January, about 1 month left!

Wow! Only about a month of work left!! It’s crazy how fast time flies. And I do apologose (again) for the late blog. It seems to become monthly rather than weekly. Anyway we just got back to Mumbai after a week of visiting the other Oasis offices. That’s part of what we’re assigned to do: intercity visits to the other Oasis cities, of which there are three in total in India. Chennai, Bangalore, and Mumbai. The week was so much fun. Everywhere we went there were memories that came back to me (because that’s where I used to live) and we were so busy the whole week. Leena, the person in charge of our Mumbai intercity visit, planned everything for us. On Monday, the day w got there, we went to the tourist part by the Taj Hotel and saw the terrorist damage in Leopold’s Café and went for a wee bit of shopping. On Tuesday we went to visit a slum in a place called Bandra. The slums in Mumbai are a lot poorer than the slums in Chennai, or at least they look that way. Slum life becomes a way of life for these people. Across the river of the slum we were in was another slum, and when we came back to Chennai we found out that the government were offering the people of the slums 1 crore ruppees each to leave, which is a million ruppees, which is about 133,700 pounds, which is about $217,800 each. And can you guess what the slum people said? They want 2 crore, double what they were offered. That’s what I mean when I say it’s a way of life. It’s their home. They’d rather be there than anywhere else, despite what the conditions may be. The theory they go by is one of “my grandad was poor, my father was poor, so I must be poor, as well as my kids.” That’s probably one of the biggest challenges Oasis faces. We have to raise awareness and teach the people that they do deserve more than they have. That there is a life out there for them that doesn’t involve wrestling with rats for food, or worrying about whether their kids will have enough to eat, or not bothering to find a toilet and just going on the side of the street.
That evening we had dinner with a couple called John and Charmaine Nonhebel, who I knew when I was here. That was a lot of fun just because it was cool to just chill out with people.

Then on Wednesday we went to a place called Aruna, and where the Bandra project was focused on teaching English and after-school programmes, Aruna was based in the red light area. The stories we heard and some of the things we saw was horrendous. It was horrible to see with my own eyes some of the things that go on in this this world. Even just being there, everything about it is just messed up. The girls actually have a choice to leave and are free to go. The way the pimps do that is to just trap them and rape them and keep them from real life for the first month or so, until her spirit breaks. By then she won’t go back to her old life because she would be considered a disgrace among her people, and she has nowhere else to go. It’s brainwashing at it’s most horrible form. It’s given me a new passion for something called Stop the Traffik that is Oasis related and it’s aim is to stop the growing crime of people trafficking.

On Thursday we went to a place called Purnata Bhavan, which is HIV/AIDS care community that my dad helped set up, so you can imagine the memories that came flooding back. That day was so much fun. It was great just hanging out in the countryside with kids that just want your company. I made friends with a little girl called Sonita and let me tell you something, she is going to be the bossiest person in the world when she’s older. It’s great. We spent the afternoon looking for a giant Cobra with the kids (probably not the best of ideas, but hey, I told you she was bossy) and then got back by the evening. On Friday we went to another Oasis office and this was the office that focused on the prevention of people trafficking. They gave a job to map out a list of addresses of where they knew about raids and missing persons and things like that. Then on Saturday we hung out at Leena’s house which was also really cool, just because it was cool being in a family again. We ended up spending the night there and then in the morning went to the Mumbai Marathon. After that we hung out and went swimming with an old friend, Jeanie. All in all, Mumbai was a huge success, and going on the Mumbai trains was the experience of a life time. I’m not gonna try to explain it too much, because the only way to fully experience it is to actually go on one, but, in my father’s words, it’s like a hosepipe of humans being turned on, fighting for seats. Think of the busiest place you’ve been, and I can GUARANTEE that the Mumbai trains are busier at the rush hour. People sit on the roof, hang out the door, things like that.

On Monday we finally headed back to Chennai, and that was rather uneventful, other than the fact that the taxi took in totally the wrong direction. But we made it ok. And something I forgot to tell you is that you know the slum that we lived near? The one we were doing the music class for? It’s gone. It got demolished. And guess when. Over Christmas. How’s that for Santa Claus. It was one of the most awesome (not the good meaning, the literal definition. I was awestruck) things I’d ever seen. One day the slum was there , the next time I looked it wasn’t. It took about two days for them to destroy it, because they want to put pipes in the ground and such. It’s been quite an eventful couple of months, that’s for sure. But anyway, I’ll try write another one of these before our times up. But for now, have fun!!!!!