Ginger from Goa, Curry from Madras and Belgian chocolate

These days I went with a friend to a chocolate exhibition on Radio Hall in Bucharest. There was chocolate and sweets from different European parts. Till now, the best chocolate I had is the Belgian one, so let’s go to the Belgian chocolate stand.

What do we have here? Belgian chocolate with Ginger from Goa?! Ginger from Goa?! Maybe you want to say tan from Goa, or sand, beach, but for sure Goa is not famous for ginger.

Then… What else do we have here? Belgian chocolate with Curry from Madras?! Spice and chocolate… It is more masala on chocolate shape than chocolate.

Belgian chocolate with Indian species. It can be an interesting combination I thought, but these ones were just pathetic. It had nothing to do with the real and delicious Belgian chocolate and they were insane expensive.

The saddest part was that people bought them just because the seller said is a great Belgian chocolate with something that then don’t even know what it is.

That’s why I love to travel!

Andaman

What does this tell you? Andaman.

Sometimes I get into my inbox trip offers. No, no, I didn’t change my mind, I still think I’m my best trip planner, but is good to get news about unknown places.

So, today, I was in the metro when I checked my emails and… Andaman..

Hmm… Where is that? I searched on google and… I forgot to walk. No words:

And I know that even I give you infinite choices you will never guess where is this island.

India!

I still can’t believe it! India has this paradise and we love Goa?! No way! After this I will not be back to Goa. I don’t say Goa is bad, but Andaman is the paradise! If I will ever be back to India, Andaman is on my trip list, together with Kashmir.

How do I change the world?

I’ve seen this topic moving around my AIESEC friends some time back, but I never felt like writing about it. But now, Alexandru Negurici made me pay it forward, so here I am.

Changing the world is a frequent topic discussed in AIESEC. Actually it is the aim of this organization and guess it is what makes us get so involved and passionate about AIESEC. I love AIESEC because makes you feel big, accompanied, you have with you millions of people from around the world and more than 60 years of big dreams made reality, but personally I don’t believe in changing the world.

Why should we change the world? Why should we make a change? Maybe people are happy as they are. How many people in Romania think it was better during Ceausescu’s times? According with the last studies, almost 60% of Romania’s population believes it. They were happy in the Socialist Republic of Romania, we are happy now in Romania.

Who were we to ruin their world? “What is better now? You, the young generation can go abroad, so what, if there is no money? “

Who are they to stain our world with their regrets? “The times are difficult for those who are not working, of course!, why should we carry with the lazy ones? Work, compete, strive for excellence and you will have a good life”.

For our grandparents’ generation, the communism was a good thing. I believe it too; and Vietnam is a great example that communism is a good thing. Americans came to their land wanting to make a change, to free them from communism. Who were they to do that? What gives them the right to change the others? Vietnamese people were happy as they were and at the end, they prove to the whole world being a communist country is the best for them and they don’t require a change.

In A post about people I admire most: Vietnamese you can see it, Google it, or even better, visit Vietnam.

I’m a dreamer and I will never stop being, that’s why I believe the world doesn’t need to be changed, nor followers of dreams. I believe in colors, I believe the sky is just a limit that cows have invented and bad people are just an imagination of people who don’t have the courage to face out the consequences of their own facts.

And now let’s talk about my dreams:

In April 2009, when I left to India I had a dream: to show people around me that India is not as terrifying as it may seem. This is how my blog was created: I wanted to make all of you part of my incredible Indian experience with good and bad. I didn’t think even a second I can fail; therefore one and a half years later, this dream is completely met, and even more, I never thought I can change the mindset of the old people, but it happened! Of course, the dream is not forgotten now; I will take it with me wherever I will be. India is one of the must see in life.

Back to Romania, I have another dream: to convince those around me that there’s a world out there, so take your backpack and discover it! If I’m not mistaken I’m one of the few Romanians who have been backpacking in Asia or who have been in more than 20 countries at 23 years old. I will follow my dream and till 30s I plan to visit China, USA, Middle East and Latin America, backpack with a Romanian and travel in Romania with a foreigner. For the next coming months I plan to be a good guide for all those(foreigners or not) who will visit my town.

I believe example inspires. The world is made of people and only those who need and want it can be changed. And in my opinion these people need examples to follow; they need to see it happens in order to believe it, therefore this is my way of making a change.

I will keep the topic as I received it, so pay it forward: How do you change the world Romeo Man?

I will be back

This is another draft I found in my laptop these days. It is from the same period as the previous one, when I was leaving India.

I think India was the challenge of my life and it’s now when I start having contact with my world when I notice how much this experience change me. I remember I use to cry because the life is unfair, because the things are not as I want them to be. I was always fine after maximum one – two days, I was always keeping the head up and go on, but I always had that bad feeling about the unfair thing happen to me.

A lot of the trainees get very frustrated in India and one here always has ups and downs. Almost all my internship I loved India, but I know I had days when I hated it, when I couldn’t understand it, when I didn’t want to accept what is going on around me, there were days when I was 100% convinced I want to go back to my pink world and days when I was truly sure that I can live here for longer and enjoy being here.

Now, when I see my luggage already done, I know I want to go back home, I want to stop blaming India for all the bad things are happening to us here, I want to remember how is at home, which things are really underdeveloped here and which ones are our frustrated invention. I want to see how the western world is.

I miss

Cleaning my laptop I found an old draft post for my blog, from April 2010, when I was still in India, missing home:

I miss:

• Skating when it snows and listen to Christmas songs
• Warring short skirts and transparent blouses
• Taking sun or enjoying the warm summer sea
• My Tae-Bo trainer
• My breakfast from home: cheese and bacon with a cup of milk with Nesquick
• Wearing gloves
• Running after trams in the morning and getting pissed off for waiting another 5 minutes for the next one
• My soft and big bed
• My welcoming messy room
• To hug and kiss my boyfriend on the street
• The joy to see that the spring is here
• The wonderful feeling of wearing boots
• To horrible wet cold from autumn which always ruins my birthday plans
• I miss my peaceful city
• I miss Sage and the hot chocolate with cinnamon
• I miss the boiled wine after skating
• I miss cherries
• I miss walking and seating on a park
• My body creams

Don’t know what I will miss from India. I think it is too early to realize. I still don’t believe I’m leaving in some days. My internship is over. I always say: ah, it’s still a long time to go home. I will come back to India after my trip, for some days. Will bring you presents, will have a farewell lunch, dinner, party for me. And I will be back. Soon!

Happy Independence Day, India!

For the one that has been my home country for more than a year and for those who have been my guides and made my Indian experience unforgettable:

Happy Independence Day, India!

Happy Independence Day India!!!

India, love and hate relationship

Last night I was checking the Facebook updates and I found Alexandra Birladeanu’s post: India and I, which inspire me to write this reply post.

My Indian experience is over since 3-4 weeks already, I lost the count long time back.

It’s been more than a year in which lots of things happened: legislation, hospitals, police, borders, new holidays, traditions, rules, new friends, old friends, babies, weddings, love stories, life stories, dirt, rats, pollution, monsoon, heat, beaches, faith, love, fights. Some of them can happen being at home as well, some of them are normal for an internship abroad, but after reading Alex and Romeo’s blogs, I think there are things which can be lived only in India.

We all come to India with lots of enthusiasm and adventure spirit. We expect it to be harsh; we expect the bugs, heat, monsoon, illnesses, uncomfortable bed, crowd, mosquitoes to be there; and we come with enough open heart to go beyond this, or at least that’s what we think. Therefore at the beginning, we are fascinated about the traditions, festivals, cloths, jewelleries, relationships, myths. We really love India. I did it! I was happy there. I was excited to play Holi, draw rangoli, decorate the house for Diwali, eat sweets, wear a salvar kameez, saari and so on and so forth. But somehow something happens on the way.

It’s like passionate love, or a love at a very young age: you live it too intensely and it consumes faster. If you don’t learn to live it with the right persons and in the right way, it goes away or even worse, it’s becoming suffocating and you start hating it. We experience too many extreme things that we’d never done in our countries: living in a very bad neighbourhood, travelling with “Personalul” (slow train, cheap and unsafe for girls in the night) from Iasi to Bucharest to save money (I don’t think anyone of us ever thought about it), or eat from unhygienic places; just to give some few examples. And after living a couple of months like this, and adding some new elements as heat, pollution, climate, friends who are far away, one doesn’t have the same open mind to bear with bureaucracy, crowd, new people, and even worse, starts being rude in situations in which normally is not.

And we want to live everything. At least I did: I wanted to see everything was to be seen travel all across India without caring how – I was sure, I will not be back to this land soon. But after being everywhere I wanted to, after doing everything I wanted to, eating, trying everything crossed my mind in a year, living in cheap rooms with bed bugs, getting allergy, I think I learn to listen and understand why my colleagues in office were always telling me: “we don’t do that, we don’t travel like this”. Every country will have good and bad things, beautiful and ugly places, and if we want to love a place, live there (for a year internship one needs his/her own Indian home) and enjoy it, it has to be a nice one, and now, I found it unfair to blame Indians for the frustrations we get due to the way we decide to live.

I also think we are too young, immature and ignorant when we come to India. After I came back from my South-East Asia trip I think we should do that before living in India. We should have a live preparation about Asia culture and lifestyle of a month or so, and afterwards going to Incredible India. Most of the times we have no idea how different can be this continent, or that Europe is a pink and wonderful world, but the only one and it is just a very small part of the world. Therefore me and others to don’t say all of us (those who stay for a year especially), come to India and when we get tired, start blaming India for a lot of things. Don’t know if higher salary is the solution, guess a better and more open AIESEC India will mean less frustration too.

All in all, I haven’t heard stories so intensely lived as in India. As Indians like to say: “India has everything!”, and it can’t be just love, it is love – hate relationship.

Soon I will stop going to the supermarket

Yesterday, wonderful day, so wonderful than the supermarket knew my fridge is empty and appear on my way. It wasn’t any supermarket, but a cheap one – BILLA. Great! I told myself. I will can get good deals, nothing more relaxing than shopping in a Romanian cheap supermarket after a year in India: cheese, olives, pemmican, cheese again, salami, sausages, cheese again, can food and the list goes on… no sweets included – in India I had sugar for my entire life.

And entire my dream walk is pink, nice, wonderful I can say, till… milk: 4 Lei… hmm… how much is this? 1 EUR = 60 Rps. Oh…. this should be a special milk, let’s get the ordinary one: 2 lei. This is better. Milk with Omega 3, more than 6 lei?! Oh, no.. We don’t need Milk with that Omega in Romania, it’s fine; only in India they need it, that’s why is cheap.

Pemmican…. 30 lei… hmm… isn’t this quite expensive? Like at least 10 lei more than one year ago… Ah no Anca, it’s fine, you know… the VAT now it’s 24% from 19%, just enjoy it; you missed it.

Next: vegetables. Aiiii!!! And here is where my dreams were over and the nightmares started:

Cucumber 4lei = 1 eur = ~60 Rps. Aaa??

Tomatoes: 5 lei = ~1.3 eur = 80 Rps. No, wait a second, something is wrong. Let’s check the label. No no, they are Romanians, not Turkish. Then, what is going on??!!! Why do we produce such expensive tomatoes??!! In India they are 10 Rps per kg, aka.. around 60 bani.

Potatoes: 2 lei. Uh, I’m alive, this is better!

I didn’t have the courage to check around the prices any more, I just remember that my bill was 100 lei (36 USD, 25 EUR, ~1600 Rps) and I had just a small bag with food enough for 5 breakfasts and a dinner and when I remember that in India I was having good food for 2 weeks with those money I want to cry. And no, dear Indian and Romanian friends, our salaries are not so much higher than yours.

There are things which I don’t understand: everything is the same, at least in Iasi, only some new tram tracks here in there, some better roads and more European norms, but what happened with the prices?! Why they become almost double in a year?!

Now I have to stop practicing one of my favourite hobbies! Or will go bankrupt.

And…

The conclusion? Let’s enjoy the fresh and expensive Romanian vegetables and fruits till you can, it will be worse in winter: much more expensive once and with no taste.

Cultural shocks after internship

I remember having a discussion in AIESEC Iasi about what happens after internship, about reintegration, post traineeship cultural shocks and here I am, more than one year later living my own cultural shocks after my internship in India.

1. Malaysia and the value of money

After more than one year in India I forgot the value of the money, everything is so cheap…so, just imagine myself in Kuala Lumpur International Airport on the money exchange office (I knew that a ringgit is like a leu): 45 USD = 154 ringgits, aka my budget for 5 days in Malaysia which is like 154 RON and suddenly the strongest (at least till now) cultural shock after India:

What?! Anca!!! This is an insane small budget!!!! In Romania you can live only 2 days with this money and now you are in a foreign country… You are mad Anca!!! I really don’t know how you are going to make it…

At the end I manage it to be in budget, here you can know how: Malaysia, amazing country!

2. Indians are the most helpful people I met in my life

Since I land in India till present I always thought and said Indians are the most helpful people. In one year I got used with people helping me and now it’s time to face the reality:

At the end of my trip in Malaysia I was out of cash and the bus dropped me at the other end of the city and people around me were saying:

“How can you don’t have ringgits?”

“What are you doing in this country?”

“Haha! Let’s see what you do now”

Me to myself: ”What’s wrong with you people?! It happens! What can I do if you don’t have ATMs or money exchange offices in Kuala Tahan which is one of the most tourist places?!”

At the end I found someone to help me to reach KL Sentral from where I could take my bus to airport for which I already had a ticket.

3. Too much cloth or too less?

We are always complaining that the dresses of Indian women have too much fabric and I was really eager to wear shorts and short skirts and one night I just wake up in Khao San road, Bangkok, Thailand:

Hey you girls! Dress up!!!

Your bra is showing horrible!!!

Is that a dress or top? It’s quite short for a dress…

Where are your pants?!

What is that haircut?!

4. Right, left and cross!

Thailand – Cambodia border just passed the Thai border, going to clear the immigration from Cambodia side, but wait a second, something is wrong, the office should be on the other part of the road…

Oh! They are driving on the left as us!! Oha! This is cool! Like home!

Yeah, right! Just watch me:

• Trying to get into a minibus, after some days: Hey miss! The door is on this side!
  To myself: Aiii, why did you change the side of the door?!
  Of course it was on the right side, because the wheel was on the left.
• In a tuk-tuk and motorbike: “Nooo!!! We will crash!!!!”
  No, it’s just driving on the other side of the road. Remember Anca? Like home…
• Crossing the street: right, left and… crooo… beeeeeeeee beeeeeee … sss?!! Ah! This is really confusing!
  Let’s try again: Left, right and Crooossss!!!!

Guess how long I’ve been in India according with Indian emigration authorities

Responsibility? Quality? Efficiency?

These are words which are unknown for the big Indian mass. The intention of this post is not to criticize, nor raise a question mark for the Indian citizens who use their brains.

This week I’ve been once again to FRRO (Foreigner Regional Registration Office) to extend my visa and first of all my visa application was rejected because: “the AIESEC logo is black and white instead blue, and even if it has the stamp and the signature in original it is not an original, it is a fax”. Excuse me!!!??? Who told you it has to be blue?! Who are you to certify that a document is brand aligned or not? How it matters for you if it is brand aligned or not if it has the signature and stamp in original? And what do you know about the brand AIESEC to say how it supposes to be?

Finally I succeed to convince the ladies from FRRO Mumbai that it can be black and white as well and I promise next time I go I will gift them the page from the AIESEC Brand Toolkit which says how can be the logo in a document. Well, if they insist, then will teach them about the brand AIESEC.

In India the security is a very high concern because of objective reasons, so the authorities need more information about everyone is in India than in my country for example. Very reasonable and understood able. And now guess something:

What is the information that Indian Emigration Office has about me?

According with The Indian Emigration Office I have been in India for 3 years!!!! My visa was issued in 2007 and it expires in 2010, but my passport was issued in 2008.

Me to the lady from FRRO: “This is a mistake! How can this be possible?!”

The lady: “Ah, it is just a typo, you must be inserted wrong, it is fine, and we will modify it”.

For sure I didn’t write that my visa was issued in 2007!!! And even if that will be true, you have to verify it. It’s insane!! It is an official document! How can you make such kind of mistake??!!! It is not your personal diary where you can make mistakes, it is about people, immigration documents, legal documents, lives!

I will never stop to be amazed about how some Indians can justify everything; absolutely everything can be forgiven and justified. They don’t think: “oh, uh, i made a mistake I should be more careful”. No! Excuses, excuses and excuses! I’m sorry guys, but there is no excuse for a mistake as saying that I’m an Indian citizen in an official exam record, or write in a visa application of a Canadian citizen that is Indian and because of it her visa gets rejected and after she needs visa to enter in UK, or saying that I’ve been in India for the last 3 years.

All this is called incompetency, irresponsibility, not using the brain!

What if the Indian authorities have the same wrong records about those who are involved in illegal things?!