On the way home

I've arrived in Bhubaneswar, Orissa's capital after the first step of my journey to my temporary home in Koraput.  Early start from Delhi to get the morning flight to Bhuba, fortunately a fairly uneventful journey to the airport this time.  Just got the overnight train to get back now.

I had an interesting time in Delhi.  I was attending a course on local fundraising for NGOs (i.e. ways to raise money from within India).  Easier said than done of course.  Most of the NGOs work in very deprived areas so there is little cash to spare among their local communities.  There are some very big and wealthy corporations here in India but some of them may provide headaches for the NGO leaders regarding the ethics of partnering with them.  If a huge factory has displaced dozens of tribal villages with little or no compensation, is it ethical (or even possible) to receive sponsorship from the corporation to work with the tribal people attempting to get them compensation or the return of their land?

However, India has a huge population including some very rich people so there is plenty of scope.  If you know where to look and how to approach them, which is what the workshop was intending to help us all with.  We were divided into groups for discussions and to do assignments and guess who was elected to be the presenter of the plan that we devised?  Yes, me so at the start of my presentation I had to tell them to stop and ask if they couldn't understand me or if I needed to slow down as I've been told that I speak too fast and am hard to understand.  It seems that American English is easier to understand than my RP which is a little irritating but I guess it's familiarity and what they are exposed to in the media.

We were interrupted by a power cut at one point, not a great surprise as they are very common in India, even in the cities.  Trouble is, when the power returned a strange smell started wafting around which we eventually realised was the smell of something electrical burning.  Time for a chai.  We never did find out what was burning but the air-con was off for the rest of the day which made life a bit less comfortable.

I met up with a friend and ex work-colleague from the UK on Friday night.  He is working in Delhi for a week or so and we managed to meet up for a very nice meal in Greater Noida.  He was recommended this place by one of his colleagues in Delhi and I found out that it was only about 2km from my residence so decided to walk there as I had plenty of time.  Not my greatest idea.  This 2km took 40 minutes to walk and felt more like 3-4km along a busy dual carriageway with traffic going both directions in each lane, trying to keep to the track alongside the road, dodging the 10 foot deep pits in the ground, the bikes and cars zooming along without lights and the odd cow and dog.

Crossing the roads is interesting as  there are either different road rules here to home or eveyrone ignores them.  Either way - cars can go the wrong way around roundabouts, drive opposing the traffic-flow down seemingly one-way roads, travel without lights etc etc.  But I made it to somewhere close to my destination in one piece at which point the sketch map I'd been given failed to reflect reality.  I asked a couple of people if they knew where the restaurant was and they tried to explain without much success but eventually a lovely old man escorted me across the road safely and explained how to get there.  Or at least nearly there.  I gave up trying to be independent in the end and hopped onto a cycle rickshaw for the last 5 minutes.

The rickshaw wallah wanted 20 rupees for his efforts.  Fair enough but my smallest change was a 50 rupee note and he didn't have change (or said he didn't).  I think he cycled away a very happy man but I was also happy to have arrived safely and had a great meal and chat with Tim.  Followed by a lift back in Tim's car driven by a man who spoke no English and didn't know Greater Noida but he managed to find enough people to give him directions en-route.  It felt very strange meeting up with a friend from home for the first time since I arrived in India in July but I was relieved not to start wishing I was back home enjoying the little familiar luxuries.  Like hot water out of a tap, broadband and a pub down the road selling very nice real ale.

What will I find at home?  Builders had arrived on Monday just before I left for Delhi.  I came home at lunchtime to find 2 men squatting on the doorstep chatting and 4 women on the roof hammering away at the concrete surface with large lunp-hammers in the heat of the midday sun.  Quite what they were trying to achieve is beyond me, maybe they had been told to demolish the place and nobody thought to tell us?