September 5, 2008
Today was the hardest day in India so far. We took at long walk through one of Bangalore’s slums. Bangalore has more slums than any other city in India. I had never been in an area like this before. Whenever we go anywhere people are always looking at us. As we walked to the slums David was telling us information about the area and while we were stopped a bunch of people came around to look at us. One man was standing so close to us that it made me really uncomfortable. He just stared at us without blinking. We had to keep moving because more and more people started to come. The first thing that I noticed about the slums was the smell. It was really awful. There was garbage everywhere. This sight was enough to make me gag a little. It was difficult to breathe. David explained to us that the people living in the slum where not the ones who were creating the garbage. The slums are more of a dumping ground for everyone else’s garbage. Most of the garbage came from items that people from the slums cannot afford to purchase. I was stepping around all of the garbage I almost stepped in a huge pile of poop. Yikes! Along with the garbage, there is poop all over the place on the streets. Bathrooms are commodities that many people living here cannot afford. We passed a public bathroom but we were told that you have to pay to use it and it was incredibly small for the amount of people living in the area. I wondered about sickness in the slums. I have to assume that many people here get very sick because the conditions are so unsanitary. I did not want to touch anything because I was so afraid of the germs.
Our first stop in the slum was at a small shop. The man working at this place was a recycler. He collected recyclable materials and once he had enough he would bring them to a recycling facility and receive a few rupees for all of his hard work (42 rupees is equal to about 1 American dollar). I guess the garbage in the area gives some jobs to the people living there. I have this feeling that these people getting screwed over. People like me throw out garbage and once it is out of sight it is out of mind. People are living in the garbage of other people. How is that fair (I find myself asking this question over and over)? I don’t know if I have ever really thought about garbage before.
After we toured the slums we went somewhere totally different. They brought us to a huge mall in downtown Bangalore. It was air conditioned and had five stories. I felt like I was back in the US. I finally felt anonymous. No one was looking at me. I was not being followed here. Everything was so much like things are back home. I even heard the song Born in the USA being played on the radio. What the heck? I just had to smile and laugh it off. I think that it is amazing how much the culture of the United States has impacted this part of the world. I feel like I’m a million miles from home but here it is sitting in front of me. It was difficult to go to the mall because we had just gotten out of the slum. What a fun transition! These two worlds are only about a 20-minute drive from each other. How do I deal with the feeling that I have been doing something wrong? I go shopping at malls pretty often at home. I guess one of the hardest parts of this experience is figuring out how to not feel guilty about my own lifestyle. Later in the afternoon we went out to eat lunch. Many people, including myself, did not eat all of the food that we were served. Leaving food on the plate just about killed me. After seeing so many people with so little, how can I waste like this? I am full of questions that I do not know how to answer. Maybe the answers will come with time and experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment