Diaries

This is the second last diary that I will be writing for our website. It has almost been some three months that I came to Germany. This period for me has been once in a life time opportunity. I have seen and experienced things that I could possibly wouldn't even be able to imagine. I come from a remote part of pokhara my home town where people have been spending their lives just looking after animals, cutting grass for them, cleaning their sheds, selling the milk, working in the fields etc. They stink so bad like the smell of cow dung, or cow urine. This means they literally do not take bath at all. They find themselves working in the field literally 18 hours a day and yet they do not have enough to eat for two times a day. The people in most poor parts of Nepal are illiterate. They do not have access to education, electricity, water taps, schools and hospitals. The deadliest disease in these places is not cancer or aids, but diarrhoea, water born diseases and mosquito related diseases.

There was a question in our online application form when I applied for this fellowship and that what do you think you would be learning from the project in Germany?One point I had mentioned was that I would be able learn more or less how and see what is a developed country and go back and work making changes towards development of my country. But right these days I feel as if I am lost and am confused whether will we ever be able to develop?

I have seen that almost every work whether indoor or outdoor is done with the help of machine in Germany. They have machines literally for everything. They have all the facilities and pleasures of life. They have so many things to do for example in sports. They have so many opportunities to choose from.

But we specially Julius and Timmy where we constantly share our experiences also realize that the development did not come easily for Germans. Actually we think the Germans and the other Europeans who work hard they deserve this life. The minimum working hour for Germans is 8 whereas in Nepal it is 6 and leave alone the number of holidays. Germans work very very hard even though whether it is snows or rains. But in Nepal and in Uganda according to Julius the work stops if it rains.

we three fellows wonder what were our country men doing when these europeans were constantly thinking and working really hard to overcome all these difficulties of life. And the question remains unanswered................................

We were discussing professions that are unique to our countries, a few weeks ago at our Italian restaurant while elderly Germans quietly worked their cutlery.

It turned out that India has an endless supply of peculiar jobs, probably because of the size and diversity and population density. I've always taken them for granted or dismissed them as stereotypes, but in trying to describe them I began to look at them with interest again.

Ear-cleaners. You’ll find them sitting with their toolkits outside Bombay’s biggest railway station, Victoria Terminus. Doctors say it isn't safe and I certainly don’t recommend it. But it’s fun to watch them at work for a bit while you’re walking past.

Coconut climbers. Many old-style houses in south India have coconut trees. Coconuts can fall on your head, and they’re difficult to pluck because they’re high up a tree that's like a thirty-metre pole. So when a climber comes to your gate to ask if there's work, you say yes. They can effortlessly shimmy up that most un-climbable tree in a scissor-motion, without any equipment, not even a rope, pluck your coconuts and throw them down, collect their fee and move to the next house.

Dabbawalas. A dabba is a lunch-box, and dabbawalas deliver fresh food from people’s homes to their offices every day in Bombay, a city with over 19000 people per sq km. You can see them with their white caps getting their carts in and out of Bombay's trains. They have a six-sigma rating, which means one mistake, on average, every six million times. And for decades this was without any documents or modern technology. They use a numbered colour-coding system that helps them with the sorting, distribution and delivery. They use phones now for customer-calls.

Adjournment-lawyers. They can’t fight a case but specialize in exploiting loopholes to get the hearing shifted to another date. Darcy gaped open-mouthed when she heard this, because it explained why her former organization’s cases moved ahead in every country except in India- where they kept getting postponed mysteriously.

There are so many more of these in India, but the other fellows had some interesting ones too. Indonesia, Kiki said, has people who call at your gate to gather the eggs of fire ants (a fairly dangerous job because the ants are called fire-ants for a reason and they're not amused when you take their eggs away) to sell them elsewhere as bird-food. In Uganda, there was a man who wore a pair of white gloves, such as their traffic policemen use, and pocketed fines from various cars and trucks for three whole days before he was caught by the real police.

It’s an interesting world, and people can be very resourceful in finding themselves a livelihood. While professions might change as we all become Westernized, I think the idea of a niche, local solution is something very important, and that’s something the analysts and statisticians often miss.

The greatest hills I have always climbed is the tension and imagination of meeting new people and more so, people from different cultures, social background and classes, religion and level of education even when am full of enthusiasm and zeal to meet them. 21 years ago, I remember my mother teaching me the principle of 'sitting on pins' whenever am meeting some one new. She warned me landing on a soft lean-able harm chair less I get too comfortable and begin talking endlessly. I have always kept this in mind.
Now I think this principle had not faced the actual test. Right from the moment I met Rouven at the exit of Munich Airport, the principle got its first challenge. The entire film crew just added petrol on the already burning dry rids. I was still determine to stand by the principle, little did I know that the test had just begun.
The entire D&F staffs and fellows were the actual tune of the music I was determine not to dance and in less than two days, I found my self up-grading to nails top. As if the ground was not soft enough to hit down the niddle, the hotel managers-Mr & Mrs Bidderman, Merkus with his distinct and exclusive family, and the entire construction workers again added water onto already saturated soil.
Much as my Mum insisted that even if some one welcome you and said 'get seated, feel at home', I should consider it a test of manner and remain on my pins. But this particular hospitality in Germany was not only different, but exclusive and no body even if that person was my Mum would have remain seated on a caution-less harm chair leave a lone soft sands.
In barely one week, I was already seated in the very comfort zone I was taught not to that soon. There was endless hugging, charting, playing, arguing, dancing and singing as one family. I think no one will ever feel this free in a complete new environment and amidst new people than I have felt in this Museum Project and if my mother was still there, I would have gone back with enough evidence ready to implicate this principle of 'absolute sensitivity'

Till then, I remain seated and leaning on my harm chair.

Ochen Julius Peter, Uganda

This Thursday, I was in the workshop peeling wood with many of the fellows as we sang songs from the radio. Tom, one of the construction workers, came in and asked for two girls. I somewhat hesitantly volunteered for this unknown task. Esther from Nigeria volunteered as well. Tom had his English-German dictionary out so I knew it was something outside of the normal tasks. He told us to go to the forest (and pointed behind the museum) and find a beautiful tree about one meter in height. He pointed to the word “custom” in his dictionary and stated, “This is a custom.” Tom’s English is limited and our German is non-existent so asking for more of an explanation was out of the question. You just go and do what you think is the request - makes it more of an adventure!

Tom handed us a small handsaw and off we went! We had to climb over some barbed wire and up a steep Bavarian Alps' foothill. This reminded me of childhood and going to pick out a Christmas tree. However, for Esther this was a very new experience, as picking out a Christmas tree from the forest does not happen in Nigeria. I loved being with her and feeling her excitement about the activity.

We examined each tree candidate for fullness and height and finally found a nice, but perhaps too tall (oh well!), tree to take back to the museum. So we went back down the steep hill, back over the barbed wire – this time with a tree!

When we returned to the work site to display proudly our tree, they told us to carry it to the other side of the museum property and tie blue and white (for Bavaria!) “paper bands” on it... this, I soon found out, meant "ribbon." Esther and I had a great time tying ribbons to the tree and singing Christmas carols.

Then we brought the tree back to the work site and they nailed it to the top of our in-the-process-of-being-reconstructed farmhouse. Then I understood the purpose! The tree was not a Christmas tree, but a tradition in construction that I have seen before on topped out buildings under construction in the US. We had topped out the farmhouse that day and participated in a construction tradition with nailing the small tree to the top beam.