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Published: February 8th 2011
(Day 1034 on the road) Now, what exactly am I doing here? My last blog entry was supposed to be the final one, marking the end of my 2 1/2 year world trip. But at the end of December, after a short interlude back home in Germany, I decided to move to North-East India (initially for three months for the time being) to join
Jasmin and Luc. Jasmin is doing her PhD at the NIT university in the smallish steel-town of Rourkela in Orissa, and Luc is her immensely cute and intelligent nearly 3-year old son.
So what can I say? First, as for this blog, I have - after some consideration - decided to keep writing until my (final?) departure home at the end of March - which will incidentally also mark exactly three years on the road for me.
Second, the month that I have been here in Rourkela already has been very different from my "normal" travels over the last few years! Living in one place, in university halls of residence of all places, with a woman and a little child is certainly a completely new experience for me. I love being around children and have some experience
with them but not a huge amount, so dealing with Luc every day is somewhat of a challenge at times. But I am learning fast, and whilst it can be somewhat tiring at times, being around this innocent child that is busy discovering the world is at the same time extremely relaxing.
My return to life in Germany in November and my subsequent re-adjustment had been easier than anticipated. For almost two months I was busy catching up with friends, organising my pictures, dealing with the snail-mail that had accumulated over the years, making plans for my new life after travelling (including looking for jobs), and of course attending Tino's and Kristina’s wedding. All the while, I had the feeling that my family and friends where visibly relieved that I did not turn into a hippie during my trip.
As for life here in Rourkela, it is certainly enjoyable. India had for a number of reasons never been very high on my list of places to visit, but now that I am here, I am pleasantly surprised. Maybe this is because here in Rourkela there are absolutely no tourists, meaning there is none of the constant hassle and
rip-offs that so many travelers complain about in India, and which I am not the best in coping with for too long I might add. In fact, Jasmin (and her co-PhD student Kilian) are the first two Europeans to ever study at the university here. For practical purposes this means that it is almost never necessary to agree on prices beforehand. Much later, after leaving Rourkela for a trip around India, we would really appreciate how relaxing it is to be able to hop into an auto rickshaw in India and not having to worry about the driver ripping you off in the end!
In terms of daily life, one word is enough to describe it: Peaceful. With close-to-none real obligations for me I am able to delve into contemplating what I want to do with my life now. I have a number of ideas and am thinking in many directions, and for that it doesn’t really matter if I sit here in India, France or Chile, as long as I have an Internet connection. Jasmin is either working in her office in the university or doing her research and reading for home, our maid is taking care of
the household and of Luc, our food is brought to our room four times a day, once a day we go and play badminton in the pretty courtyard of our building, on Saturdays we go shopping and eat in nice restaurants in town, on Sundays we undertake bicycle or hiking excursions to explore the
wonderfully photogenic surroundings. Not a bad life!
Plus, and this is a real bonus in the case of India, life is incredibly cheap here. So much that it borders on the point of being ridiculous and feeling uncomfortable. A few examples: 1) Rent for a room on campus, with kitchen and bathroom: 8 Euros per month. 2) Full time nanny-cum-maid (8 hours a day, six days a week), who cleans our rooms, washes our clothes, plays with look and does some shopping: 19 Euros per month. 3) Food delivered to our room four times a day, every day (breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner): 1 Euro per day. 4) Cup of tea: 0,05 Euro-cent. 5) 8-hour train journey: 2 Euros. 6) Haircut or shave: 0,16 Euro-cent. 7) Morning play-school for Luc (5 days a week): 5 Euros per month. The list goes on, but I guess you get the
idea.
These ridiculously cheap prices, as nice as they might be for a foreigner paying in Euros or Dollars, of course hint to a serious problem in the Indian economy: The UN estimates that 40% of the 1.2 billion people here in India live in poverty, having to subside on less than two US$ per day. Our maid is a classic example: Although we already pay her 50% more than what she would earn if she was employed by an Indian family, she still earns less than a Dollar per day (26 US$ per month / 30 days = 90 US cents).
On top of these low wages, India is once again battling with intense inflationary problems, which saw the costs of food rising by about 20% last year alone. One kilogram of grapes now cost as much as our maid earns in two days. Apparently last year has not been an isolated case either, and politicians have even lost their jobs in the past for failure to curb inflation of basic necessities.
Further, the income equality here in India is extreme (unfortunately I have no concrete figures): When you walk around downtown Rourkela, next to all
the cheap wares you see very much the same luxury and electronic goods as elsewhere. But one can’t help but thinking how many people can really afford a 700 Euro laptop? Certainly not our poor maid – she would have to work for exactly three years straight and never spend a single rupee to be able to purchase one.
But back to our relaxed life here in Rourkela: The only person who had a fairly hard time in the beginning was Luc: Suddenly finding himself thrown in a new country where nobody speaks his language and where he thus cannot communicate with anyone except Jasmin and yours truly was pretty hard on him at first. It took him a while to understand that people speak a different language here, but once we started teaching him basic English we were surprised a) how extremely quickly he picks it up and b) how interested he is in constantly learning new words.
Whilst his first English word was a loud and hearty “NOOO!”, after only a few weeks he had learned to use effective body and sign language and to have simple conversations (how are you, what’s your name, my name
is Luc where are you from, come here, I am hungry, I am sleepy, help me please), plus a large number of object names (i.e. water, toilet, Germany, grapes, apple, yellow, red, water, racket, ball, my house etc). Not bad at all, we are very impressed, and he is getting better by the day!
Now the three of us are making grand plans to travel around India for a month or longer. I am very interested to see how travelling is done with a three-year old child, but since Luc is an experienced Africa-traveler (his father is African and Luc has been there a number of times), there should be very little problem there. Stay tuned.
Next stop: Varanasi, Kujaraho & Agra (Uttar Pradesh, India).
To view my photos, have a look at
pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete
book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).
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aspiringnomad
Jason
Quantum Mechanics?
Going home for two months yet still being "on the road". Stephen Hawking once suggested that the absence of tourists from the future constitutes an argument against the existence of time travel—a variant of the Fermi paradox;-)