Wo der Pfeffer wächst

I try to write about my week end activities every Monday. Yesterday however I spent most of the day in bed, as I got a cold and considerable fever again. It's much better today. I'm actually surprised how much better. The fever seems gone and I plan to go to work in the afternoon to post this message. Right now I'm writing on my flat mate Hisashi's laptop using Japanese Windows, which is quite an adventure ;)

For the week end an Indian guy invited me and the other interns to come along with his friends to the "near by" coffee plantation owned by his family. Including some
breaks it took us about 5 hours for the 100 km trip. Quite tiring. The coffee plantation was interesting since all kind of stuff was growing there: Pepper (!),
papayas, coffee, tee, oranges.
The striking thing however is, that the annual income from this family business is about 1.5 mio Euros!!! My Indian friend owns part of it and it sounded reasonable, when he told me he started studying, because he was bored. I wasn't surprised that they have "servants" for cleaning and cooking. On the next morning, one of the "servants" collected our left over beer from half empty bottles. And our host explained to us, that they do this because they are to poor to afford beer.
What The Fuck! Why are these people so poor?
I just can't understand it. An annual income of more than a milion Euros (just think about how much this would be in Rupees) and servants who can't afford to buy beer (which is about 0.80 Euros a bottle). I didn't ask how much they pay their people, but apparently not too much.
At the same time I was surprised how friendly and humanely our host interacted with the servants, and I was also surprised by his hospitality which exceed all hospitality as I knew it.

This place is strange. I think I have a negatively biased view becauase I'm sick right now. The social inequality makes me angry.

Better news to come ...
malte

"Pfeffer!"

"Diener"

the place we stayed