Now Where To Go

In the Bustling main Street at the entrance to Shanti Nagar, off Mumbai's western expressway, men in suits go about their business. Women carry containers, hurrying to fill them in the two hours that water comes through the taps. The shopkeepers and doctors and quacks and barbers do a brisk trade. It looks and sounds like any Indian Street- only narrower and darker- and looking in, perhaps you wonder what makes Shanti Nagar a slum. So you turn around and see, on the dusty roadside, as the cars zoom past, a series of little children's bottoms, perched nakedly and shamelessly in public, defecating with composure. After the children jump up and scamper down the embankment, disappearing back into faces, as far down as you can see.

Language Adventure

In India, where I'd gone to learn to speak Hindi, i got used to engaging in what seemed like simple, easygoing conversations, only to find myself hanging on for dear life. Did I like Indian food? Why, yes I did. (Excellent- we were on a roll) But then the discussion would somehow veer off in a new direction, toward the subject of, say military armor.
If you've spent time living or volunteering abroad, you have at some point landed in the miscommunication zone. When I arrived in India, I expected to be flummoxed at first. While my Hindi was still in first gear, I got by on the all occasion yes technique, which boils down this.