Tuesday 5 October 2010

Mumbai Slums

Yesterday morning we arrived here in Mumbai.  We drove from the airport back to the hotel.  I knew we were going to be in India, so I thought to myself, "Yeah, I'm going to be slumming it."  Entering into the hotel it was about what I expected (what we back home would call a slum).  We dropped off our luggage (in the hopes that it would still be there when we returned), then we went to get some lunch at an Indian restaurant (surprise! the curry puts what we have back in England to shame).  We then arrived in the slum.

I was greatly humbled!  The conditions in the slums are inhuman.  A family will live in a tiny room with a hole in the wall for a window. There is no toilet, only public toilets down the road.  Some of the slum rooms have a water pipe, but when the rainy season comes (which just ended), the sewage overflows and then contaminates the drinking water.

After returning from the slum to our hotel, it seemed like the Taj Mahal!!! What luxury we live in back home.  We westerners are exceedingly rich and a short visit to a slum like this will reveal that reality.

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