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.