patria mea totus hic mundus est - discoveries on a globalized planet.

Fantasia in Tibati - the Celebration of "Eid-Al-Fitr" or the End of Ramadan

2008-10-09T14:09:00.007+01:00

As it might not have been pointed out clearly so far, the North of Cameroon, i.e. where I am living right now is predominantly muslim. Consequently, Ramadan is respected strictly by large parts of the population meaning that people do not only refrain from eating but also from drinking between dusk and dawn. And everybody impatiently awaits the end - since fasting in Ramadan in African heat unavoidably means suffering. What a relief when this period of self restriction finally is over - whatever poor one might be - that calls for celebration!

From babies to grandmothers - everyone wants to assist the big fantasia in front of the Lamido's palace in Tibati putting on the finest pagnes or clothes one possesses.
In a huge demonstration, the warriors of the Lamido get the chance to show off on their horses, neatly decorated with fine tissues reserved only for important festivitFrom babies toies.
Authentic African Musicians, looking like funky clowns to the Eurpean eye contribute with their doodeling around and Tam-Tams while the "chevaliers" are swinging sables, lancets, swords and bows on their galopping horses in front of the Lamido - who appreciates their show by 'generously' distributing some bills of money among the heros.

Less apparent is that the horses are rather badly trained, no wonder, since they are hardly ever ridden throughout the year, yet also no wonder that one of the maltreated had a fall during the galopp towards the Lamido's. On photos one will not easily find acts and consequent marks of violence against the animals, yet their grimaces may tell you a bit of what is happening. When the sun sets down, the Lamido concludes the spectacle by retiring into his palace and the people go home to continue the feast by consuming everything that was limited for such a long time.

From Side Actor to Movie Producer within a Year

2008-10-08T12:01:00.006+01:00

It was about july when two young guys from Ngaoubela paid me a visit with an unusual question: As I was often taking pictures in our village, would it not be possible to produce a movie with my camera? First I was very surprised and had big doubts of the quality of a movie made by a photo camera, in particular as the microphone might not be of the highest quality and the autofocus works at a different speed than a movie camera. Nevertheless we tried some test shots and found it at least possible to do the project.
One weekend in August we decided to walk into a traditional village, two hours away from Ngoubela and do the whole thing. People prepared themselves well, Rene, the leader of this association of culturally aware youngsters organized all the equipment and traditional clothes like animal skins and beaten plants as well as huge leaves of bananas and other bush plants.
So, like this we shot a well known traditional story of the grand grand grand fathers of the GBaya tribe to maintain this cultural heritage for future generations. At first everybody was very shy to wear as little as a few leaves and/or some animal furs, but after I have demonstrated them that there is no need to be shy at all they got convinced that it is best to just do it :-)
Back in Austria I should be able to upload some cool dancing scene, for the moment the African internet connections do not allow such large data streams.... stay tuned!

On the Road to Austria

2008-08-31T11:52:00.007+01:00

What are the odds of "randomly" meeting somebody from your neighbour village in Europe in the middle of nowhere – ie the African bush in Adamawa? Apparently pretty high, otherwise we would not have met a couple from Unterwolfsbach, Lower Austria in Malarba, the trucker’s night stop nearby Ngaoubela.

Peter and Sabine are about to tour around Africa with their lorry “August”, a 4wd Mercedes 1311 from 1966. What a pleasent and unexpected surprise!
After a while of reflection they decided to stay in Ngaoubela overnight where we learnt more about their tour from Austria to South Africa via Eastern Africa and back home via Western Africa including quite a number of exciting stories and plenty of photos. In the end we discovered that them and me were about to go to Ngaoundéré for some reasons so they gave me a lift – my first ride on a truck – and what an awesome one! On the road we found some of the “outstanding” lorry drivers besides their trucks which fell off track… fortunately Peter is an excellent driver, so August could bring us sound to the Camp Norvegien in Ngaoundéré.

Check out http://www.peterunfried.spaces.live.com/ for more details!!

Life in a bush hospital

2008-07-17T18:32:00.004+01:00

It definitely is not easy for a newbie to imagine what it is like to live and work in a bush hospital in the middle of nowhere. There is no doubt, pictures can show you around well, but t could demonstrate my sourroundings to the full monty. But especially vegetarians among you won’t like to be confronted with a dead foetus or people defecating everywhere around for religious reasons (sic!).

“Az élet nem habostorta” I used to say a some years ago when a habostorta was one of the most normal things for me. Here in the bush there is no habos. And definitely az élet nem habostorta, particularly for those permanently living here. Just take a look...

An Invitation to the Great Djaouro in Gangoumi

2008-07-17T11:26:00.005+01:00

After my report of the official audiences at the Lamido’s it is difficult to find another topic that could possibly sound as exciting and mysterious for a “Western” reader. In my opinion our recent invitation to Gangoumi, a traditional village in the bush, ie unreached by roads, electricity and all kinds of high-life, does indeed attain a similar level. To reach Gangoumi one has to travel between three and five hours on the motorbike following a tiny, tricky path through the savanna and the forests (probably the most adventurous aspect of the trip).

The Djaouro of Gangoumi is the traditional chief of the village, ie the official representative for the Lamido of the Djerem district. So this Djaouro has a passion – his passion for Dr. Elisabeth Neier, the famous Nazara that miraculously heals the ill Balejos (= Blacks in Fulfulde) in Ngaoubela. His passion started when he once had an accident and became paralyzed on one side. Dr. Nazara did a wonder and after a while under her magic treatment he suddenly started to slowly regain his capacity to move. So, his passion went on and now goes as far as his official proposal to her some years ago – what is why he is a regular guest in our house. Unfortunately, Dr. Neier can not grant him such a desire for a number of reasons; eg. she is living and working in Ngaoubela, plans to go back to Austria for retirement, and would be wife no. 3(!), as the Djaouro is muslim with currently two wifes and a whole lot of children. He remains persistent and tries to convince her of a life in Gangoumi (arguing that of course they would urgently need proper medical care there) and regularly visits the small Austrian community in Ngaoubela. That’s how we got to know to the Djaouro, as our guest. The great Djaouro of Gangoumi kept on inviting us to his village, to show us his home, make us get to know to his saare (Fulfulde for house or court), see his herd of cows (as an owner of such he is a very proud and wealthy man in his village) and go on a trekking search for Hippopotamus in the wilderness. So finally in Mai, Herwig, my volunteering colleague, and me went to visit the Djaouro of Gangoumi and enjoy the hospitality of his family. The last picture displays the ancient school of Gangoumi!

Le Conteneur Nouvau Est Arrivé !!!

2008-03-26T16:52:00.004+01:00

Yes! Finally the containers have arrived – the containers we were successfully working on to get exonerated from import duties have come to Tibati.

And it was some ten hours too late to have Rudl, the dispatcher (see the picture of the first Lamido audience), with us to unload the huge carpenter’s machines. There was quite a challenge before us, the heaviest machine has got some unbelievable 2400 kgs that had to get out of the container to their designated place. When it had reached the entrance to the building we could not believe that we were able to bring the monster till here where one little - but crucial fixed part was 10 cm higher than the top of the entrance door. What to do? There seemed to be no solution but destroying the building… but one little workaround could save it: The pillars of the ramp that was used for moving the contents down could slowly be hit away with a hammer what created the necessary descent to make the giant pass through! (At the time we found out the real weight we all agreed that if we had known the actual weight at the time of unloading – we might have doubted our capability to move it to such an extent that we could have ceased to try it without even starting.)
We did it – our motivated artisans from Tela (the sunday market village mentioned in an article below) made some unbelievable efforts as I had never seen it from Africans before. This was the longest African working day ever – it started at 7 AM with the news of the arrival and ended after 1 AM of the next day with break in between apart from the short “lunch break” at 22 PM. That must be “sorcelerie” that makes one able to work like this – at least for some external African spectators. ;-)

Yaouwa!

Mlle Idéfing

2008-02-18T10:33:00.006+01:00

Before presenting the hospital and more people, friends and colleagues around me I wish to show off with my funky "chien" Idéfing, a noble Western African Bush Hound Mélange ;-). Idéfing was born in December, two weeks before my arrival to N’gaoubela and has recently completed his third month. Idéfing is the daughter of “Madi” , Elisabeth’s dog(see below) and has four brothers and sisters. You might suspect already something's strange with that. There is a funny story about the origin of Idéfing's name. Out of the original name it got, people derived various names as they according to their understanding, among others Eto'o Fils (Fanclub of Samuel Eto'o, the great soccer player from Cameroon) Eat-the-fingers or Idéfing. Since me and my Austrian colleagues found Idéfing to be the grooviest, most creative name and decided to keep it.Most time of the day Idéfing, together with Madi, protect our house against strangers, sometimes more sometimes less effective. With Idéfing I try to show locals that dogs are intelligent and able to learn a lot, over here a totally unknown feature of a dog.

Here, Idéfing in her sweet age already tried out some make-up. Well, perhaps ashes from an extinct fireplace don’t make up a more beautiful dog… but according to Alana, the local PeaceCorps worker, "Idéfing's adorable!" - isn't she?

Maintaining Diplomatic Relations: Audience R2 at the Lamido

2008-02-16T12:29:00.006+01:00

After the first official meeting with our local "king", His Majesty the Lamido, we wanted to reassure ourselves that everything works out fine concerning the tax exoneration, besides the other Austrians, my colleagues Herwig and Christine were also curious to get to know to the Lamido and present themselves.

One of His Majesty's Cocks and probably one of his many wives

Here you can observe well the differences in status, while Nazaras may stand upright at the same level of the Lamido, his nephew Ibrahim is required to crouch.

At the end of our Audience there was remained the “Premier Ministre” to be greeted in the entrance hall. He is known to be a mighty person, he can do magic and nobody is able to wound or kill him. He permitted me to take a picture of him so that I can share it with you.

Monsieur Le Premier Ministre

At a later time we got to know the mother and the brother of the Lamido through his son, ie the nephew of the Lamido. Also the Lamido’s brother is a very eminent personality in the district.

This gesture of the Lamido's brother, demonstrated for the photo, is the usual greeting in Adamaoua accompanied with the Fulfulde word "Sannu!".

And it burns, burns, burns…

2008-02-14T12:58:00.004+01:00

...the ring of fire...

We all know from the awesome BBC documentaries on TV that in Africa there are bush-fires burning down all plants in the dry season to create space for the rainy season again and enrich the rather poor soil with minerals from the ashes. However, it is a very different experience to actually be in the village next to this event and have ashes coming down like snow everywhere around. Ever since I have arrived here in december, not a single drop of rain has fallen on my roof, so it did not take long to have the first fires passing by. This was a huge fire of estimated 150 – 200 metres of breadth raging through the wilderness half an hour of a walk from my house here.

It’s a true natural spectacle, nevertheless the local children do rather wonder about the Nazaras’ augmented interest:

Market Sundays in Tela

2008-02-05T20:36:00.003+01:00

Sundays in the African bush are different – the highlight of the average week consists of a visit to the market in our neighbour village Tela, where all people gather together to sell what they have to offer, regularly produced during the week before. They slaughter cows in the morning and directly put the meat on the barbecue. Besides, there is a nice, cosy pub – of course a hut made out of clay – where one can spend the hottest hours in the afternoon in some cool atmosphere. The walk back home at the dramatic sunset is the perfect setting for the end of the day off.

Wanna join me next time?

Diplomatic Relations: "Audience at the Lamido of Tibati"

2008-02-04T19:52:00.008+01:00

His Majesty, the Lamido of Tibati, is somewhat a traditional local king, count or duke. As far as I understood so far, he is the one with the most power in the district and whatever should happen he will have to agree. Since I take care of the reception of two containers with donated medical equipment and machines for the vocational schools in Tibati and Tela, I needed to get an Audience for we want to have the donations exonerated from the tariffs. Since the Lamido knows best about red tape in national authorities we included His Majesty to hopefully get the exoneration.

The portal to the palace

The pompous entrance hall, note the dust in the air!

The Lamido of Tibati on his throne

The meeting revealed a lot of local culture to me and amused me quite a bit. After the official ceremony of salutation, we, the Nazara delegation, were invited to take a seat at same height as His Majesty. All Balejos ("Africans" in Fulfulde, in contrast to Nazaras) have to fall down on earth, even the nephew of His Majesty was not exempted from this practice. The Lamido informed us that the exoneration is working out and that the containers will soon be released from the port at Douala, then, in a pause, I draw his attention to the topic of economic development and information technology (wouldn’t be me if not). There I had to learn a crucial lesson. According to His Majesty we Nazara would develop magical computers and we would have big hearts to work with the Africans towards progress while the Balejos do not, there would even be some who do black magic. Those are capable of metamorphosis to be able to spy eg as a suitcase next to the Lamido and they are responsible for braking the economic development in Africa and if you look around in Adamaoua - everything confirms this theory empirically, economic and human development is almost non-existent.

Well - you see, black magic indeed is a really big issue in Cameroon.

The Austrian delegation (from left to right: His Majesty the Lamido, Mag. Fabian Amann, Dr. Elisabeth Neier, my humble self, Rudolf Heimboeck and one of the Lamido's Ministers)

BTW: The reason why I can now actually put this blog entry online: The exoneration has not worked out. That’s why I took over responsibility of a procurator and with the help of a friend of my boss I am now a stickler for red tape in the capital Yaoundé and in Douala.

Sannu Nazara! Jam-na ?

2008-02-04T18:18:00.006+01:00

I am living in an African village.

Read this sentence again. It has to melt down your tongue just like a scoop of icecream develops its flavour when it liquidifies in your mouth before you can get a mere notion of its taste. It took me about two weeks to swallow this, to really realize this reality. You may want to read it again and you still will not catch the meaning of it.

So there I am, in the middle of Cameroon’s Bushlands of Adamaoua, enjoying the nice climate of the current dry season. To give you a first glance on what I am living here, I am working in a hospital with 150 beds run by the protestant church, supported with Austrian and US-American donations. It’s the only hospital with the basic equipment for operations in an enormous area, people are coming from 150 or even 200 km away to get treatment here. However, the market of medical care still manages to divide up in several segments. Often patients don’t arrive any more for the large distance calls its victims, so that cases are directly being taken care of by the church. Often the illness is not bad enough to see the expensive doctor and the local medicine man of a village will be able to help with his fancy smokes, magic animal bones’ or horn powder, curing herbs and the like. And there are many patients with intermediate illnesses; they remain to form our main market.

The creation of the hospital some 50 years ago has caused the emergence of a tiny village which slowly grew to its nowadays’ size of estimated 1500-2000 souls. People are living in simple circumstances, houses or rather huts are made from clay and usually have thatched roofs. Almost only the European’s and the hospital management’s houses are constructed with concrete and have proper roofs, accommodating thousands of bats. And this is the place I call home for this whole year.

So, what is more to describe – think of cocks and hens all around, think of goats everywhere, banana-plants, palmtrees, papaya plants, a river… and the New Year's Eve was probably the most fascinating and exciting of my life, partying in our village's church together with a crowd of cool children who by now are getting my friends already :-) And to explain my statement above, the children often call me Nazara, because I am a Nazara, I look like one of those missionaries from imperialistic times that always told of a very good man from Nazara... or as we call it: Nazareth.

Feel again, what does my initial statement taste like? Is it like caramel-peanut? Peanuts are a commodity that does indeed grow here in this dusty environment and one of the few sweets we can get here are "caramelles d'arachides". It is delicious!

Well, I shall mention that this is one of my very few signs of life for the moment as I don't have any internet available that is less than a journey of 7 hours away. Sorry for this, I am working on a solution. Meanwhile you may call me on +237 - 94701802.

Aslaam alequm! – an intercultural experiment

2007-11-27T04:52:00.000+01:00

One thing every average European will remark immediately upon arrival to India is the omnipresence of moustaches and beards. Especially moustaches serve as a symbol of a person adhering to Hinduism. To illustrate this here is one picture a typical bearer of a moustache (also called “Besen im G’sicht” as in “Komm, Süßer Tod”; 2000) in a semi-rural street setting:

With a feeling that having a beard is somehow not only a sign of Hinduism but might also be of social relevance, I saw myself prompted to find out whether there are remarkable differences. Indeed, after a couple of weeks of waiting and a slight change in my average cloths I had a very interesting walk through Bangalore recently.
So, all of a sudden people greeted me in the street not in that particular disturbing way as they usually do when seeing white people, but say “Aslaam alequm!” in a friendly tone. To make one thing clear – I am not and will never be disposed for having a moustache in Hindu-style, by consequence the only alternative to come up with was a rather muslim-like beard:

Market Acceptance Test: Auto-Rickshaws
Drivers of auto-rickshaws can sometimes be particularly annoying, they rip off all people, not only whites, backed by a strong mafia (or call it unregistered union). So, with the outfit and beard as shown above I ask for a ride proposing 15 Rupees and immediately get it without discussion. That was amazing. In average negotiations with white people they start at levels of 80 or 100, for large distances sometimes even 250 Rupees. Even very short trips often won’t come for less than 50 Rs with me as the customer. And that little adaptation helped me that much? Well, perhaps my Indian friends want to comment on this?
Whatever, my preliminary conclusion is that changing cloths can be nice once in a while, as I don’t only have kurtas and kufi caps I will continue the normal urban struggle of a European in the streets of Bharat.

Indian Subcultures and Scripts

2007-10-29T10:44:00.001+01:00

One of the most amazing fact on India is its enormous amount of different cultures. That finds its expression in one Indian political exclamation: “Unity in Diversity!” So it happens that almost each state has a different people, different language (or more than one) and different scripts. To show you this, here are some pictures of cool looking, often political statements or advertisements to be found anywhere in an Indian city. In the first one you can see a letter that I like very much as in my opinion it looks almost like the Greek letter “φ” upside down.
In general, walls in streets are used everywhere for political messages, so, flags are a common symbol besides writings. Those, at least, can offer a more communication also to visitors who at sight of Tamil script only see their aesthetic point of view.

On my way through Tamil Nadu to Thrivandrum I could spot something that made me very happy. In all the efforts of creating various scripts for each Indian sub-culture Tamils did put in some extra work and enabled that my nickname also exists in the local script, readable as much as flags for internationals.
Thank you for this! :-)

In the Circus

2007-10-28T10:49:00.000+01:00

Recently I figured out a kind of metaphor that might approximate my situation and feelings on my study and research tour in India - at least a bit.
In a way I often times feel like if I was in a circus, a huge circus. There are innumerable people sitting in the ranges. And they all are watching me in the arena! However I realize that it is not me who is the artist. I just happen to be in the center of that virtual arena for being an exotic European - rather in the role of a clown that behaves in a strange or wrong way. And all the masses around me, staring at me, are the actual artists. Artists in life...
So what happens, they keep on gazing at me, all the time. Sometimes smiling, often with an indescribable expression of suffering from hunger, another time full of amazement for seeing a foreigner, calling "Where U from?", often trying to sell their merchandise or services and sometimes even shouting (at me or just around in a lunatic way) for no obvious reason.
And I do my thing, eat with cutlery, use my left hand for unimaginable things, wear shoes on places where it is not expected to do so (causing some of that shouting from a local intervening with a proper reason), blow my nose or take pictures.

And there even are elephants and monkeys, just like in a circus - So what else could this be than a circus?

Well... call it 'incredible India'.

Namaskar!

That's a tasty toe!
:-P

Movie star?

2007-10-22T10:48:00.001+01:00

In the guides to India they indicate that Mumbai is the place of Bollywood and westerners are wanted for their movies. Yet, I became actor in a movie somewhere else. That happened on one of the weekends in Chennai where I was asked whether I’d like to play in a Tamil movie… Well – I did like to try this new experience and enjoyed it on a Sunday morning. The plot was simple, a weird love story and my role was fixed to be a clerk at the American embassy dealing with the visa application of the one who fell in love, talking to the main officer about the case. That was fun and interesting to see how they put a professional looking scene onto the film roll out of a makeshift setting that in reality does not evoke resemblance to an embassy. In the role of the embassy guy there was precisely one sentence to say, besides some mimics and gestures to perform. However, I continuously doubt that my English accent would really make up a good American embassy employee.

My first days

2007-10-18T12:10:00.000+01:00

I want to come into detail about my first days and the culture shock I have lived through (and still do). Already the very first hour in India confronted me with a widely known aspect of this culture that I haven’t expected to touch me that soon: Religion.
At one side there were the Ganesha-Festivities all over the country. That was the reason why I could not continue my journey to Bangalore and Vellore by bus or train as those were all booked out long before. I had to spend the whole day in Hyderabad waiting for the domestic flight to continue to Bangalore in the evening. This extended my total travel time to more than 32 hours what exhausted me quite a bit.
At the other side Hyderabad has a large Muslim community so on that same day there were thousands of Muslim pilgrims at the airport travelling to Mecca during the ‘Ramzan’ (Ramadan) – all of them wearing nothing more than a white towel and sandals, I was continuously astonished watching this happening around me.
Perhaps I should mention that the airport in Hyderabad looks not exactly what one expects an airport to look like. There is a lot of business going on and if there wasn't a mosque right in front of the main entrance(s) I would rather compare it to a bigger bus terminal or train station in Europe.
Well, at the end of that day I decided to conveniently stay at *any* hotel in the centre. The next day I woke up, with a horrible jetlag as i had never experienced it before. That was in a hotel in the centre of Bangalore - not exactly a bargain. Again, things were not coming close to expectations to the Indian Silicon City. In front of that hotel there was a muddy street, disgusting noises, everywhere dirt, tunes, poor people, horning vehicles of all kind, no free space and some 50 metres of a walk I spotted the very first holy animal - a cow. In the next street I was amazed by the first temple, a quite boring one from nowadays point of view. And as before, wherever I went to people wanted to talk to me, beg, sell some goods or just for the fun of knowing my name and/or where come from. While walking further, an exotic religious sound (wouldn't call that singing) that remotely reminded me of Muezzins or the Qur'ān-readings in the Qatar Airways plane radio made me experiencing pure India from the first moments on.
In other words, nothing that looked like the most westernized city of the country.
I figured out later that this was not the newest part of Bangalore.

I was expected to arrive in Vellore Institute of Technology very soon, so I had to continue without completing interviews in Bangalore at that time. From nowaday's point of view that was good luck since only later I got really good contacts to relevant experts.

Some pictures

2007-10-18T10:52:00.001+01:00

As promised I am sharing a couple of photos with you. There is more to come. (largely depending of the available internet connection)
One obvious approach to learn about Indian culture are newspaper articles. In hotels it is common that guests receive the daily newspaper directly into their room in the early morning, a costume I appreciate. Here are some articles of "intercultural interest" from the Indian Times:

For Europeans the classifieds are fun to read. Many marriage ads are placed by parents (sic!) in an decent style. Once i find a representative one I should add it here.

For the time being, here is a culturally customized typical sign for the ladies' restroom, as found in Bangalore:

These pics were taken on my first weekend in Chennai on 'Marina Beach' where many kids playing cricket lost their lives in the Tsunami in december 2004.

I had participated at International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Hyderabad and SEDS International Conference in Vellore, so here are some photos from there.
The first with myself faking a speech on the potential of a new market research method to forecast the space tourism market. On the second I am holding a japanese picosatellite (SEEDS project from UNISEC) in my hands.

With this photo of daily street life in India combined with life-philosophy (it became my desktop wallpaper) I wish you a very nice day! Don't hesitate to comment! See you soon!
(c:

Incredible India!

2007-10-10T18:12:00.000+01:00

Dear friends around the planet,

this is the start of my blog marking the my first weeks out of yet another nomad phase of my life that I now spend in India and next year in Cameroon, Africa. With this I hope to bring my experiences closer to you even though I may be more than far away from you.

The conventional nature of such a blog might be that it is structured in a certain chronicle order, however I have to break with such conventions as outstanding events and mindblowing experiences deserve priority attention. So I thought initially I shall tell about my first three weeks in a very concise way to avoid boring stories – and what would be more concise than some simple statistics?

One visit to an entirely golden temple
One illegal beer obtained in a dark spot of the streets of Bangalore
One visit to a beautiful 'normal' but significant temple
Countless people living in misery everywhere
A medieval fort where I almost felt like beamed into the "Prince of Persia"
Numerous quarrels with auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers re-negotiating prices after the provision of their services
Dozens if not hundreds of temples seen from outside
A visit to the Muslim quarter of Hyderabad and its astonishing markets and bazaars
Got to know to a chancellor (in Austria that somehow corresponds to the rector) of a renowned university plus his director for international relations
Talks with dozens of experts in space industry specialized in reducing the digital divide for the poor
Smalltalk with the cool guys from the ‘Google X Prize Lunar Challenge’
Wasted digestion - more than once
Smalltalk to the Indian minister of education
Probably one deceased person in the streets observed
One temporarily broken laptop
One bath of my passport in the Bengal Sea (not myself as it is not advisable for Europeans to swim in the sea in or around Chennai)
A couple of great expert interviews for my diploma thesis
One ride on a public city bus (amazing experience but not for daily use)

All in all lots of things happening all the time and I am living through a cultural shock each day again. Once I popped into the kitchen of a restaurant and found a place that really looked like I had expected kitchens looked 1000 years ago in Europe (seriously!).

Generally speaking everything works slow and things are not too easy to accomplish, so there is still some way to go for my thesis, but as the laptop works fine again I am more than happy and quite confident for the future studies.

In my next posting I promise to include some photos!
All the best from Chennai, Tamil Nadu!