4/8/11 - although now I want to write it 8/4/11 because it took me multiple days to remember to put it in correct “European” order and I don’t want to start mixing them up.
8:28am. Mumbai. Very nice and clean hostel, with helpful people at the front desk who speak English. Well enough, infact, that I only have to try to explain once that we’d like to stay another night tonight because Mo is sick. Like SICK, not just like has a little tummy ache. She has a fever, chills, sweats, headache, vomiting, and diarrhea since yesterday evening. She started on immodium and pepto last night, and cipro (yay antibiotics!) this morning. Now she’s just moving around and muttering in her sleep. The sleep part is good. Everyone knows about traveler’s stomach, and we have both been super good about only using bottled water, not eating street food, and not eating fruits or veggies uncooked from anywhere. Still, it crept into the travel plans like every traveler hopes it won’t, and here we are just waiting for the jaws of misery to release.
Mo actually ended up becoming sick yesterday during the tour, but for reasons other than the tour itself most likely. Our slum tour was very eye opening, and I keep realizing that I don’t know anything about anything that really matters. Did you know a slum is really just a housing development that is built upon government land? The slum that we toured yesterday, Dharvia (sp?), is actually the most densely populated slum in the world. There are more than 1 million people in a 1.7km area (don’t know area in miles for the US folks, they deal in km here…), and this particular slum is where the movie Slumdog Millionaire was filmed. So we walked in expecting filth, poverty, crime, mosquitos, dying children, no water or power or hope, and who knows what other stereotypical “poverty” images either one of us could imagine. We actually did end up seeing some of these things, but overall both of us decided that the neighborhood in delhi we stayed in was actually much worse (Mo did find out that our delhi neighborhood was known for being poor and had the most homeless children in the city, so that makes sense now…).
What we did end up seeing was people actually migrating to the slum because there is so much work happening there in plastic recycling that the pay is better than working somewhere else. We saw pottery workers that leased part of their land so their houses are not “legally” a slum anywhere, and saw schools and hospitals and jobs for women and men and saw kids playing everywhere. Yes, rooms were around ten by ten for whole families to live, and public bathrooms were shared between huge numbers of residents, and sanitation was a river running through the complex, but it was still eye opening (again) that this is just life, and life happens everywhere.
Our awesome guide also was a lot of fun. Mo and I kept peppering him with questions, and he told me to relax about 100 times. Perhaps I get a little tense sometimes… hmmm…something to keep in mind for the future… But he ended up offering to take Mo and I on a tours around Mumbai the next day (today), in exchange for going to see a Bollywood moving with him. So we said yes in the spirit of fun, and ended up going with him and two of his friends. Interesting movie, as I had never seen Bollywood before, but we ended up leaving about 30 minutes into the movie as that was when Mo got really sick. Headed back to hotel, couldn’t communicate with cabbie at all, dropped us off a few streets away, Mo got sick on the street, we finally found the hotel, and both went to sleep right away. Harsh end to a very enlightening day, but isn’t that the way it always is? Today is another day, however, and it will begin very soon with trying to communicate to the Chemist/Druggist down that street that I need ibuprophen. How I love traveling! More later on my own ignorance of Indian customs and cultures.
Heather
12:03pm. Mo says she’s fine now (and told me to say hello to her mother, and let you know that she ate a piece of toast this morning). So, “Hi mom, don’t freak out, I really am ok” from Mo.
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