Me looking down from the world’s famous paragliding site: Billing

Unfortunately now it’s not the season for paragliding. In fact, the monsun reached the north of India and it will rain for the next three months. For the moment it is not too bad. Still I have to get used to the fact that clothes dont dry, my favorite walk to the fields are not walkable any more and I have to walk the road, mosquitoes come at nights, the power and the internet goes down all the time. what to do? – ‘kya karna’ in Hindi. That question comes to my head a lot in this country

anyway, my Zivi-colleague Bernie took some nice pictures of our visit to Billing:

http://bernindien.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/fliegen-in-billing/

1. Zwischenbericht an das österreichische Bundesinnenministerium für Inneres

Da viele eigentlich nicht genau wissen, was ich in Indien eigentlich mache, dachte ich mir den ersten Zwischenbericht online zu stellen. Der erste Bericht ist nach vier Monaten fällig, dann gibts noch ein zweiten und dann den großen Endbericht.

Ich hätte mir mehr Mühe geben können – aber das ja immerhin für die Regierung ist und das Gerücht herum schlummert, dass die zuständigen Beamten soderso keine Zeile lesen, hab ich meinen Schreibfluss gebändigt (der ja soderso nicht umwerfend ist) .

sorry, dass ich nicht mehr schreibe. ich sollte unbedingt mehr nieder schreiben, einerseits für euch – aber auch für mich, denn viele Tagesgeschehnisse einmalig und erinnernswert sind.

Hier der Bericht:

1-zwischenbericht_simon-baur

Wrestling Ground at the annual Rakkar Mela – First time a local was challenged by a white man

First they did not want me to fight ecause I my pants did not match the uniform code. Since they were all excited about having a white guy in the circle they told me to fight anyway. It was against a Gaddi – a local Shepherd.

It reminded me of the good old times …

After the fight I could feel the stones inside my knees.

From the fight I had seen before, I knew there are not many rules. Still I tried to make him loose with dignity.

This was his last breath.

I had fought in Europe for five years and did not receive one cent – here they give me 80 Rupees for a fight!

The village treated me like a hero! I felt very proud …

My new room and its surroundings

For various reasons I moved out from my room at Dr. Barbara to an Indian family, away from the streets – into the village. Now I have the fields in front of my room, which is the one that has the door with the window.

and the mountains in the backyard … sometimes the neighbors are there studying in the fields

now they harvested wheat and the fields are all ours to play Frisbee. The plowers, however, will come soon to prepare the soil for the rice season.