We met up with the group the following day as our new Indian guides, the
kids from the previous day, took us by train to a slum outside of
Bombay, where their families live. Our guides name's are Ganesh and
Ramesh and it was really a unique and eye opening tour of India’s
largest city. Most of us have already preconceived ideas about these
places.
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| Mark with Professor Action Figure Chad |
I think we tend to picture Skidrow in Los Angeles, which is a
den of vice, drug use, and mental instability mixed in with a bit of
gang violence. The slums may have any and all of these things but they
are by and large the suburbs of the poor. They do not tend to steal
from one another; they tend to protect each other as they know they need
their neighbor’s vigilant eyes, and they really are communities on a
monumental scale.
From the moment we entered we were treated like rock stars. Kids ran up to us and swarmed down upon us. We signed autographs; took pictures; and shook a 1,001
happy and excited hands. At one point they started screaming, chanting,
and clapping their hands for us—it was surreal. For half a day we all
understood what it meant to be famous.
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| Inside the home of one of Ramesh's relatives |
We visited
the home of Ramesh’s family and saw how they live in the slums. They
keep the insides of the homes very clean and at the end of the day they
roll out a flat pad and sleep on it. They have no running water but
they do have electricity and many of the homes have one fan inside of
them. They dump their trash on the outskirts of their row of homes and
this of course creates a dumping field around the entire perimeter of
the slum.
This is also where they go to the bathroom, but for urination
the boys/men tend to pee wherever it is convenient; that means they pee
everywhere! They pay rent to live on the land and the landlord tends
to be a boss-man, who according to the locals, is your ordinary run of
the mill organized crime boss, a.k.a., a mafia Don.
I
cannot explain the love these people have in their hearts for others.
Not one person in the slums asked us for a rupee. I was asked by one
man for my sunglasses, but I get that everywhere and at the time we were
still not in the slums.
They have a school directly outside of the slums for kids
to learn to read if their parents can afford it, and some of them even
have rickshaws to earn a living. The people in the slums see themselves
differently from the beggars. The beggars live on the streets and get
by off of charity from others, or from scams, schemes, pick-pocketing,
etc., while those living in the slums have homes and in order to have
that home they must work and find incomes to sustain their families. If
you told them they were homeless they would have a bone to pick with
you, because they live in a home, even if it is of meager means.
After the slums, the boys took us to Flower Market (Dadar), which was
located back in Bombay. Dadar Market is breathtaking. Most foreigners
never see this market and as we looked around, we did not see another
white face in the place.
Flowers are loaded in buckets and are found in
every shape and color. They are piled in baskets three feet high and
are strewn into necklaces and wreaths and tiaras. Stall after stall is
filled with their majesty and there are so many there is hardly room to
walk. This was definitely a highlight of Bombay and should go on every
traveler’s bucket list of things to see before dying; absolutely
gorgeous. For .20 I purchased a dozen roses for Annie and probably
could have got them for a dime if I had bothered to haggle.
Finally, after Dadar Market we went to
get a bite to eat and some of the group went to see Ganesh Temple, but
because security hassled us about our cameras (evidently they fear
Mormon terrorists; no joke), Annie and I decided to watch everyone’s
bags and just chill for a while.
We had initially
planned on trying to provide meals for the kids in the slums from funds
provided by the Associated Student Government at Mesa State College, but
it turned out to be a mammoth-sized undertaking that probably would
have taken a week alone to coordinate. Instead, we bought some kids
supper and decided to attack the problem from a different angle; you
know, teach a man to fish sort of thing. That was when the epiphany
came to me…
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