Short Note from Kolkata

I have lost my sense of humor for airplane travels in developing nations. That is what I told myself as I got off the plane today in Kolkata, even knowing that I was going to the fancy pretty new airport there. 

No longer am I amused by having to get on a bus to ride 10 meters/50 feet (not a conversion, merely two examples in two different systems of measurement). I tried once in Yemen to walk around the bus to the plane, and I got yelled at. Now it is one of my greatest joys to be ushered off a plane via ramp directly into an airport, instead of be crammed like a sardine into a bus full of sharp elbows and excess hand baggage.  Today has been full of sardine busses and elbows—sharp ones and pudgy ones.  I was also not amused on the recent flight from Thailand to Delhi to be sitting in front of a man who was convinced that the inflight screens in the back of our seats were touch screens (they were not). He tap-tap-tapped away at the back of my head like a deranged woodpecker for 10 minutes before giving up or having someone inform him of the remote control in his armrest. No longer am I amused by the jerk who puts his seat back as soon as the flight attendant who told him to put it up for takeoff has passed by. Nor do I find it as funny as I once did that as soon as the wheels touch down on the tarmac, half the plane is up, retrieving their baggage from the overhead compartments, ignoring the screams of the distraught flight attendants. I once found it funny that Yemeni men answered their phones from the sky, but now I glare at the Indian man who ignores a call from someone, but leaves his phone on for the rest of the flight. I’m not even amused by the girl with the Miley Cyrus haircut—I’m just annoyed that I know that she has a Miley Cyrus haircut. I’m also annoyed that I had to go through security AGAIN in one of the world’s most annoying systems, getting new tags for my HAND LUGGAGE and waiting in endless lines because there are so many people in every country that I ever live in. WHEN AM I EVER GOING TO GET TO MOVE TO MAURITANIA (or some other mostly desert country with minimal population)?! I am slightly gratified, though, that I managed to keep my tweezers in Guwahati, even though their overly zealous x-ray checkers found them in the x-ray. No where else in India have they ever had a problem with tweezers. This lady scanned my bag twice to find the tweezers, but then couldn’t find them digging through my bag in real life, and I played dumb just to see how far she would take it. She ended up saying, “Well, it’s just tweezers…not scissors, right? Go on.” I took the win. Then I went back to hating the sweet old lady in the sari who was wandering around dazedly in the security check line.

It was going to be a great loss to the world, or at least to myself and whoever reads this blog, that my sense of humor was gone. But then this happened:

 

My sense of humor returned in the form of a cow trying come in the back door of the fancy new Kolkata Airport. I even laughed in the face of a man who was genuinely trying to be helpful by telling me that door was not the way to the domestic terminal. And I still have my tweezers. All is right with the world--until I have to fight my way through the baggage claim in Ranchi...

Australians are Fair Dinkum Cool

I’ve always admired Australians—well, after I moved to Indonesia and discovered these fellow members of our species who often live and travel in nearby tropical countries. This last week I got to hang out with one of the coolest Aussie families on the planet, and it brought back all the reasons I admire Australians, and I even gained a few new insights into their culture.

As a TCK (Third Culture Kid), I have some deep thoughts on tourists and the tourism industry as a whole. Other foreign kids raised abroad have mentioned a shared horror of ever being mistaken for a tourist. In myself, this odd-TCK trait manifested itself initially in an aversion for ever being caught taking photos of tourist attraction-type things. This became a small problem the first country that I traveled to by myself, Egypt. I discovered that, though I don’t mind solo travel, I like to share my experiences with my friends and family, and one good way to do that is with photography.  Fortunately for me, my older sister who knows the best way to do everything from peeling carrots to the proper way to cross a street (I still never run across a street, no matter how many vehicles or cows are speeding towards me since she told me that ‘cool’ people don’t do that), insisted that I bring a couple of disposable cameras.  I knew it would be important to take photos of the pyramids and the Sphinx and the Nile, so I would stand casually looking up or down at these famous places, glance around to make sure no one was watching me, and whip out my camera for a few quick pics. Consequently, I ended up with lots of photos of my thumb in various famous places—look, there’s Tutankhamen’s tomb…and my thumb! At least it proved that I was actually there, since I couldn’t take many photos of myself by myself.  Sadly, for you, this was back in the day before digital photography became so widespread (when flip-phones were still considered cutting-edge technology), so I don’t have any of those photos on my computer to show you.

I bring up tourists in this blog about Australians because that is the natural habitat I observed them in initially. I’m not sure why they would want to vacation by a beach when the vast majority of them already live by lovely beaches, but there they were surfing Indonesia…I mean, wouldn’t you expect them to be thrilled by wandering the exotic rolling pastures of, say, Tennessee, amazed by the fact that the interior of other continents is sometimes habitable? But I guess people go to what they know, and Australians are good at beaches. Except my Aussie roommate in Yemen who was a lovely blond girl who fit your stereotypical beach-beauty ideals, but once told me that she would rather peel her skin off and eat it than go for a mountain/beach run with me and my the Captain. She had a lovely way of expressing herself. If she really loved something, she “died for it.” To this day whenever I use that expression (and I still do sometimes, as she made it stick in my head), I have to say it in my best Australian accent. It’s like trying to sing Pink Floyd’s “We Don’t Need No Education” in any other accent besides the original. If you know the song, try it. It is not easy. Anyway, I told Cait that she didn’t deserve to be an Australian, but I think that I do—I mean, I like beaches, crocodiles, and sometimes I have an inexplicable desire to punch a kangaroo in the face.

So back to Australian tourists—their beach skills really helped them stand out positively compared with the few brave Europeans who made it to our distant shores (American tourists were few and far between, so let’s just forget about them for now). These sweet inhabitants of the northern hemisphere based their knowledge of appropriate sun protection on their previous beach holidays on the Riviera or other Artic beaches. In order to change their skin tone from eggshell-white to light ivory, it was necessary not to apply any amount of SPF. Australians, however, are well-versed in the importance of sunscreen, being directly under the hole in the ozone layer (that was a thing once—before global warming and drowning polar bears), and consequently, they're able to get through an entire equatorial vacation without ending up looking like they took a bath in ketchup. I remember watching an Aussie infomercial once in a hotel (we didn’t have a TV at our house, so we were always fascinated by them at various hotels we stayed at, and any programing, from Australian sun-propaganda to Japanese cartoons dubbed in bahasa were hugely entertaining to us) about these shirt that had long sleeves with flaps to come down over your knuckles to protect them from sun burn while riding your scooter down the beach. Here they used a beautiful blonde model (maybe related to Cait) who could wear a glittery Elvis costume and make even that look good to try to persuade viewers to buy these awkward-looking garments.

And while we’re on the topic of garments, Australians are also aware of what is and is not appropriate beach-wear, i.e. tiny speedos under a newly-cherry-red belly are a bit shocking for a conservative Muslim country. I’ll forgive other tourist-fashion faux-pas--the classic socks-with-sandals is actually not uncommon amongst the natives of many Asian countries. And while I would never consider wearing a tourist t-shirt (Singapore is a “Fine” City or I Climbed the Great Wall) when I am still in the country where I bought the shirt (unless my light-packing skills are compromised by an unexpected trip extension and I have no other clothes), I smile tolerantly and patronizingly at excited tourists who can’t wait to sport their new clothes. I’m pretty sure that Australians are occasionally commit this tourist-fashion mistake, but I’m not here to judge—I’m only here to laugh at you.

Besides the observations from my youth, this past week with the lovely Berry family from Cambodia/Brisbane, I have learned many new things about Australia/ns. Our time this week happened to coincide with Australian national elections—naturally I followed the results breathlessly…well, I watched the last five minutes after the polls closed on BBC while running on the treadmill in the gym here (that might explain the breathless part), but I now know that Tony Abbott is the new leader of the country. What that will mean for its various international policies (PNG immigration, bailing out the US from their economic crisis, etc), I don’t know. What I did discover is that democracy is mandatory in Australia. In America we had “Vote or Die” because we believe in hyperbole and we all have guns (according to Australians), but in Australia voting slackers will be fined (maybe Australia is a “fine” country? To steal a popular t-shirt slogan from Singapore—studies have shown that to be a very profitable shirt). Apparently there are ways out of this, but for those of them who live in Cambodia and get tired of sending explanatory letters to their government about why they don’t have to pay the fine, they can just give up their voting rights.  If we could give up our voting rights in America, I bet a lot of others would pay to take them—it would be a very capitalistic and entrepreneurial enterprise…something to think about as we spiral further and further into debt…

Later, in a discussion of the proper way to make some odd-sounding dessert, I noticed a look on Caroline’s face when we were talking about New Zealand that I recognized—it took me a moment to put my finger on it, but then I got it: New Zealand is Australia’s Canada. A less-populous neighbor who gets very offended if a misinformed person mistakes them for Australians, and one who is often the butt of amusing, good-natured jokes from their larger, protective “older-brother.” I mean, we Americans often laugh at how Canadians talk and the fact that they have policemen that ride on horses, but if Canada were ever invaded by Madagascar or some other warlike state, we would jump right in and help defend them—or at the least, we would send the Boy Scouts to help out (since there are more of them than there are Mounties in Canada anyway)
. In the same way, if New Zealand were invaded by Canadians fleeing the invasion of Madagascar, Australia would probably offer them a deserted island or something like that where they could resettle all the refugees. We joke and laugh, but out of love.  Anyway, none of us would ever attempt to deny the natural, God-given beauty of either of those countries, though I myself prefer a more tropical climate.

I said I learned many new things, but maybe I just learned about elections and New Zealand…well, I’m glad to be back working with an Aussie, even if he does call me “Amander.” Also, as I mentioned, his family is superlative.

This post got long-who knew I had so much to say about Australia? I’ll leave you now with a few photos of Mitchell Johnson, a famous cricket player and personal friend of mine, as well as the beautiful Miss Sophie.  If I had photos of the other lovely Berry ladies, I would include them, but Ellie was sick and Caroline stayed with her most of the time.

Sophie, graciously allowing me the opportunity to take a photo with her coolness.

She is also a sand castle prodigy--we created a masterpiece in 5 minutes

Mitchell Johnson, a famous Australian cricket player, aka Jason Berry

This guy looks exactly the same as Mitch, right?
 It's only natural that our Agra Fort tour guide was convinced
 that he had met this cricket celebrity.

Another photo of Jason in the corner. Even from the back it's hard to tell him and Mitch apart.

And finally, here are some epic drawrings (as Jason says) that I did while taking notes during our meetings this week. I put them into a program called “picstitch,” which Jason told me about and Sophie taught me how to use.

^

Explanation of the Drawring

First there is a fight between a dragon and a sea monster. Then there is a peachickock (half peacock/half chicken), a one-frog percussion band, and finally a stick man on an island in the middle of the river whose pizza is being stolen by a crocodile and a butterfly while a helpful mermaid holds a kitten out of the water, Santa Duck Mother and her babies chase an evil robot, and Pacman eats a river-shark. There is also a mouse and a hermit crab that looks like a lobster who are sitting on the island with the Stick Man--zoom in for details.