Notes From Day 1

Hello from Mumbai.

As mentioned, I arrived at the hotel safely Sunday morning around 1:00 am. Slept like a rock and would have slept longer, but had to meet Carmen (from Tarragona, Spain) at 12 in the lobby for lunch. As neither of us were really hungry, we got one of the drivers from the hotel to take us around the city (pictures will follow).

Here's the high level, as some of our friends in the CPTC would say (sorry non Dow Folks), overview from this afternoon:

Holy Crap it's freaking hot and humid. I don't ever want to hear any whining about humidity in Michigan, Texas or Florida from anyone ever again. People from Texas and Florida, feel free to tell us folks from Michigan to stop whining. I have not ever sweat as much in my life as I did this afternoon (nasty detail but true).

The traffic is insane and the driver said it will be worse during the week. Ignoring Doctor Doom's advice, I did watch and still can't figure out why we didn't see or get into an accident. Most streets did not have the lanes marked so that a street that looked like it might at best accommodate 3 lanes of traffic actually had about four unofficial lanes. You can not imagine how drivers weave in and out of traffic here...Oh and pedestrian's be damned! No Yield to them!! (Sissy, the old lady at Wal-Mart last week would probably have offed all of them).

We went through the "exclusive" area where the Bollywood (the Indian Cinema) people live. Carmen and I agreed that what we would consider an expensive area in the US or Spain is very different from what it is here. Most of the residential buildings throughout the city look very run down and the "high rent" area was no different.

Every city has a smell about it, but Mumbai stanks! Too many people, too many vehicles, too many goats, yes goats, in the streets. Honestly, I almost threw up twice from the combination of heat, humidity and smell.

Several buildings had scaffolding around them. The scaffolding here is made of what looks like heavy duty bamboo held together by rope.

It is hard to describe the poverty. Riding from the airport, I saw many people sleeping on the streets. Some with makeshift shelters such as old tarps, but most without anything at all. The driver took Carmen and I around the "slums". Wrapping my mind around what we would think of as a slum in America and what the driver called a slum was difficult. At home we might consider a slums an area with very poor housing. Here it is people on the streets with nothing, persistently begging because that is what they do for a living. It was unimaginably difficult to say no when the people doing the begging were children and the mothers who were with them looked so very old. At home you might see a homeless person begging on the street and think, "Why don't they get a job or find some help?". Here there is nowhere for these people to go. Nobody to help them. (Linda, it makes our Habitat families old homes look like palaces)

I guess that sums up day 1.

Until later,

Lori