It took about 5 days, but finally we are well again. And, now we are only a week away from our departure. Our journey home is going to take a few days, with an overnight in Delhi, and a transfer in Finland (again), and an overnight in Paris.... but next Monday we leave Chandigarh, and the end of this crazy adventure will begin.
I keep thinking of all of you back home asking us that simple and very complicated question upon our return that you inevitably will ask: "So, how was India?"
My gosh, how to answer such a question! What does one say?
India has been so many things to us along this trip-- very difficult, very delicious, very teaching, and very absurd. It really has been a whole circus of things. But, sitting here on the couch now, with only one week left ahead of us, these are my thoughts:
India is very confusing. I honestly don't feel smart enough or educated enough to even begin to comprehend many of the systems at play in this country. In fact, I don't feel I even have a large enough understanding of what's going on to even trust my own opinions about certain things.
All I can really do is state what we have been seeing and feeling, and leave it at that.
Lately, I think both Tyler and I have been feeling generally a bit sad and helpless about the level of poverty here. It is a poverty that is so extreme; it really doesn't even exist in the U.S. First of all, the idea of homelessness, at least as we know it, isn't really a term that can even be used in India; There are indeed SO many people living without a formal "home"-- huge colonies of people everywhere you look, just in the green strips between the roads and the backs of houses; a great majority of the city's population would seem to be living this way-- living their lives, having children, and doing the serving jobs of the city (washing clothes, pedaling rickshaws, selling fruit house to house), so it really isn't the same form of homelessness you see in the cities of the U.S. What really seems different, at least to me, is that the majority of these people are indeed a form of working-class people. But it is as though they are living on a completely different economic scale; as if they are in a different time period completely where 40 Rs. (about 1 U.S. dollar) a day is a normal decent living. They can't officially afford to buy a home, but food is cheap (lentils and vegetables cost almost nothing), and India is warm, and they continue to hold a place in society as the serving class, so life rolls on without the city feeling as though these people are "problematic" as most American cities see their "homeless" population, and also without feeling as though they need to help these people improve their living situations. In turn, these people (in all of the jobs they do) are constantly having to try to get more more more money for everything; everything is a barter, a scramble to get just a few more rupees; anything the help keep up in this country that is growing in wealth every day, and yet still wanting to pay only 35Rs (less than a dollar) for a guy to use his own human power to pedal another person across town.
I guess, what I am trying to lead up to, and what makes us really kind of sad, is that it really seems as though many of these people are working absolutely non-stop-- and yet, with the way things are here-- have absolutely no chance of saving enough money to have their children and families rise in class at all to be a part of the served population. Everyone we talked to before we came, and everything we read, gave us the impression that the serving class of people in India are happy to be serving; that it's their accepted role in life; that everyone here has servants, and there is nothing strange or dehumanizing about it (the way we, from the U.S., usually think of the idea of servants...) And I have to say, to some extent this is all true. But also what is true (at least from talking with and relating to the woman who serves the house we live in) is that she desperately wishes that she could somehow make more money so that taking her baby to the doctor once a month wouldn't completely drain the entire family's bank. I think it is one thing to choose a humble and simple life and to be happy with a small income that helps you to live with only the necessities of life; but maybe it is another thing altogether when you are stuck in a social structure in which there is absolutely no way for you to break out even when you need it the most.
Anyway, growing thoughts. As I said before-- I really feel like a huge idiot when I try to even start to analyze all that we have seen and experienced here... these are all just floating thoughts.
As for the water situation here, it is something that I truly don't understand. From what I read, India is improving it's water sanitation. But, it is hard for us to understand why it hasn't happened already, or why it is taking so long. I guess, coming from the United States, where clean water is literally everywhere, it is hard to grasp how an issue such as wide spread water contamination can even exist. I wonder, again, if it relates back to an issue of wealth and class. Possibly because an enormous section of the population has lived without clean water for so many ages, cleaning it up just isn't a priority. The wealthier class of people, who live in actual homes, have purchased water filters. If there was suddenly clean water running through the pipes of the city, would the lowest class of people even have access to it? I don't know.... these are, again, all just thoughts.
Anyway, off to bed. Tomorrow is Tuesday. One of our last Tuesdays in India.
All I can really do is state what we have been seeing and feeling, and leave it at that.
Lately, I think both Tyler and I have been feeling generally a bit sad and helpless about the level of poverty here. It is a poverty that is so extreme; it really doesn't even exist in the U.S. First of all, the idea of homelessness, at least as we know it, isn't really a term that can even be used in India; There are indeed SO many people living without a formal "home"-- huge colonies of people everywhere you look, just in the green strips between the roads and the backs of houses; a great majority of the city's population would seem to be living this way-- living their lives, having children, and doing the serving jobs of the city (washing clothes, pedaling rickshaws, selling fruit house to house), so it really isn't the same form of homelessness you see in the cities of the U.S. What really seems different, at least to me, is that the majority of these people are indeed a form of working-class people. But it is as though they are living on a completely different economic scale; as if they are in a different time period completely where 40 Rs. (about 1 U.S. dollar) a day is a normal decent living. They can't officially afford to buy a home, but food is cheap (lentils and vegetables cost almost nothing), and India is warm, and they continue to hold a place in society as the serving class, so life rolls on without the city feeling as though these people are "problematic" as most American cities see their "homeless" population, and also without feeling as though they need to help these people improve their living situations. In turn, these people (in all of the jobs they do) are constantly having to try to get more more more money for everything; everything is a barter, a scramble to get just a few more rupees; anything the help keep up in this country that is growing in wealth every day, and yet still wanting to pay only 35Rs (less than a dollar) for a guy to use his own human power to pedal another person across town.
I guess, what I am trying to lead up to, and what makes us really kind of sad, is that it really seems as though many of these people are working absolutely non-stop-- and yet, with the way things are here-- have absolutely no chance of saving enough money to have their children and families rise in class at all to be a part of the served population. Everyone we talked to before we came, and everything we read, gave us the impression that the serving class of people in India are happy to be serving; that it's their accepted role in life; that everyone here has servants, and there is nothing strange or dehumanizing about it (the way we, from the U.S., usually think of the idea of servants...) And I have to say, to some extent this is all true. But also what is true (at least from talking with and relating to the woman who serves the house we live in) is that she desperately wishes that she could somehow make more money so that taking her baby to the doctor once a month wouldn't completely drain the entire family's bank. I think it is one thing to choose a humble and simple life and to be happy with a small income that helps you to live with only the necessities of life; but maybe it is another thing altogether when you are stuck in a social structure in which there is absolutely no way for you to break out even when you need it the most.
Anyway, growing thoughts. As I said before-- I really feel like a huge idiot when I try to even start to analyze all that we have seen and experienced here... these are all just floating thoughts.
As for the water situation here, it is something that I truly don't understand. From what I read, India is improving it's water sanitation. But, it is hard for us to understand why it hasn't happened already, or why it is taking so long. I guess, coming from the United States, where clean water is literally everywhere, it is hard to grasp how an issue such as wide spread water contamination can even exist. I wonder, again, if it relates back to an issue of wealth and class. Possibly because an enormous section of the population has lived without clean water for so many ages, cleaning it up just isn't a priority. The wealthier class of people, who live in actual homes, have purchased water filters. If there was suddenly clean water running through the pipes of the city, would the lowest class of people even have access to it? I don't know.... these are, again, all just thoughts.
Anyway, off to bed. Tomorrow is Tuesday. One of our last Tuesdays in India.
