Morning, day 2, and we're already trying to blag extra coffee from the YWCA staff to support our early starts. Yesterday is still sitting hard and cold in my stomach, and when Carolyn tells us we're to spend today at another rescued girls project-- this time much further out in the Mumbai slums-- I'm relieved I'm not the only one who doesn't think she's up to it.
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Our first real day on project, with the amazing team at Save The Children (no, not that one). The project we worked with was called Save Our Sisters, a group of teachers who cared for girls rescued from their traffickers, teaching them skills so they might get a proper job and never be tempted to go back. It all felt pretty intimidating and all I could tell myself in preparation was to remember that word: sisters, and to look for what we had in common, not the differences. And to smile, and love them.
In another life I have a (non)career as a writer. I write alot: fiction and non-fiction and reviews and I enjoy it, so I thought a blog would be a great way for me to communicate what my India trip looked like and get across some of the situations we experienced. I kind of thought it would be an easy payoff.
But it isn't easy at all. As our day drew to a close, we finally met with reps from some of the teams we would be working with throughout our time in Mumbai. Many of them were from Oasis India (I'll write a lot more about them and their amazing work when I write up my Bangalore journal) including one woman we were introduced to called Didi.
This is her story. To get to the church that first day we had to take a heady jaunt across town on the infamous Mumbai railway system. I remember mentioning that fact to my mum before I left, and getting a horrified face in return. It was totally justified.
At the end of our three-hour stint at the Bollywood Church, they welcomed us to some much needed refreshment in the form of delicious Indian coffee (the beginning of my tempestuous love/hate relationship with the stuff) and vegetable samosas. Thought you might like some recipes to make your own!
My roommate had a rogue bag of Haribo stashed in her luggage, which we rationed out like water that first evening... I've probably never been so grateful for gelatin.
To take you through my trip I'm going to be re-producing some of the entries from the diary I kept while in India alongside some other random comments I might want to add now. No apologies for rambling/vague emo poetry/ stroppy mood-swings or excessive use of adjectives.
I'm aware of that. Yeah.
It's been a bit disingenuous of me, I suppose, to flail at you all for so long about this trip and then upon my return go entirely schtum. But trust me, it wasn't for lack of wanting to talk about it. "Today we have a choice. We can despair that exploitation is an age-old problem, that human nature never changes-- and then do nothing. or can you feel determined to be part of the generation that exposes trafficking and brings it to its knees. You can act." |