A Day in the Life of Wanna-be Mumbaikers

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  Mumbai, India
Thursday, November 24, 2005

So, a month has passed since we left home and we are settling into some semblance of a routine. Life here is not a vacation, but we will get to those white sand beaches, with idyllic palm trees and sparkling blue waters, and when we do we will be sure to tell you all about it.

Even though we walk the same path each day and see the same sights now, the differences from what we experience at home still make an impact. I'm not sure we will ever become used to the goings on here, like one becomes used to things at home and stops seeing things after a while. For example, we have decided that Mumbai is the land of discarded shoes. You can be walking down the road and there is a shoe (or pair of shoes) just hanging out, as if someone has stepped out of them and continued on his or her path. Some are broken and others are intact shoes. We have come up with some theories about these shoes - as to why they just hang out

1 "Hey! Back off from my Guava!!!"

. Perhaps they are the shoes of people who have obtained enlightenment - the highest level a Hindu can achieve and the shoes are not needed anymore. Maybe the shoes were hanging out in front of someone's house and they got tired of waiting for feet to fill them so they hopped on the elevator and took a ride to see the city. In any case, Jamie has a knack for spotting these abandoned shoes all over town.

I'm sure that if we were writing about the routine of our day back in Portland, you would give out a groan and skip this section, but our routine here may be of interest, as it is a bit different than what we have experienced at home. We wake up around 6:45 or 7:00 am - this used to be sleeping in for us, but since in India you don't eat dinner before 9pm, bedtimes are a bit later than we are used to. After waking up, we put on our shorts (the only time we let our white legs shine in this city) and go down to the walking park for some exercise. There are several walking parks around the city, which is very thoughtful considering the danger of walking on the streets (see previous entry for reminder why). At this park, we join the men and women in walking in a circle that is about 1/8 of a mile around. We haven't gotten dizzy yet, but there is that potential. Most of the women are dressed in their Saris, or other traditional dress and the men are dressed in a mixture of western clothing

2 An Elephant in Traffic On His Way to Work

. It is good to see people out there getting exercise, given the recent news reports about how India is soon to become the nation with the highest prevalence of diabetes (Jamie couldn't leave that fact out!).

After a walk, Jamie dons her cape and turns into Jamie, Chaiwallah (a "NOUN-wallah" implies an occupation). She has been perfecting her masala chai-making (tea with milk and spices): watch out Starbucks and Peet's coffee! Then it is off to AVNI we go. We get in an autorickshaw, sit in traffic for about 25 minutes and get to the train station where we cross the bridge over the tracks into Andheri East. After a 15-minute obstacle course, we arrive at the semi-abandoned elementary school that houses the one-room office of AVNI. It is a modest affair: we've got one cantankerous ink-jet printer for the entire staff. We only use this if we are printing out fewer than 10 pages. For larger printing needs, the docs get saved on a portable hard drive and are taken to one of several photocopy and printing centers on the main road. At 11am every morning, the cleaning woman comes, switches off the fan (it gets hot without it) and sweeps and mops the floor. She will roll you and your chair out of the way so she can make sure to get underneath you. For those of you working at Oregon DHS, the trash is taken out for us!

3 Dhobiwallas - Large Clothes Wash Operation.jPG

For those public health types who are interested, you can visit AVNI's website at: www.avnihealth.tk. Their mission is to build capacity, promote public health collaboration and to link public health practices to interventions that have been proven to work (yep, evidence-based interventions!). How AVNI came about is a nice little story: one of the founders and the chief of AVNI is Ajey Bhardwaj, a former pharmaceutical company VP, and his wife, an MD, MPH decided that they wanted to focus on the many public health problems in India by building public health capacity. [For you Oregon DHS folks: this former Rx company guy does NOT wear ultra-snazzy shoes]

Justin is working on an HIV project. Essentially, he is assessing the needs (public health, economic, etc) of folks 50 and older in Maharashtra (the Indian state we're in) who are infected (positive for the AIDS virus) and affected by HIV (i.e. taking care of an adult child or family member with AIDS). Right now, all HIV/AIDS education and efforts in India are focused on people 0-49: AVNI has anecdotal evidence that the elderly in India (defined here as 50+...Ouch, sorry!!!) have been hit hard by HIV/AIDS, too, but no formal research on this population has been done yet. Over the next few weeks, Justin will travel to different parts of the state and do interviews and surveys to begin a formal assessment of this problem

4 One of Many Ox with Painted Horns

. For you public-health types - no, this will not be a population-based survey, but a super-low budget (staff of one!) formative evaluation that, we hope, will serve as "evidence of need" for future applications for funding (by AVNI and whoever else). Right now, Justin's putting together interview guides and questionnaires.

The HIV/AIDS statistics in India do get you out of bed in the morning to go to work: in 2005, it was estimated by the National AIDS Control Organization (India's Centers for Disease Control for HIV/AIDS) that India has the 2nd largest absolute number of HIV infections in the world (after South Africa) - 5.5 million. [Context Check! Keep in mind
India has the second largest population in the world. South Africa has a much higher
percentage of their population infected with HIV - 20% vs about 1% for India] Still, it's a serious problem.

But what really gives shivers is this: it is estimated that 800 people become infected with HIV a NIGHT in Mumbai alone!

[You statistically-minded folks are thinking: relative to the infection rate in what other city?. The truth is I don't know what the nightly infection rate is in Los Angeles, Cape Town, or wherever. If you'd like, send it to me and I'll post it in the next blog.] More on this project as it progresses.

Jamie is working on a public health curriculum course for health officers who can use some public health knowledge

5 One of Many Trucks with "Horn Please" Warning

. She sat in an all day meeting with some "higher-ups" in the world of public health to discuss the curriculum content and its future. She will start another project documenting work that has been done with young women in the slums. Jamie is also doing a short project with Population Services International, helping them write a report on the men who have sex with men population and Male Sex Workers who work at the truck stops.

[The public health mindset allows you to make abrupt shifts in topics like this one!]

After work - Jamie works about 6 hours a day (she is a slacker) and Justin 7, we come home to relax, or partake in some other interesting activity. Dinner is made by Mukesh's maid - something that we could easily get used to. Since labor is cheap here, most middle class families hire maids to do laundry and clean.

Despite this routine, we have taken the opportunity to get out of the city on a road trip. Our road trip, just as everything else here, was an interesting experience. We piled into Mukesh's brother's Fiat at 5:30am on a Thursday morning and set off for the 12-hour (350 mile) drive to Ajanta and Ellora caves - located in the central part of Maharashtra state. These Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu caves, the earliest created in 600 AD with construction continuing over five centuries, contain monasteries, chapels and temples all with ornate sculptures and intricate paintings. The trip to get to these peaceful, meditative locales was quite harried, full of gasping and then sighs of relief.

You can read more about these caves by going here: www.maharashtratourism.gov.in and clicking on the "Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta" link on the far left

5.5 Town Street Scene in Rural Maharastra

.

After years of public health laws and messages that seatbelts save lives, it was hard to let go of the fact that the back seat of the Fiat did not have any seatbelts. It took a couple of hours to get over that sense of insecurity of not being buckled in, especially as we were winding up two lane highways into the mountains with the "goods carrier" (cargo trucks) creating a constant stream of traffic. The only relief was knowing that we were going about 20-35 mph the whole time! I think the max speed we hit was about 50 mph and that was on the secondary roads, not the National Highway, which meant less car traffic. Passing lanes do not exist, but passing, with on-coming traffic (such as these trucks) is the norm. Luckily, Mukesh is an expert driver and soon put our fears to rest. He would honk his horn (see "Horn Please" picture), overtake the truck in front of us and deftly switch back to the proper lane to avoid oncoming traffic, just in the nick of time. The roads are paved, but potholes and obstacles (goats, people, cattle, buffalo) make the going slow. But the lengthy drive was well worth the rewards of exploring the caves.

It is amazing to think that over 1500 years ago, without electricity or modern equipment (i.e. jack hammers), these caves were carved and transformed into ornate temples and living quarters

6 J and J at Ajanta

. They're amazing - In Ellora, Kailasa temple covers twice the area of the Greek Parthenon and is 1.5 times as tall - and it's carved out of solid rock (removing 200,000 tonnes of rock)! To create these temples, the designers reflected mirrors from outside onto pools of water in the center of the caves to provide light into the inner areas so they could see where to carve and paint. I don't think words can describe the beauty and detail of both the caves themselves and the surrounding countryside. See Justin's pictures for the visual descriptions. Some of the paintings in a few caves still exist, and the use of colors, although now faded, was once spectacular. Some of the decorative pillars could be hit to create different tunes. One could imagine several monks hitting the pillars in unison to make a melodic meditative tune. We spent our days wandering through the caves in awe. Ajanta has 28 of them and Ellora has 34. Some of the ones in Ellora are 3 stories and you can climb around them as the monks did hundreds of years ago.

There were few other Western tourists at the caves, as it takes more effort to get here than some of the more common tourist sights. Because of this, we felt like stars. In total, over 2.5 days at both caves, we were in 16 photos with Indian families. People would walk up to us, hand us their baby and ask to take a picture with us. I'm not sure if they were more interested in us or the caves

6.5 Cave Temple Painting at Ajanta

. It was nice to talk with them and find out where they were from. One of the guides we hired to take us through a major cave in Ellora said that visiting Indian monuments was not the same without Indian people there to round out the experience. He's completely right: the families and kids, the smiles and laughter, did enhance the experience immensely.

Of course the best part of a road trip is stopping when you see something interesting. We pulled over several timees: so Justin could take pictures of the ox with decorated horns; to hike up a hill to visit a Hindu temple in some village; to get a cup of chai at a chaiwalla stand (yes, Jamie wanted to join in with the chai making, but we managed to restrain her); and to ask directions from a local on which fork in the road to take.

At nights, we relaxed, played cards and drank gin and tonics that we brought from home. It was nice to be out of the city, hear the birds chirping, watch the antics of the monkeys, and smell the countryside. After four adventurous days away, we hit the road for the long drive back to the city.

In the spirit of road safety on this Thanksgiving Day weekend, here are a few of the road signs we saw along the way:

--We promise safe road. You promise safe drive.
--Always alert, accidents avert.
--Speed is a 5-letter word, so is death.

Happy Thanksgiving! We will be going out for a nice Indian meal and will eat some chicken. Close to turkey, but not quite...

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

8 Buddha Cave#1 at Ajanta	9 Buddhist Caves & Stacie at Ajanta	Buddhist Cave Opening at Ellora	Colorful Saris at Ellora
Hindu Cave at Ellora	Hindu Frieze at Ellora	J and J at Ellora	Kailasa Temple at Ellora Caves
Monkeys Fun at Ellora	Posing for A Picture at Ellora	Posing for Pictures at Ellora	The goddess Durga at Ellora
Three-Storied Cave at Ellora

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