href="#ulink_3d710868-9913-5614-be9a-ed2ea6b58ca3">2.1 The Indian Ocean world
5.1 Country equivalents for India’s states by population
5.2 Country equivalents for India’s states, GDP per person, Purchasing Power Parity
6.1 The three cities of Hyderabad
7.1 The Seven Sisters—the northeast states of India
8.1 Bangladesh
11.1 The Indonesian Archipelago
11.2 Bali
one
Traveling with a Purpose
“How do you like Madagascar?” The waiter at Ku-de-ta—the name is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the country’s history of illegal power grabs—asked me the question he probably asked all foreigners at the restaurant.
His timing was bad. I was exhausted and dispirited. I wanted to say, “Not as much as I did yesterday,” but my French wasn’t up to the linguistic nuance and I didn’t want to make a well-meaning waiter feel uncomfortable. Instead I smiled, mumbled something affirmative, and reached for my beer.
We all face setbacks in our lives and are supposed to grow stronger because of them, but my colleague Andrew Carlson and I were feeling unusually fragile and insecure as we tried to process what had happened earlier that day in March 2016. We had made our first visit to Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital, eighteen months earlier to launch a large-scale research project for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. It was a wide-ranging study of knowledge, beliefs, and practices in health, nutrition, hygiene, water, sanitation, education, and child protection, key issues for the agency. Our six-person international team had worked with colleagues from the University of Antananarivo and the national statistics agency to design the study, conducted in three coastal regions. Earlier that day, we were informed by e-mail that, after more than a year of work and almost $500,000 spent, UNICEF had decided to reject the research report and shut down the project. We had been given no advance warning. The only reason given was a vague reference to “inadequate data analysis.” We were upset and confused.
When you’re feeling down, it’s easy to vent your frustration at your environment—the place, the people, the waiter at Ku-de-ta. But as Andrew and I enjoyed an exceptional lunch and rounded it off with a rhum arrangé (the flavored rum that is customarily offered as an after-dinner digestive), our mood mellowed. We were at one of Antananarivo’s best restaurants, savoring French haute cuisine at incredibly reasonable prices. Outside lay a picturesque, historic city built on sacred hills where every walk or taxi trip yielded new sights and sounds. I was looking forward to a weekend trip to the countryside with my Malagasy university colleague, Richard Samuel, to visit his hometown and family tomb.
This was my fifth visit to Madagascar, and I had become enthralled with the country, its people, and its culture. My bad mood, I decided, had everything to do with our shabby treatment by the UNICEF office and nothing to do with Madagascar.
The waiter brought the bill. “You know,” I said, “I like Madagascar very, very much.” He smiled, and I did too.
Itinerant Academic Worker
I’ve been fortunate enough to have visited more than forty countries on five continents. Born and brought up in Britain, I’m grateful to my parents for introducing me to travel on family camping vacations in France and Spain. In the 1970s, when I worked as a journalist, my first wife Claire and I took budget trips to Mediterranean countries—Portugal, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Greece, and Turkey—traveling by bus or hitchhiking, camping or staying in youth hostels or fleabag hotels that didn’t rate a single tourist star.
I moved to the United States for postgraduate study in 1978, began university teaching two years later, and didn’t travel much for the next fifteen years. Since the mid-1990s, most of my travel has technically been for work, not pleasure. I say “technically” because I enjoy most trips, even though I work long days in sometimes difficult conditions. That’s because I am traveling with a purpose. By contrast, I’ve had vacations that didn’t give me much pleasure. I find beaches boring, resorts unappealing. I’m not a gambler or souvenir shopper, don’t play shuffleboard or mini-golf, and don’t like Las Vegas shows; I don’t think I’d enjoy a cruise.
My trips have been as a teacher, trainer, researcher, project director, and some other titles I’ve forgotten. Unlike the typical business traveler, I can get away with dressing academic casual—a shirt and khakis. There are ties (mostly gifts) in my closet. On average, I wear a tie once a year. Not every year. Fortunately, the organizations that hire me are looking at my proposal, résumé, and experience, not my wardrobe.
In June 2010, I officially retired from Ohio University after a thirty-year academic career. There was no way I was going to take up golf, bridge, or bingo, enroll in classes in pottery or furniture making, let alone sit on the front porch drinking iced tea and comparing Medicare supplement plans. For me, to retire was to move on—to have the time and freedom to work in interesting places.
It’s often difficult to describe to strangers what I do. Sometimes, I dodge the question and tell them I’m a consultant. That’s a convenient but unhelpful response, because no one (not even those who use the word on their business cards) can easily describe what it means to be a consultant. It’s a catchall that covers a range of services—from training mercenary armies to appraising antiques. “Oh, a consultant, that must be interesting,” is the usual reaction. “Sometimes,” I reply. That’s when the conversation usually ends.
Recently, I’ve taken to describing myself, somewhat mischievously, as an “itinerant academic worker.” I can go wherever my academic and professional credentials take me. No regular classes to teach. No students to advise. No faculty meetings. No research expectations. It’s the academic open road.
The real bonus and joy of travel has been to write about the places I’ve seen, the people I’ve met, the experiences I’ve had. Since cameras went digital, many travelers record their memories visually, posting images on websites, social media, and sharing sites. I shoot some pictures, but mostly I take notes and ask questions. What are they harvesting in that field? Are those houses made of bamboo? What does that road sign mean? What’s the name of this village? What are we eating? Is that a wedding celebration? Did you see that elephant we just passed on the road?
I don’t want to suggest that all travel is interesting. Travel writer Thomas Swick put it well: “Readers sometimes say to me, ‘You always meet the most interesting people when you travel.’ I tell them, ‘Not really, I just write about them when I do.’ Most of the time I’m wandering around lonely and aimless. In my own way, I am as guilty as the cliché mongers of perpetuating the idea of travel as a continuously fascinating activity—though all writers shape their experiences into an unrepresentative series of highlights; otherwise our stories would be too boring to read.”1
Traveling with me can be tiring, especially for those who want to sleep. I rarely do. In a bus or car, on a train, or on foot, I am constantly scribbling in my notebook or on whatever piece of paper I have handy—an airline boarding card, a restaurant menu, or even the background briefing paper I promised to read on the way from the hotel to the office. I write down what I see and learn because that’s the only way I can connect the dots later. Even in a place filled with new sights, sounds, and smells, what is interesting and unexpected on first encounter is more familiar the next time around, and less worthy of recording. The Antananarivo I first visited in September 2014 was a fascinating new place, unlike any other city I had ever seen. I described it as “Paris with rice paddies.” On my second visit three months later, it was interesting but less surprising; by the time of my fifth visit in March 2016, the city seemed less noteworthy. I made many notes on my first and second trips, but fewer on the later ones. However, even in places I’ve visited before, I always learn something new. Often, it comes in chance conversations—in