Kolkata/Calcutta - Corrie

Well, India is all I expected...crowded, noisy, dirty, colourful, vibrant....I lOVE IT!

We are hanging out in Calcutta since the village we were to work in got flooded. So we are hanging out a a hotel that costs $25/night...eating amazing food for a few dollars a day, and drinking copious amounts of cheap beer.

I hired a young university graduate with an economics degree to take us around and show us the sites and negotiate prices for us....i am no good at it and apparently have made many dozens of people in india giddy with excitement by over tipping...it is hard for me to keep track of all these different currencies we have been using....

Yesterday i told him I wanted to go sari shopping, so we took a local bus (made of wood...really, the whole big bus was wooden...like a very old street car at heritage park). The ride was quite an experience...even more chaotic than in Africa....only they drive faster (because there are no enormous potholes)....let me talk about pot holes for a moment...

In Africa, every road was so full of enormous potholes, that a 160km journey takes 7 hours! It was brutal... we would get out of the van after a days drive and litterally feel like we had been hit by a truck...African massage my foot! But I digress....back to India...

After the bus ride of an hour, we stopped for tea. Tea was served by a young boy from a small cart on the side of the road. It was served in a plastic pill cup (holds less than an ounce of tea). The tea was boiled milk and sugar and tea leaves (and several dozens of flies)...quite tasty really.

Then we climbed on the back of a bike with a wooden platform pulled behing for the ride to the sari shop. When you go in stores here, you take off your shoes...so I did, then they had me sit on a large mattress on the floor. I spent over an hour in the shop, with several people laying out before me some of the most beautiful fabrics with sequence, and beads, and stitching. One sari I bought took the woman 2 weeks to hand sew....I paid the equivilant of $12. Needless to say i bought 4! Am thinking i will make curtains out of them...

Tonight I am going back there and we are getting my guide's girlfriend to show me how to wear the sari, and she will paint my hands with henna. Then we will go out for another incredibly delicious meal.

I will add here that I am a bit jealous of Indian women who get to wear so many beautiful things....even pretty beads and jewels (or red dots0 stuck to their foreheads. I always thought this was a religious thing, but it is simply to tell the world you are married....like a wedding ring.

My guide has been giving me lots of information about the economy here, and i am very intrigued...return on investmenst here is guaranteed by the government at 10%, with most returning between 25-30%. With compund interest, you can almost double your money in 5 years...leaves me thinking about how one might invest, and use the return as seed money for micro-finance schemes here to help the poor....

Anyway, I have been informed, with my net worth liquidated, I could live as a millionaire here for the rest of my life...have a large home, 2 cars, servants...never to have to work (for money that is)...it is tempting...i could live here more than comfortable, and volunteer to help those less fortunate...maybe be a micro-finance banker...or I could start a business and contribute to india's burgeoning economy and help employ some of the millions of over-educated, under-employred indians...

West Bengal(the province we are in) lags behind the rest of India economically. Poverty here is huge...natural calamity (mostly floods) plagues the area...that is why it is so cheap...also why I probably could not live here...it is too humid...other parts of india however, though not as cheap to live, are dryer, and I vow to return when I have more time to explore this beautiful and diverse country, and to investigate some financial investment opportunities...anyone else want to come along??