Mumbai, India June 2009

Part 5
by Emily Sernaker

MTV Cribs should do a special on Gandhi's house. I'm serious, instead of watching how Tommy Lee got a Starbucks built in his kitchen, we could be looking at Gandhi's spinning wheel and learning about how this delicate man would spin and spin for all of India. It would be great, we could look at Gandhi's jail bowl and read his correspondences with Tolstoy and Churchill; his plea to Hitler on behalf of humanity. The show could edit in some cool background music to take us through the dioramas set up on the second floor, showing all the important moments of Gandhi's life. Everyone will be surprised how powerful it is, to see a little paper mache figure doing the salt march. Fasting for peace, going to jail, giving voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, all of a sudden there's a dot of red paint in the middle of his little white robe. The viewers of MTV Cribs will be crying as paper mache Gandhi chooses to see God in the eyes of his assassin. They'll hear the quote "my life is my message" and realize that before seeing that special, they had never known what bravery was.

After spending time in rural Badlapur, I've come back to the heart of Mumbai. Chillies tied to the front of taxis, jump onto a moving bus, drive on the wrong side of the road, everything feels like a high speed car chase unless you're stuck in traffic: Mumbai. Get your hair cut on a rock by the Indian Ocean, a shave on the street, a cold bath in a blue bucket: Mumbai. Please don't offer me drugs, or try to clean my ears; a pigeon flew into my face yesterday: Mumbai. Eat every drop of food on your plate and be thankful it was there. Watch someone write any word in Hindi and you'll swear they are an artist. Ask your waiter how many languages he speaks, I'll bet it's five. Don't make eye contact with men, they think it’s an invitation. Don't answer every question with "D) It is written," no one will think you are funny. I saw a story carved in an elephant tusk. I saw a suitcase full of money. I saw statues for a million gods, a million rain drops, a whole city under an umbrella with their arms around each other.

The programs I'm looking at are extraordinary. To watch an older woman who used to be in the district learning to read; to watch a younger woman who used to be in the district reclaiming her life through the vocational center; stitch by stitch it’s hers again. Everyone’s a before and after picture. Everyone has a story that changes everything. Whatever you expected to find here was wrong - if you think you're gonna be sad they'll shove hope down your throat until you acknowledge it and swallow. If you think you're gonna find answers they'll tell you a story so complicated you forget how to put one foot in front of the next. I can tell you I do feel their words sticking to me. I suspect that I'll always be both a little bit weaker and a little bit stronger for knowing.

Mumbai, India June 2009

Part 4
by Emily Sernaker

I think that if you were to ask, India would tell you I'm getting the hang of things. I say go on India, lean on your walking stick, wash your clothes in the river, pierce your nose, burn your trash. Honk your horn before you turn the corner, let them know you are coming. India, I see you gliding down the road with all that spiky firewood, silver jugs of water up on your head; I am in awe of your balancing act. Ask me of my family and offer me sweets. Offer me spices and stories so strong they make my eyes water every time.

Well, I've moved from staying at the women’s center to staying at a center for little ones with HIV. The kids are happy to have a new playmate, as I have quickly become their very own human jungle gym. A good chunk of my day is spent learning about the program, meeting with their teachers, nurses, doctors, and program directors. The rest of the day usually finds me with at least three kids in my lap, one of my hands engaged in an outside thumb wrestling match and the other hand in a circle of down by the banks.

When I asked if there was anything I could do to help, the staff immediately said I could start leading devotion time, which is an hour of stories and songs each day. This particular organization I am evaluating is a Christian organization, and I did have some songs from church camp in my back pocket. I did decide to shake things up however, teaching them an NSYNC classic complete with dance moves: God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You.

Meal time is my favorite. The kids will spend half of it staring at my blue eyes going "are those original?" and the second half asking me questions about America. "What kind of vegetables do you eat there?" they ask. I spend the rest of the meal naming every vegetable I can think of. When I say one they recognize they cheer for that vegetable. Avocados are met with silence.

Meal time is also special because I have started to help feeding the little ones. I was trying to think of the last time I fed something (I usually forget to feed Buckely, our dog at home). Looking at some of these tiny kids - putting each scoop of food on the spoon so carefully, watching it go in their mouth, praying that that bite might make them just a little bit stronger - it is a different kind of focused and concentrated love. I hadn't experienced anything like it before.

Lately, India has been reminding me of my own childhood. All of these houses made of bricks, some just of sticks, waiting for something to huff and puff and blow them all down. All of these chickens crossing the road to get to the other side. The bed bugs bite, now guess who's a walking game of connect the dots. You know you are culturally insensitive when the first man you see in a turban reminds you of Poonjab from the movie Annie. At least I wasn't wrong to think that some of these giant viney trees are the kind Mogley would climb; the author of the Jungle Book was from Mumbai.

Maybe I've been thinking more about childhood because there was a time when I didn't know what humans were capable of doing to one another.
Last night I was invited to the home of two of the aid workers who help run the women's rehab center. I asked if the women from the center have trouble adjusting to the program after having such terrible past experiences. Without taking a breath, both workers immediately started telling me about prayer time. They said that sometimes, while the women are praying together quietly, one will just start screaming. They said that she screams because she is trying to get out all of her pain, all of her suffering. Every level of her humanity had been attacked: physically, mentally, spiritually. They told me that the scream that comes out of those women has such violence, such sadness, a bottomlessness to it.

The workers went on to tell me more stories about how HIV/AIDS victims are outcast from society, how there is serious government corruption, how women are horribly beaten, and on and on and on. I wished I could go back to just naming vegetables.

Mumbai, India June 2009

Part 3
by Emily Sernaker

I asked some of the women at the rehab center what the best part of their day was. Without hesitation, they all told me the same thing: the rain. It really is something to see everyone look at the water falling from the sky as if it is direct proof that God has heard and answered each of their prayers. I was excited for the rain too, until I realized that the water inspires more creatures to come out and play. The women were quick to give me advice: "Close your suitcase so bugs won’t crawl in. Shake out your shoes before putting them on." After a bug flew in my mouth the other night I started to think that keeping things shut in general seems to be a good rule.

The girls at the center think it is hilarious that I am acting like a contestant on fear factor. They love showing me toads the size of both my feet (I'm a size 6 1/2 ), mice, snakes, crabs, stray dogs ("they won't bite you unless you run away"), red velvet spiders, goats, beetles, lightening bugs, and butterflies (the best butterflies are yellow and look like little pieces of tissue paper floating all around). I will say that I do enjoy it when a cow just walks into the middle of the road and stops traffic cold. If he's feeling really sassy he'll plop down and take a seat in front of the cars. No one can go anywhere because a cow is taking some time to collect his thoughts.

On another note, India has style. It is common practice here to use dye from henna to over up grey hair - which means every day I see elderly people with bright orange hair. Besides embracing orange, India is all about being shiny. Sparkly nail polish, sequins all over shirts and scarves, flower stems wrapped in tin foil; India looks good in the sun. A few other things India supports: hand gestures, garlic/onion/peppers, the girl being three years younger than the man for marriage, tea time, three wheeled taxis, wild pigs.

I have enjoyed staying with the women at the shelter this last week. One of the program directors will pull me aside and tell me stories about what they've been through as we watch the ladies sip their tea and play with one another’s hair. If someone's scarf barely touches the ground, one of the women will rush up to help her fix it. Even the way they tease one another is very soft, very sweet.

Trying to understand things like the cultural importance of a woman's reputation, the idea of being someone’s property, the concept of a dowry, proper burials, the government’s relationship to the mafia's relationship to the madam's relationship to the prostitute's relationship to whoever sold her into the district – it’s all very difficult. In the red light district, one of the program directors handed me a pile of death certificates for all the people they had buried that year. "Look," he showed me, "This one was only 4 years old, this one was 5, 7, 10, 16, 23, 31..." I felt sick holding the papers, just feeling them in my hands.

Holding the hand of one of the kids with AIDS at a children’s center has a different kind of weight. We will be playing and he will be smiling at me and I will be smiling back trying not to stare at his speckled skin. I think, what kind of pain have you known in your little life?

At the same center everyone will cheer when it starts to pour. The children will sit together in front of the window, totally captivated, just watching the rain.

Mumbai, India June 2009

Part 2
by Emily Sernaker

This weekend I had the opportunity to visit all of the programs I will be evaluating for Wellspring International in the coming weeks. Medical clinics in the red light district, children’s homes and rehabilitation centers both in the district and an hour outside it, vocational training centers, and a home for children with HIV/AIDS were among the places I visited. In 48 hours I drank a lot of tea, listened to a lot of stories, and shook what must have been over 300 hands.

One of our early stops, a girls’ center outside of Mumbai, had teenage girls that were especially happy to see me. They asked me a couple of questions about home and suddenly started looking at me differently. There appeared to be a situation. Apparently, the girls believed me to be an Emily from America that had stayed with them a few years back.

“But, she was thin,” they explained, “and you are fat….so we figured that she had just gotten fat.” They paused. “But it turns out that you are not the same person.” Before my trip I had been going to the gym several times a week but apparently India didn’t notice.

In addition to being introduced to the programs outside of the city, the rain brought some other fun creatures that insisted on meeting me. Although I was startled to see that ants here are the size of my thumb, I quickly learned to put things in perspective. Now, I am glad to see the flies because a fly is not a mosquito. A cricket is not a cockroach, a lizard is not a scorpion, and thank God the walls on the bathroom are white so at least I can assess my company before I shower and decide on which bug is my biggest adversary.

Perspective doesn’t just come from the insects though - I have never felt so glad to see toilet paper or to drink cold water or to even just feel a breeze. It is an intense experience to be learning so much every day. It starts off simple, like trying to learn how to position my thumb to eat goewy rice with my hands. But that learning to eat the rice is nothing compared to trying to comprehend the stories I hear while I am eating.

Before coming here, I thought I had a basic understanding of the problems I would encounter. I memorized the statistics before my trip - ‘70,000 women in prostitution in the red light district of Mumbai, over 80% have AIDS…’ My second day here I met a woman. She had been sold into prostitution, locked in a room for 8 years and raped repeatedly. If she put up a fight she would be violently beaten. The only reason she had escaped was that one day, the madam of the brothel forgot to lock the door to her room.

To learn that the majority of the girls in the red light district are victims of human trafficking, to see the bars on the windows and actually imagine being trapped is sickening. During my tour of the district I was allowed to see one of the rooms the girls were forced to use at night. There were three mattresses with sheets hanging between each one. “Six customers at a time,” the madam explained to me. Over the beds were pictures of Jesus and signs that said “God is with you.” To know that the girls see those signs every night before, or as, they are forced to lie with their customers. I will never forget that image for as long as I live.

These last few days I have been staying in a women’s rehabilitation center outside of the city. All of the women have been victims of human trafficking, prostitution, or AIDS - usually all three. This morning, while I was talking with some of the women, a girl my age picked a white flower from a nearby tree. She came up to me and focused so intently on putting it in my hair just right. Her eyes narrowed, forehead scrunched, fingers worked intently. I thought about how hard she was trying to be in that moment and tried my best to be in it with her.

Mumbai, India June 2009

By Emily Sernaker

As I prepared to graduate from the University of Redlands this last year, I was faced with the certain and inevitable question: "What are you going to do with your life?" With a degree in Creative Writing and Social Justice, I answered that in the immediate future, I was interested in going into Humanitarian Aid work and Development. "What is it about all this?" people would ask. "Do you just want to help other countries? Do you just want to help Africa? Is it about children? Or just vulnerable people in general – what’s your deal?"

After some thought, my answer always came back to women and children in the developing world. It is with that understanding that I accepted a consulting internship for the summer with the faith based humanitarian organization Wellspring International. It is with that consulting internship that I now find myself writing from Mumbai, India, the most populated city in the world.

India and I are still getting to know each other: we take off our shoes. We bow at one another. My money belt sticks to my stomach and her bangles slide around her wrist as she asks me if my blue eyes are real, and I ask her if she realizes a goat is chewing up her telephone wire. I like the way her head wobbles when she’s thinking or deciding something is ok. I like that her steering wheel is bedazzled and that her sari is bright orange and her buildings mint green. I smile at store titles like “Just Marbles” because India is being direct with me, and I appreciate that. I don’t know how she can walk so confidently balancing forty raw eyes on her head. I don’t know how some of those buildings stay up, the walls are stacked precariously; like card houses waiting to fall. In her rich areas, India calls me madam.

She puts ice cream in my coffee and soap in my hands. In her poor areas, she tells me to always look down because I might step in feces, but in the same breath insists that I always look up because buses and cars will hit me if I’m in their way. Watch out for the open flame! The children are playing baseball beside it with a wooden plank and an orange ball. Don’t look up too high! You’ll see the brothels above the stores, with bars on their windows and eyes peering out.

Mumbai, India

Monday, June 22, 2009

by Naomi Zacharias

We wake up early and sip on chai tea while eating an omelet and a few chapatis for breakfast. We meet Ena, the director of the vocational training program for women. She is stylish and chic, and as I shake her hand I comment that I like her earrings. “You like them?” she remarks. “Here, you must have them,” she says as she angles her head to each side to retrieve the earrings. I laugh and put my hands up in protest, but she takes my hand, places the large, antique gold earrings that look like India in my palm and closes my fingers overtop. “They are yours,” she says decidedly. I really liked her shoes, too, but I didn’t dare comment and then see her go barefoot. The facility is on the same property as the home and it is beautiful. Inside is a large room with a high ceiling and quaint looking sewing machines. Silk pajama bottoms in tangerine and lavender hang from racks and are stacked in piles, ready to be boxed and shipped. I leave her and Emily to discuss the program details, the mission, the method, the budget, the business plan. I stroll through the grounds, make a few phone calls, and wander back to the house to speak with the girls. They are familiar and feel known to me, even though I live hundreds of miles away and can count the days I have seen them in the past on one hand. We take some photos, and somehow I find myself sitting in a chair getting a henna tattoo on the top of my foot. I anxiously look at my watch as I know Emily will return any moment and we’ll just have a few minutes before I will say goodbye and leave her here for the next three weeks. The girls grin and as my artist finishes the intricate eastern design, I hop on the other foot to go gather my suitcase and leave, only a few minutes late but for such a good cause.

I hug Emily tightly and I hold back a bit of emotion at saying goodbye. These experiences bond you so much in a short amount of time. We shared moments witnessing heartache that then became part of our own. It is hard to explain to anyone, and sometimes you feel a little lost and sort of in this dark corner you can’t let anyone in on no matter how much you don’t actually want to be there on your own. We deal with this emotion by exchanging a few jokes and I wave goodbye to her as she becomes smaller and smaller in my mirror.

A few hours later I am in Bombay and we get lost in the streets that have no street names and address numbers. I remember my Dad telling me things like his school address was “Delhi Public School, Acrross from Fire Station.” And that was the formal address. I find it entertaining as we stop and ask person after person on the crowded streets for number 23. No one knows, though eventually it turns out to be just down the street a short way. I am here meeting with a woman who works for an adoption agency in Mumbai. We receive many inquiries through Wellspring and I thought I would do some research to provide people with information and direction. She patiently explains the very complicated process to me. As I am leaving, I am able to step inside the neonatal room. It is filled with small white cribs, each holding a little one. A few of them are just one day old, tiny bundles tightly wrapped in soft pink blankets. My eyes fill with tears and I am overcome with emotion. Moments later I am shaking hands with a six year old little boy. He has a hearing aid in one ear, innocent eyes, and a sweet smile. He shyly tries to speak to me in English and I struggle to fight tears. What I want to do is fold him up in a big hug, to make sure he is taken care of for the rest of his life. It is one of the hardest moments I remember, to say goodbye and turn and walk away. I have thought of him constantly since then. I wonder what is in store for his life, will it find him loved and cared for, or lonely and sad. I have cried many times since then as I remember him, and I think back to my conversation with Emily about how you feel it as deeply but you learn to cope. For just as it seems you think you learn to cope, there is something around the corner that breaks your heart in new ways.