Cultural Difference: Definition of communication

I forgot to read the memo or rather, some one forget to show me the memo; If planning to live in India, please come with your emotional shock absorber...because without shock absorber, the magnitude of the shock you experience here will be too much for you to handle.

Last time I checked, Communication is a two way thing and one of definitions of communication is Two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange (encode-decode) information but also create and share meaning.

So really, I find it dumb and annoying when my fellow Nigerian Interns sent me IMs on the office chat, that I was not communicating with the team. I thought it was only me they had issues with, but apparently they have same issue with my Lithuanian flatmate/team-mate.

I don't know how it is else where, but in the two companies that I worked in Nigeria...most of our relationship with colleagues are professional. I mean I do not share my personal business with you neither do I want to hear your personal business except we are cool...with exception to occasional compliments, you look gorgeous, I love your top, bla bla bla.

One thing about me is I am a very private person...like I love minding my own business and do not go into people's business. I am one who people have wrong impressions of and most times I do not bother correcting the impression.

So yesterday, Dotun( fellow intern and Nigeria) called I and Kristina( Lithuanian flatie) that people are complaining that we do not interact with the team that we would rather talk to each other. Funny thing is even though Kristina and I live in the same flat, we hardly talk each other...At work, our seat is so far from each other, we purpose do not talk or seat close during lunch with the team, back at the flat, we stay put in our rooms....

My interaction so far with the team is I greet everyone every morning and most time decide not to answer you, I no vex for this one, neither have I stopped greeting like most people do. The whole team seat and eat lunch together...while they speak Hindi, Kristina and I stare ahead, me I just watch the news...if I need help with work, I meet them and ask questions.

We particularly roll and talk to chicks on the team and kind of relate with these two...and according to Dotun, talking to this two chicks do not count, and that i do not understand. The two chick who have issues, I cannot remember the last time they ever uttered none professional words with me. 

Because, like I told Dotun, I do not know them and I cannot just utter words that pop into my head to them. I am particularly cautious when dealing with ladies, because I know we get offended by the slightest utterance. These two chick actually most times do not answer when I greet...and from what I know when you greet people and they do not answer you, it only means one thing they do not like your gut...I still no vex oh, greet them everyday.

If you cannot respond when I greet, why should I now carry my head to discuss non-professional gist with you. I don't get it.

Kristina's issue with them, is the fact that they talk about her...crazy thing is they talk about you and open their stupid teeth to laugh with you. What thing they fail to realize is even though they speak in Hindu, we just know when they are talking about us because they would mention your name.

Thing is Indians are enclosed set of people, and we try to understand this or rather we are expected to understand the Indians and adapt to their way of life. They as people do not allow anything change their belief, they not open-minded, yet expect the world to accept and adapt to their way of life. 

The issue is not even that this people are talking to us and we refuse to answer them or snob them. They are not talking to us, I hate attending lunch with them, because they spend all the time speaking Hindi to themselves and forget we exist. Because of this, I put my earphone on and listen to music when there is nothing interesting to watch on TV during lunch. I have gotten more addicted to my phone and twitter since I got here...I just tweet away while they gist.

Yeah, as AIESEC interns, we are supposed to be change agents who live the AIESEC values...then again, I asked Dotun, who has been here for more than a year and leaves in two weeks what change he has been able to impact on this people.

I really don't know how else to communicate with them, abeg my people, let me know what I am missing, and how else I can communicate with this people because right now I am lost.

Aunty Comfort

As a child, I hated food

For me, food was torture

Memories of family member forcing food down my throat is still vivid.

Even the househelps had the right to beat me to eat.

A slice of bread was too much for me.

Despite my hatred for food.

I always looked forward to the trip to Egbaland

Where I get to enjoy Aunty's Comfort's dish.

It was only food made by Aunty Comfort, that I devour

with no questions, and happily.

Aunty Comfort was the cook at my Uncle's hotel in Abeokuta.

She was the wife of the Hotel manager.

Aunty Comfort was a sweet and lovely woman.

I loved her humily and her cheerfulness.

The last time I saw Aunty Comfort was last June

I was in Egbaland for my Cousin's half brother's 50th Birthday.

I was glad to see her.

Aunty Comfort was able to walk.

She had an accident 2 years before in the premises of the hotel.

Some drunk idiot in the process of reversing his car had her into the wall.

Details of the accident is still a shock to witness.

The distance of the car to where she was more than a kilometer.

No one saw the car coming with full speed on reverse.

Crazy thing was, her children left for Ghana the day before

They wanted her to move to Ghana with them.

Aunty Comfort refused

She has been in Nigeria for so long

and was not ready to be separated from her husband.

She had been bed-ridden for the 2 year

Every one was so happy when she finally able to walk

Aunty Comfort passed away  2 weeks ago

She died in her sleep.

She has since been buried in her hometown in Ghana.

May her soul rest in perfect peace.

--------

2011 is looking turning out to be a year of turmoil and more death.

Yes, Countries are fighting for liberation from their leader.

I was having lunch, when the video of Christchurch earthquake was shown on TV.

It did not click in my head that it was real.

It looked more like watching a scene from "The day after tomorrow" or all those world coming to an end movies.

Then it dawned on me, this was real.....

I have friends in New Zealand, for a very long time, I could not remember who lives in Christchurch.

All I knew was a friend lives there, and I kept telling my lithuanian flatmate/teammate that I have a friend in the city

I was shivering all over, lunch and my mood was over...even with LDP telling me my friend was okay, I did not rest till I finally answered my call. He was in shock, his home was gone, and I think he lost some close friends. 

Also found out that a classmate at the university also passed away and yesterday was her wake keep. 

All I can say his my the Good Lord grant all departed, eternal rest and may He give their families and loved ones the strength to bear the loss.

Thank you so much LDP 

Wonders of Hyderabad: Golkonda Fort and The Buddha Statue

My friends,  Ibifiri and Micheal are back in Nigeria, they are done with their internship. Micheal is still considering coming back to India for another Internship, this time in his field of study, Architecture...right now I am the only girl left with 4 boys and 2 of them are leaving at the end of the month.Weekends are now spent in my flat.

Last weekend,I visited the Golkonda Fort and Buddha Statue with a couple of fellow interns The Golkonda fort is a ruined city situated on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The walls have ears was a phrase which I always thought was figurative till I visited the fort. One can hear what is said in another section of the palace clearly...I bet in those days amebo was just not possible in the kingdom.

Later in the evening, we went to Hussain Sagar to see the Buddha Statue. The 18m high monolithic statue of the Buddha is the largest in the India. The Hussain Sagar Lake in which Statue is situated is artificial built in 1562 to meet the water and Irrigation need of the city.

In the Auto (AKA Keke Napep or Marwa)

relics from the Palace

Cultural Text in Braille

Indian Family having lunch

An Hindu Temple inside the fort

At the Buddha Statue:

♥ Lara  from Incredible India

TCS-AIESEC Global Village III: (Country Presentation) 26th February

Country presentation (food and dance)...I only got to taste the vegetable soup made by Lilian...them Indians ate all the food. We were actually surprised at the number of people that came, because most Indians are vegetarians...we were told a large number of Chennai people were vegetarians. In our mind, we were going to balance and eat our food ourselves because it contained Egg, Mutton and Chicken. To our surprise these people kept coming back till the whole thing finished...even the Plantain cake I made for myself was gone...

The Nigerian Booth

Talking about Nigeria

Also made Plantain cake, I got to take a spoon...the Indians ate it all

The Serbian Booth

Rwanda

Switzerland

With the Global HR Head, Mr Yogesh

My German Flatie in the German Traditional Regalia

Dancing the Naija way

TCS-AIESEC Global Village II: (Cooking Business) 26th February

The Nigerian Dish was Moin moin (Beans Cake) and Vegetable Soup

I did not appear in most of the cooking pictures because I and some people had to go to the market to get the ingredients that was wrongly purchased for us.

@ Sweetness: Dal is a different kind of beans, totally different from our Nigerian type of beans....it is refered to in English as Kidney beans and used to make a soup similar to the Yoruba Gbegiri soup (Beans Soup)... and the leaf was not our Ugwu, I did not get the name but it is very good replacement for the Ugwu leaf.

One issue with getting food ingredient here in India is that, they do not know it by the names we are used to in Nigeria or any other part of the world. So when we saw the type of beans that the logistics team had bought, i just even sure we would get to prepare anything. The chick in charge kept arguing that it was Kidney beans she was told to buy and said their was nothing they could do about it. They also bought banana for the Cameroonian and Ghanaian instead of Plantain. We insisted on going to the market ourselves and get what we want. We were provided with a driver and money to go to the make ourselves and after about 2hours of going round Chennai, we got what we wanted, beans and plantain....

The bean we got so tiny and peeling the skin off was another wahala on its own, the skin refused to peel after one hour and we were running out of time. I was of the opinion that we scrap it, since the soup self ready, then Dotun came up with the idea that we blend the beans with the skin still on it. We did just that, and it turned out well...just black and no one bothered to ask why the finished product was different from what was on the pamphlet.

Feran (Naija Clan) The lastest addition to the TCS Naija Family

  

My Home girl Feyi and Edward from Kenya

Adedotun, Catching his fun

Off to prepare the dish

Iryna from Ukraine

Brazilian Crew

Sergie and Assel representing Kazakhstan

Edward and Diana from Kenya

Eric from Ghana

Ivorian guy

The Germans doing their thing.

Ferenc (The ACE program Coordinator) from Hungary

By the time every one was done with the cooking and the event proper was to start, I was already full from tasting dishes up and down. We did not get a picture of our special moin moin because, by the time it was ready, event proper had started. 
Final product of all long hours of labor:

The Efe riro (Vegetable Soup)