I head for lunch. After lunch it is too hot to go outside and continue with the work, so I stay in and write on my internship report, that I promised myself to finish while staying here. Sitting next to my bag, I unconsciously dig between my clothes until I feel the satisfying phone-like shape of a chocolate bar I kept hidden from the cat, dogs and other predators around the house. Trisha, the 11-year-old daughter of the founder couple sees me. “Hey, what is that?” – “Chocolate”, I answer, truthfully, but as low and casually as possible, as to not let too many others know about it. She seems to get the hint, because she lowers her voice a little as well. “May I have a piece, please?”. I give her one when catching Rishab’s, her brother’s eye, taxing my chocolate bar. When I am done distributing chocolate to everybody nearby, only less than half of the once so proud bar is left. Soon I get enough of squeezing lines out of the insides of my brain and open the browser on my tablet. I seem to currently find myself in a small crisis, because I fail to come to a decision on where to go next, after I leave this village. A feeling in the gut tells me, India shouldn’t be the last place to stay after already almost five months here, but Japan is too far away and cold right now, Bhutan and Bangladesh not really a change of perspective, Burma and China too restricted with regulations and I don’t know much about other places around. I ask a friend in China and she recommends Thailand, so I type it into Google image search. Pictures of the white beaches around Phuket and Bangkok’s pulsing night life fill up my screen. Maybe that’s a good way to go. They might even have mangoes there that time of the year. “Hey Mattyoos!” Rafiq sticks his head up to the platform right under the roof where I am sitting. He seems to have found my camera lying around somewhere, because he is demonstratively holding it up now. “Oh, where?”, I ask. He points to some corner of the room. “Great, thank you so mu… huh?” Rafiq is still holding the camera in his hands and doesn’t seem too eager on letting it go that soon. He is holding it to his chest now and points towards the door. “You wanna take it out and make some pictures?” I mimic holding a camera in front of my face and pressing the release. He nods enthusiastically. I tilt my head to one side for a moment, then I shrug and make a gesture as if to shoo a fly, the way I have seen it Indians do it countless times. “Ok, sure.” He grins excitedly and runs off, camera at the ready. I sink back into the research about Thailand and lose myself in time. Soon it is growing darker outside and in the blink of an eye the sun has gone down with me still sitting between the mattresses on the platform. “Mattyoos!”, somebody is calling me. “What?”, I answer absent-minded. “Dinner”, Rutviks voice replies. “Huh, yes, in a minute.” I take probably ten minutes in the end, before I join the others. Rutvik, Praveen, Rafiq, Trisha, Rishab and a couple of other guys are sitting in the main room and the kitchen scooping up hot and spicy Sambal with small balls of rice they mush between their fingers before skillfully lifting them up into their mouths. Arriving in the kitchen, however, I am staring at an empty pot. “What happened to dinner?”, I ask, to no one in particular. “Ah, I think there’s only rice left.”, Rutvik answers. I stare at the half filled pot of plain, tasteless Basmati rice next to what seems to have been the Sambal pot. “Only rice?”, I ask, incredulously. Rutvik helplessly lifts his shoulders. Praveen looks at me mimicking what seems to be an apologetic smile, his hand still sunk deep into his portion. The kids don’t even … Read morePancakes Please

A Bass in the Distance

The metallic scales of the luggage belt slowly pass where I am standing, contract at the corners to form a triangle and finally escape my field of vision carrying only a few lonely suitcases with them. My luggage should arrive any moment now. Next to me Yuanyuan is already waiting bag in hand to finally leave the airport. „Hey“, somebody calls. I struggle to take my eyes off the hypnotically rotating conveyor belt. A young man, about my age, with brown-blonde lazily locked hair smiles at us. „Are you guys heading to Anjuna by any chance?” I shake my head. “Ah pity! I have this cab I could ave used some people to share it with. I’m Joe by the way.” We shake hands. “Where are you guys going?” “Vagator”, I reply and pull my phone out of the pocket to see where Anjuna is again. Apparently on the way. Joe’s and my backpack arrive almost simultaneously and embarrass us both to be just some more backpackers in Goa. The ride turns out to be a lot of fun when Joe, a British recreational traveler, Yuanyuan, my travel companion, and me start talking about European and international politics. Just as we say our goodbyes at hostel, Joe remembers something: „Hey listen, if you ever wanna go out together – I mean out-out – there is this party tonight apparently. The place is called Club Cubana.” Outside darkness has already fallen. I nod. “We’ll think about it. It’s already getting late and we had a long day…” “Sure, yeah. Anyways, would love it if you can make it.” We check in, shower and go for dinner in a South-Indian restaurant next door. While waiting for the bill Yuanyuan says “You know what?I think I could still go for some light partying tonight.” I think about it and am surprised to find that I, too, am finding the idea of ending the night on a not-too-silent note rather attractive. „Ok, yeah. But let’s not put to much energy into it, in case it turns out to be too much of a hassle.“ Yuanyuan agrees and we actually manage to quickly find a reasonably cheap taxi as we step out of our dorm one hour later. We are only  ten minutes into the ride when the driver stops at a turn and tells us that we have arrived. The entrance is a simple gate, revealing its meaning only at a small illuminated sign reading “Club Cubana”. Two men in orange shirts and with “STAFF” in big letters on the back signal us to pass through and follow a dirty path that looses itself in the dark beyond the gate. We follow the way hesitantly. About two-hundred meters on the path a second slightly friendlier looking gate appears guarded by even more orange wearing staff members. They nod in our direction as we pass and point towards a large parking space to the right, away from the main road that seems to go up the steep hill that rises dark and tall in front of us, specked by only some dim yellow lights between the green of the trees. I am imagining to hear a bass in the distance. On the parking lot there are already some other visitors waiting and happily chatting away. Confused as to what they are waiting for we join them and just as we decide to ask somebody, a Jeep comes driving down the hill and halts in front of us. A staff in orange hurries to open the tailgate of the pickup and we board the car. The engine roars and up it goes into the dark and toward the top of the hill. There is a cue in front of yet another small gate that looks more like a door, but it takes us only three minutes to get to the front and lose the last of our worries as we receive the happy news: Five Euros entry fee, open bar all night. Through the door we go, around a small corner, up a few steps – and our eyes grow wide. The first terrace is a big swimming pool, a vantage point with divans and a wood fired oven out of which orange staff members pull one pizza after the other. The second is an open-air dance floor, the DJane is wearing funny bows in her hair and dancing on a pedestal made of bamboo, all around there are deep seating areas like dry Jacuzzis. The third terrace one big bar, with countless small tables and sofas on the borders. Beyond arises a single colonial-looking two-story building where even more music seems to be playing. Yuanyuan and I lose ourselves and each other in the trance that this place puts on us. When I finally find her again, a dripping wet Joe is standing next to her, grinning at me. “There you are!” Yep, there we were.    

Virtually rich, really broke 

It’s been a while. And although a lot of things happened, the one thing that shook up my stay here in this already very alien country occurred just a few days ago, the night before the US elections: Two hours before midnight the prime minister of India publicly announced that the highest denominations, 1000 and 500 rupees, worth around 14 and 7€ are declared worthless starting at 0:00 that night. Two hours later the 100 rupees bill became the highest valid bank note, worth around 1,4€, leaving the whole nation with only little and less cash in their pockets to spend the next day. By morning all the ATMs were stripped of their 100rs-bills and within the first few hours of the day banks ran out of their stack of bills as well and shut down. It’s four days later now and the first ATMs have started working again, dispensing freshly printed 500rs- and 2000rs-bills that have been introduced to substitute the old denominations. But with a huge portion of the population and many many shops not using electronic payment methods the banks are still under siege by large cash-dependent crowds which no one seems to be able to serve proper- and effectively. In my opinion this is not only, but also due to that one additional regulation that might actually break my own financial neck: People are only allowed to withdraw 2000rs/day from ATMs and 10000rs/day from counters. Of course this rule was put in place to evenly distribute the new and temporarily limited denominations to the public, but for people completely dependent on cash – like I am – this poses a serious inconvenience. For me this problem becomes a notch more serious, because I actually pay a fixed fee of 500rs for every transaction I do with my credit card. When withdrawing large amounts of money at once this isn’t too much of a heartbreak. But when only withdrawing 2000rs a time and having to do that approximately 20-25 times a month,… As ridiculous – and thus entertaining – as this situation is to me at the moment, I have to step carefully and keep an eye on the news these days. Everyone here is trying to live a daily life as close to usual business as possible, weary about what might happen next. But I myself have to hope for the withdrawal limitations being lifted within the next 2-3 weeks. Otherwise this small fun financial revolution, brought to us by “Modi Entertainment” might very well mean the early end of my stay in this country.

Unfamiliarly familiar uncomfortableness

So I am sick. The doctor says it should be just a sore throat, although it feels like a spiky alien hiding in my esophagus. That being said, I put all endeavors to explore Indian cuisine aside and focus on finding meals that are both familiar and potentially swallowable without the risk to faint from all the pains. My adventurous ethnographic spirit only goes so far. Of course I saw a doctor. And then another one. And then a third one. To be nice, I just wanted to make sure. To be honest, I didn’t trust the first two. And that actually surprises me. Because up to this day I can clearly remember me and my flatmate at that time having a discussion about whether or not to trust the local doctors of the small Chinese town we were living in. I argued that doctors around the world are first and foremost qualified because of their experience of practicing medicine, completely unrelated to the particular medical tradition they follow. Meanwhile my flatmade just had an ingrown toenail removed by a doctor who couldn’t wait for the local anesthesia to kick in, so his position in our argument was colored somewhat more pessimistic. But I actually never regretted my optimistic perspective on Chinese doctors and medical institutions. On the contrary, most encounters were professional, original and comforting. So why is it I can’t seem to warm up to Indian doctors? Maybe it’s just the damn short consultation hours, in which I forget to say half the things I wanted to and I am asked just a minimal amount of questions before being perscribed a whole list of meds that supposedly cure my disease. Because going to the doctors is much like going to the hairdresser for me: The more time you invest the more satisfied I will be in the end – even if the same result could have been achieved in less then five minutes. Or maybe it’s just the walk to the doctor’s office and witnessing all the dirt and waste around me, people spitting and dogs pooping on the street, that just makes a clean office look a little too good to be true. I did make out one major difference, though, between seeing a doctor in China and seeing one in India: China has a huge medical tradition of its own which is still implemented today and which enjoys a clientel at least as big as those looking for modern medicine. But more than that, traditional Chinese and western medicine overlap a lot and people don’t usually use one or the other exclusively. And neither do practicioners. So when I visit a doctor in China it always carries a feeling of experiencing something completely new, foreign and exotic, and that means having no other choice than to trust the work of the expert in question. In India we have an Ayurvedic tradition which is still strong, but by no means mainstream, so seeing a doctor here much resembles seeing one back home in a European country – in it’s basic structure and essence. There’s a waiting room, a consultation room, people being called into the consultation room, talked to, examined and sent home with recipes for meds to take. But there are certain differences. And I think I have mentioned it somewhere before, culture shock means not experiencing the totally foreign things, but those which are look like things we are used to, but are not when stepping closer: The tiny size of both office and waiting room, the uniform price for every examination, the lack of receipts for those cash payments, again – the short consultation times, the pills that are sold without outer packaging or package insert, the number of different drugs you are told to take at once. All those little things contribute to this unfamiliarly familiar experience all the while being in an uncomfortable state to begin with. There are a couple of treatments to this sort of “illness”. Ideally, you can find a practicioner whom you can trust and who makes you feel comfortable under his or her care. If those kind of doctors aren’t around, you will have to stick with those non-professional people you can trust and let them guide you through these annoying times. That helps. A little.

Cook it, peel it, or forget it.

That’s my mantra these days. It is like a prayer I say each time I am looking for food, to ward off evil and bring down blessings on the places I eventually end up having lunch or dinner at. I say it in fear of the higher powers that native food might have on my digestion and in respect of the unknown in every meal. Cook it, peel it, or forget it. In its essence it is actually one of the basic advices given to people who travel to foreign countries with a lower hygienic standard than their own. It suggests to buy and eat only things that either have been well cooked or fried, or that can be unpacked, unwrapped or peeled. This way you avoid being too soon exposed to too many germs and bacteria. Cook it, peel it, or forget it. However, it doesn’t take away the psychological edge of living and eating in an environment where you can witness bad hygiene first hand. I live in Bandra, a district in Mumbai renowned for its high amount on expat inhabitants. My apartment is located on the ocean side half way up a hill grown over by tall tropical trees and even taller buildings, each with hundreds of living quarters. The rooms themselves are simple but sufficiently equipped, with air conditioning, a separate kitchen and bathroom and enough space for everything I have in my luggage and more. I stay as a paying guest, at least officially. The owner swings by on Sundays to do some paperwork and his parents supposedly come once a month to stay for a couple of days, but aside from that I have the flat to myself. That also means, though, that everything is in a quite untended state: Dust and dirt on almost all the surfaces, unwashed utensils, neither Wifi nor cable, and barely any warm water access. I even have a small lizard and at least one cockroach attending me in the kitchen. Cook it, peel it, or forget it. Of course, any hassle with living arrangements is bad news at first. But there’s an upside to it as well: I was worried to have Mumbai’s authenticity spoiled by a too luxurious and westernized surrounding, but even though I live in an expat area, quite the opposite is true. The streets are dirty and badly paved, there are beggers all around the place, traffic is dense in every alley, and it feels like there are at least twenty Indians for every foreigner living here. So for now I am ok with this arrangement. If everything goes well, I should be well settled in in a few weeks. In the meantime: Cook it, peel it, or forget it.

Travel means World

At least it does to me. To me it means a lot more, tough, too: Culture, Otherness, Wanderlust, Fear, Me, People, so many people, Passion, Pain, Creation and Memories. “World” is a good summary of that, though. I am now only two more nights of doubtfully recreational sleep away to start this new-new experience. Taking a plane to Mumbai was never my intention a couple of months back, but that’s the thing with strict tolerance and keeping your options open; you might end up with something unexpected. Jackpot! Honestly, where I come from, you are actually looking for unexpectedness. Because why would anyone want to go ahead and experience everything one already knew one would? There are many more advantages in just allowing your brain to be blown out by a new piece of world. Because world necessarily means travel, means sudden- and unexpectedly being global and so much yourself as you never are in any other situation. It means having the best and worst time of your life at once – and afterwards longing for more. Concerning India: A friend today told me India was “the country of wheelers and dealers“; not too sure how much of me already feels ready for this sort of task. But I also watched a woman on YouTube (GRRRLTRAVELER) describing her experience in India as a rough rollercoaster ride you just want to take over and over again. Sounds like the right path to me, I guess. Let’s go!