"That's just India"

As we touched down in Mumbai at 4am on Sunday morning I though, thank goodness we went to Turkey. At least we were able to adjust to a 7 hour difference and coming to India only added a 2.5 hour difference, which was all well and good, until we got into the airport.

Once I saw how the progression of the morning would go, I decided that I should probably try not to hold my expectations too high. ...Super slow – had to fill out paperwork for the immigration desk, stand in line... we had a moment of panic during which we weren't sure if our bags even made it on the plane. We checked in late for our flight from Turkey – really late – and what if... but they were, in fact, there and eventually we made it from the densely crowded terminal and baggage claim to the densely crowded Arrivals area outside. Eventually we found the group of gentlemen waiting to take us to the hotel. I climbed into the front seat of the van – my first big mistake. As Dr. Vyas, one of the professors responsible for this trip said yesterday, “Never watch the road when you're in a vehicle in India. It will just stress you out”. Truer words have never been spoken. I just wish they had come 24 hours sooner. As our van wove through the dark, pothole filled streets, past construction sites and, what looked like empty shacks, it stalled all of 5 times in what ended up being a 10 minute drive, and dodged car after motorcycle after bus. Apparently there is no concept of right-of-way or staying in you lane. From now on I will sit in the back and stare out the window. We arrived at the hotel in one piece around 6:30am, only having dozed on the plane, and promptly fell asleep until 3pm the next day.

Day one, or at least of what I experienced of it, was a crash-course in India. We were stuck in 2+ hours of traffic on our way to dinner. I mentioned to Dr. Vyas that I thought it was interesting that, from our hotel room windows, 6 stories up, there is not a single building at tall anywhere nearby. Rather, scattered below are rows upon rows of cinder block and brick structures with metal siding for roofs,covered in tarps weighed down by bricks; I assume to prevent the roof from leaking during Monsoon season, I was informed that this was “just India” – movie stars in million dollar hotels live right next to others who sleep on the sidewalk under a tarp. Interesting concept; “just India”...

The adventures began on day 2. Yesterday we were driven to the other end of town to meet with AmeriCares India, an NGO focusing on providing basic medical care and emergency preparedness training. The India branch operates in conjunction with 57 other local affiliates as well as sites across the country and serves almost 100 people per day, per site. The branch with which we met has made a commitment to visit each of their service sites once every 15 days. We were told we would be shadowing and assisting the medical team with patient intake and organization.

We joined AmeriCares in the slums of East Anheri, not far from where we are staying. Apparently this area is one of the largest slums in the city, even larger now than Dharavi, where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed, which we will visit on Thursday. As we drove in, I noticed what looked like mosques springing up behind the little buildings, both permanent and makeshift, which lined the street. Pulling up to the edge of the community, we noticed a huge hill that rose above the street, taller than most of the buildings. That is when we were told that this community lived, essentially, on top of one of the largest garbage dumps in the city. Our bus was preceded and followed by garbage trucks coming in and out of the dump. Tall gates surrounded the compound, but only in the very front, and from the bus we could seen people roaming through the piles of trash. Across the street, where the community's buildings actually began, conditions were not much better. Small children roamed barefoot, a few of them carrying their younger siblings, among smaller piles of trash and potholes full of standing water from which stray dogs, cows and goats ate and drank. We passed a couple of fruit stands, the produce covered in flies. This community has little to no running water; I noticed a few large blue barrels set out to collect rain water which, as we were told eventually, people used for washing. Someone muttered under their breath that it was a public health nightmare. Far be it from me to pass judgments, but yeah, I can see what they mean.

The medical team set up shop in a mostly-empty storage compartment an quickly got to work. They were equipped with one computer, one blood pressure cuff and a camera, to do patient intake. They were totally not prepared to put all of us to work, so most of us spent our time talking with the people and smiling at the children. We were followed down the street by a small hoard of children which grew into a mass of members of the community, who all wanted to shake our hands and speak to us in the few English words they knew - “Hello”, “Good day”, etc. The few people in the community who did speak English served as translators for the others. One of whom was a young girl, probably in her late teens, who came to the medical van with her mother and cousins. The girls asked me everything from whether I was married to whether I was wearing colored contact lenses to change my eye color. Many others took pictures of our group.

This may seem surprising- it was to me – but interestingly enough, most people in India, regardless of socioeconomic standing, have cell phones. One of the AmeriCares outreach workers was telling us that they may not have running water, but they go out of their way to have TV and order pizza. “That's just India,” he said as we walked through the alleyways, hearing cricket matches and other programs blasting through various windows.

There it is again! I don't know what to make of that statement on his part, or that line of thinking on the part of those about whom he was speaking. I have not been here long enough to and do not know enough about the culture to say one way or another. Even if I had been here for longer, India is full so many different people, cultures, and lifestyles that to make a sweeping statement like that (not that he knew it would be talked about in my blog) is simply unfair and hopefully untrue. I'm beginning to think that, along with observing example of social entrepreneurship, that's part of what I'm here to find out.