Big shadows and dim light

Ok, about time for a review of the last month. It took me long enough to get around to write about it, because I was hoping I’d collect some more positive stories to tell, but with only 3 days to go I surrender. I was hesitating what to write – mum always said “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything”. Sorry mum, but not talking about it won’t make it go away, therefore I can share my experience just as well. Working on this construction site was challenging in so many ways that I won’t even attempt to cover them all, but I owe you an impression.

The setup
Gujarat (the state I’m located at) has some particularities. First of all: it’s a “dry” state which means that alcohol if prohibited and you can only get it with a liquor licence. Therefore photocopies of every site-visitor’s passports are taken to get one and purchase alcohol. Reminds me a bit of my dive-guide days in Egypt where we collected the passports from the new arrivals to buy booze at the local duty free shop.
A lot of the local Hindis are “Chain”, which is a religious group within Hinduism the values life above everything. Thinking of India most of you think of holy cows, but here EVERY animal is protected, meaning Gujarat is a veggie state. Somehow they get chicken, pork and even meat to our canteen – I don’t ask any questions how it gets there! However, the food is pretty good.

Camp life
You can’t go anywhere because Surat, the next city, is 90 minutes away and even there is nothing to go to. Mumbai is a 6hrs car ride from here, and seeing that I worked almost every weekend a trip there was totally out of bounds. I realized that I’m not a camp-person. I don’t need an unreasonable amount of variety or solitude, but living and working together without the possibility of withdrawing yourself every now and then can be tiring. Being management makes it even more complicated because people walk up to you in the bar (after you’ve been at the office for 12 hours) and lay down their oh-so-important problems (‘TV channel 19 doesn’t work’, ‘The dart board needs mats because the darts go blunt when they drop on the floor’, ‘The menu hasn’t been published on the notice board’). Against my true nature of being helpful and saying yes to everything I drew a line implementing a policy of not talking business in the bar. To say that this behaviour wasn’t appreciated is an understatement and the ‘offer’ to raise their issue during my working hours was rarely taken. I met a few nice people, but I certainly wouldn’t win a popularity contest here. Most of the people around here are divas and I’d rather herd a bunch of spoiled only kids than all those freelancers – at least the kids could be bribed with some ice cream!

The lazy tiger
Disclaimer: If you’re Indian and NOT like described as follows, step forward and I’ll apologize!
I consider myself as quite open when it comes to foreign cultures, but my stay here made me a little …let’s say reluctant when it comes to that.
When it comes to Indians one has to distinguish between A) those that got around a bit and B) those who never left their country. Having met a couple of Indians before (A), I didn’t have any prejudices – NOW I DO! Here you only find category B! Therefore the following conclusions:
1. Getting an honest answer from an Indian at the first attempt is as hard as picking up a guy in a gay bar: impossible! I’ll try to believe that it’s a cultural thing, like in China (despite knowing that it isn’t).
2. They are a lazy bunch, the lot of them. Tiger stat my a**! The workers on site turn up at 9-10am instead of 7:30 as they’re supposed to. They are totally resistant to learning as if you poured water in a glass without a bottom.
3. I seriously doubt there is a term in Hindi for hygiene – only explanation I have for what I’ve seen.
4. The infamous head-jiggle (I’ll gladly show you what I mean when I see you next time) manages to freak out everyone, cause a “yes sir” or “yes madam” it usually accompanies gets automatically reduced to “I have no idea what you’re talking about” by this.
5. Corruption is daily business. Examples: Some local “Dons” of Akhakohl Village tried to “provide” the cars and drivers for our sites – for twice the price you’d usually pay. They consider it their god-given right to do so and made their point by beating up the drivers we hired.
A colleague brought some tools on his way back from Germany. He went to the customs to declare them and wasn’t willing to bribe, because he needed a receipt to claim the money back later on. The customs employees were severely disappointed, so he ended up spending 4! Hours with the guys, paying 70% import tax on the tools, getting his personal stuff checked as well and had to pay 300 bucks for bringing 2 laptops instead of one. The boss of them bid him goodbye with the words “So, did we learn something today?”
6. Our client had the plans for the site long before works started. The entrance to our camp would have been a 5 minute ride by car. Once the camp was built, the client built a wall blocking the entrance. Requests to open the spot where our cars were supposed to drive through were rejected, because the entrance points to the west and therefore bad spirits could enter the camp. What strikes me a bit odd is that they’d actually allow a break-through once we settle a couple of open points in favour of the client.
7. We had a huge lay down area planned. After the works started, the client decided that this area is actually the energy centre of the whole construction area (Feng Shui is BIG here). So they fenced it, built up some little hills and trees and now go praying there while we are struggling to store their stuff all over the site.
…I could go on like this for hours, but I guess you got an idea.

Personal ‘low’-light
A colleague got seriously sick and despite trying to convince him, his boss and the general manager of the severance of the situation, I got told off to shut up for political reasons. 4 days later he got so sick that he had to be hospitalized, so I found myself visiting him at the hospital (2hrs drive x2 after 10hrs at the office), making the camp doctor stay with him to take care only of him, a private nurse to compensating for the understaffed hospital crew, re-scheduling his flights, organizing wheelchair assistance for his trip back, calming down his wife and keeping her up-to-date… no complaints about that. Our employee, my job. What REALLY pissed me off was his complain to the commercial site manager I was deputizing for that nobody took care of him! UNGREATFUL PRAT! I worked my butt of for him and he doesn’t even remotely appreciate that. Gladly the commercial knew what I had done for that guy and therefore could evaluate that statement, but still…

Personal highlight
Met 3 nice sub-contractors (the ones I was supposed to visit as announced in the previous post).Unfortunately their plans changed and they had to come here, but they brought the promised king prawns I had been promised, cooked for me and we had a great time during their visit. Awesome!

On the bottom-line
First of all I developed great respect for the commercial who has been doing this job for almost a year and will stay at least another. I know that he has a tough time here and that I’d probably surrender. I bow myself in awe!
So, how do I feel after all that?!? Defeated? …naaaah! It’s only been 4 weeks that will make me appreciate the much easier work-conditions I’ll find in France, now knowing it could be that much worse.

In the end every day reveals perfection, by what it is or what it is not.