I missed Canadian thanksgiving. And perhaps American thanksgiving too, if I could be arsed to remember when it is (yeah I could google it. . . so what?).
In any case, here are some thoughts on unexpected thankfulness and a bit of other mental detritus.
Unexpected Thankfulness
I’ve come into this internship with a host of different skills and life experiences to back me up. Some I expected, such as my familiarity with agriculture and my education in development . . .others not so much. Here is a short collection of three skills that I did know would be useful, but have proven to be invaluable.
1) Video Games
Given a bit of thought, one could probably guess my affinity for video games given my recent blog post that tried to meld my interest in science fiction with my experiences in India. However, I did not expect that my interest in video games would come into play in my job in India.
One of my projects has been to liaise with representatives from a company that does graphic design and makes educational software. My role was to essentially create concepts for computer games that would reinforce skills and augment established capacity building practice. These would be ‘games with aims’ as we call them in the lifeguarding world.
The project snowballed into a complete package of games, videos, and other learning material that could be customized to the audience, be it a SIRJAN professional presenting to a group of illiterate SHG women, a service provider wanting to shore up is knowledge of seed treatment, or what have you.
My embarrassingly strong familiarity with video games lent itself well to the project. It was fairly easy for me to both conceptualize how these games could look, who would be able to use them, and what the limitations would be for software designers and users. The project is still in its infancy, and won’t get off the ground until after I leave, but I’m happy I was able to facilitate its beginnings.
2) Graphic Design
In my last year of high school I took a graphics design course, taught by a passionate and intense teacher who I still think fondly about today. While outside of my professional life the course gave me the skills and confidence needed to fool around competently with an airbrush and take decent photographs, the class also gave me a toehold in graphics design using products such as Fireworks and GIMP.
With SRIJAN, having these skills has allowed me to take an endless supply of photographs, branding me the unofficial photographer of Bundi locations (more than 1,000 photos and going strong!). This, alongside generating a delightful amount of promotional material, also allowed me to feel useful at events where the language barrier prevented me from getting much else done.
These skills have also allowed me to create decent looking cover pages, booklets, briefings, powerpoints, and newsletters for the organization. I’ve been able to help the communications staff in Delhi on a few projects, and from that I have learned bounds about organizational structure and interactions between different stakeholders. I never expected being able to crop a picture and throw around some vector art could open so many doors.
3) Being Alone: Yes I consider this a skill.
I’m not trying to start a pity party or anything, but the reality is that sometimes I do get a bit lonely here. The language barrier can prevent meaningful conversations with a lot of people, and in no way can I expect that my co-workers go out of their way to try and include me in all their conversations. For reference, on any given day the number of fluent English speakers around me fluctuates between zero and five, with the constant presence of a handful of others who have enough English to meet my jumbled Hindi half way.
The end result is that there are many conversations that I would like to have but can’t. This is further aggravated by cultural context, work, and other factors. I can mitigate this to an extent by bombarding friends and family with facebook messages and emails online, but again the lack of face-to-face contact proves to be a barrier.
I know that while for me this can be sometimes frustrating and other times depressing, others might find it crippling. I consider myself well versed in being alone, and have travelled alone, sat alone, and worked alone many times. In New Zealand I hiked for days upon days on my own (don’t do this, its not safe), and on several occasions have contentedly failed to talk to anyone beyond basic necessities for days.
Don’t get the idea that I am being ostracized or excluded, because I’m not. I have wonderful co-workers who have gone out of their way to ensure that I have my basic needs met and am not facing any troubles in my life. They are also always happy to chat, share a package of namkiin (snacks) and take me wherever they are going. The defining point is that sometimes, the communication barrier prevents depth of conversation beyond how good that namkiin is, where we are going, and why we are going there.
The Avatar of Thanks Giving
I always thought thanksgiving should be represented by the thanks-gibbon, a trained gibbon monkey who would run around and shake everyone’s hand to thank them for all their good deeds that have gone unnoticed over the year. I like gibbons.
In fact, here is a .gif of a gibbon playing with a dog. Wouldn’t you love to have that little rascal run up and shake your hand before scampering off to create other mischief?
Snacks
Holland has stroopwafels, the American South has deep fried pickles. Nepal has momos, South Africa has biltong. Each and every country/region in the world has its proud share of snacks and fast food, but India just outdoes itself.
To start off with, any American supermarket snack is readily available in India. If you look hard enough, even small villages far off the beaten tack will often turn up Lays potato chips and small packages of Oreos. Yet alongside this full compliment of western empty calories are the proudly Indian snacks. These are the samosas, the pakodas, the spiced fried noodles, and the myriad of other fried, refried, or deep-fried sweets and savouries.
Though not every Indian snack sees hot oil in its preparation, you can bet that a good number of them do. A fellow Coady participant and fellow blogger remarked on the staples of the Indian diet and what that means for the growing waistlines of the middle class. I’m inclined to agree with her, and I suggest you give it a read. To put it in perspective, one universal snack found across India, jalebi , is essentially deep-fried icing sugar. It is a bit too sweet for my tastes, but it is a crowd favourite.
Beyond the deep-fried, India also plays host to an immense variety of other snacks. Notable is namkiin, a broad term for dried bits of processed grain and pulses. It comes in many forms, from simple spiced bits that look similar to crushed instant noodles, to incredibly diverse mixtures of roasted groundnuts, sweet masala powder, crackers, and all sizes of dried pulses. Namkiin can be eaten by itself, compliment a beer, be sprinkled over your samosa, mixed into your evening Dahl, and really combined into whatever food combination your imagination provides.
Disregarding any health concerns (and you probably shouldn’t be eating these daily anyway), Indians snacks are truly delicious. Every second or third day I wander down the street to the local kachoudi shop, where I’m now a known regular. I usually eat two dahl kachori, a deep-fried cousin of the samosa filled with spiced pulses, smothered in chutney and curd. If I’m feeling ambitious, I compliment it with a Lassi.
My thoughts about Indian snacks have led me to an interesting conclusion. India’s enthusiasm for sweets, fried dough, strong tastes, and other quick snacks, alongside a growing market for coffee, might make it a prime market for Tim Horton’s. Have I stumbled across the next big thing? Could our national morning ritual make the cut alongside gulab jamun and jalebi? They won’t overpower any local favorites, that’s for sure, but with India’s expanding middle class, there might be room for more.
The Kachori Shop (they are cooking Samosas).
buchan abroad 