I think I'm on another planet...

Whew! Back in the air conditioned, in-touch-with-the-world, internet cafe. It's been a wild ride so far, even since my last blog post. I feel like yesterday was my real introduction to India. We went down to the Gateway to India in south Mumbai, which is a landmark right in the middle of the tourist district. After checking that out for a while, we hung around the area, and it was basically an intense and amazing afternoon. After grabbing a bite of some kind of crappy Indian food, we walked around the area known as Colaba. Again, we stood out like sore thumbs, and after being approached to be extras in a Bollywood movie (we declined), the beggars were all over us. I bought some rice for a young woman carrying a baby (who knows if it was actually hers), but they really didn't let up on us. It was a difficult experience because I felt very sorry for them, but I obviously can't give money to every beggar. I'm a bit morally conflicted about how to deal with the beggars, and I really need to give more thought to the most compassionate and appropriate response.

Walking around Colaba, we saw some cool things, along with quite a bit of poverty. I don't think I'll ever forget walking down the sidewalk, only to look over and see a small toddler sleeping on the curb. There are some pretty arresting sights in Mumbai, and it's impossible not to be affected by it all. We constantly had children walking up to us and begging for money, and it's SO difficult to turn them away, but there are so many that you can't give money to them all. One child asked me for money, and when I refused, he got very angry and pulled up the leg of his shorts to reveal what appeared to be an infection of some sort on his thigh. It's hard to know how to react. Later, when we were driving in the cab, we saw people all over the streets, even living under tarps on the shoulders of the highway. It's weird, I've been told all my life how fortunate I am, but I'm only starting to realize that there is more to that statement than I ever understood. Again, I think it will take me a while to come to terms with what exactly my moral responsibility is in a world where I'm on the lucky end of such inequality. More on this later...

Another really crazy part of being here is that there are VERY few tourists. I expected to see a lot of Europeans and even some Americans walking around, but our group stood out like you wouldn't believe. On one occassion a group of Indian guys came up to us and asked us to take a picture with them. They wanted to shake all of our hands and meet all of us, just because we were Westerners. We're kind of celebrities down here just because we're American, which is weird.

After walking around Colaba for a while, we were exhausted, and we took cabs back to the hotel. It was only 5 miles, but it took an hour and a half, and I am pretty glad to be alive following the cab ride. The driving here is INSANE. Cutting people off is pretty much the norm, and no one even gets mad, they're just used to it. It's pretty wild. We drove through all kinds of neighborhoods on the way back, and it was unbelievable to me that every single street was packed with people walking all over the place. The population density is truly incredible.

That's it for now...i'm posting some pics, and I'll write more later. PEACE!