Shreya repeats the confusing Indian head bob. I decide it must be an affirmation. “I’m sorry that we do not have any opportunities for you to practice your”—she glances at her phone—“Latte art or medical skills. Instead, you will be providing these children with a special snack. Many come from very poor homes. Often they do not get enough food and may suffer from malnutrition. An American pancake is a treat for them. We have all the supplies you need. You will simply cook the pancakes and hand them out to the children.”
For a moment I’m taken aback. I was expecting something a little more . . . important, more transformational, than making pancakes. At the same time, however, I feel a tiny bit relieved. At least it’s not anything related to medicine. My lie sits uneasily on my conscience, but as long as no one asks my expert opinion or assistance in bandaging a wound or diagnosing an ailment, I might be able to put that ill-advised moment of untruth behind me.
Pancakes I can do.
“Now.” Shreya claps her hands. “Team one, you will go in a taxi to your first location. My colleague Priya will meet you there. Team two, you will come with me.” We squeeze into the taxis, four people per taxi, and head to the slums.
Although the driving is as perilous as last night, I think I must be adjusting to it—either that or my store of adrenaline is already used up. I barely blink as we swerve sharply to avoid plowing into a man pushing a four-wheeled wooden cart loaded with bananas.
I’m riveted to the scene out the window. Everywhere there are vehicles and buildings and people, people, people, a teeming mass of people. Families sleeping under bridges; wafer-thin men walking beside the roadway; women in dusty saris selling fruit and street food; children begging at every intersection, their hands outstretched, tapping on the glass, some of them handicapped, all of them ragged and clamoring for money from the line of vehicles stopped at a red light.
I start to roll down my window, fishing some coins from my satchel, but Shreya puts her hand on my arm to stop me.
“Don’t,” she says. “Many of those children are being exploited for profit by organized crime. Do not give money to them, as it simply goes into the pockets of criminals.”
I roll the window back up, staring at the wide, dark eyes and outstretched hands tapping on the glass.
“But what can we do?” I ask. A woman wanders by, a baby hanging limply in her arms. She cups her hand and holds it out to me, but I shake my head remorsefully. She walks on.
“There are organizations that do good work among these people,” Shreya replies. “Give money to them, and it will actually help the children.”
The light changes and we pull away abruptly. There is so much that happens behind the scenes, I realize, so much I have yet to learn.
When the taxi finally stops on the side of a busy roadway, we all pile out. Two young men are standing on the berm of the road, a wooden handcart beside them. At a word from Shreya, they unload the bundles from the top of the taxi and stack them in a handcart.
“This way.” Shreya motions for us to follow her. Behind us the men wheel the handcart as we enter one of Mumbai’s slums.
I thought I knew what to expect—after all, I saw Slumdog Millionaire—but the reality takes me by surprise. We walk down a dusty path running alongside a sluggish brown river clogged with garbage and reeking of human waste.
“Oh good gracious,” Rosie murmurs, breathing shallowly and pressing the sleeve of her blouse against her nose. The odor is overwhelming, and I follow her lead, breathing through the cotton of my short-sleeved shirt, inhaling the faint lavender scent from the sachet of West Wind lavender my mother gave me for my backpack. A fragrant token of home.
We pass a young boy with skinny haunches squatting on a board and defecating into a gutter that runs directly into the river. I look away, embarrassed by the sheer humanity of it, the lack of privacy for such a base function. Everyone defecates, but not everyone has to do so in public. There is garbage everywhere, mounds of it, drifts of it, like party confetti, a tattered, jaunty rainbow of refuse. And mangy dogs so skinny you can count their ribs, and flies, flies everywhere, buzzing in the doorways and over the piles of garbage.
We wind through dirt lanes lined with dilapidated buildings made from corrugated sheet metal and wood. Everywhere people are watching us, small children naked from the waist down, women in colorful saris squatting in doorways. It is both uglier and more normal, less sensational, than I had anticipated.
Shreya glances back at us. “About 6.5 million people in Mumbai live in slums like this one,” she explains as we follow her single file down a narrow alley. “Over half of the total population of the city. Many people come to Mumbai from other parts of India for economic reasons but can only afford to live in the slums. There are many problems in these places—extreme poverty, malnutrition, domestic abuse, lack of medical care—but at the same time each slum is its own community just like any other community. There are families, small businesses, shops. It is home for many of us in Mumbai.”
I walk close behind Shreya, aware of the dozens of eyes watching us impassively from every direction. Children run out of the open doorways and join our procession, chattering and waving. It feels like a parade, and we are the stars of the show. I have never felt more white or more privileged in my entire life. I feel ill at ease in the face of such stark deprivation, such poverty. I wanted this experience, pinned all my hopes on it, but I didn’t anticipate my own reaction, the twin feelings of intimidation and discomfort.
“You okay?” Rosie whispers behind me.
I glance back at her. “I don’t know. It’s different from what I thought it would be. You?”
“About what I expected,” she says. “Although the smell is worse.”
I envision the beatific Mia in her sari, shining and holding small brown children on her lap. Embarrassed, I realize that in my vision the children were poor but well scrubbed. Everything was bathed in light. There was no odor, no dust coating everything.
I square my shoulders and smile at each person we pass, feeling naive and foolish and deeply uncomfortable. But today is not about me. I am here to help, and I will do the best I can.
Chapter 20
“Here we are.” Shreya stops in front of a corrugated metal building with no door, similar to many of the others, and motions us inside. The classroom is bare but clean, with woven rugs on the dirt floor. It is just as hot inside as out, maybe hotter.
“This is where we run the before- and afterschool programs every school day,” she explains as we let our eyes adjust to the dimness after the glaring sunlight outside. “In India it is mandatory that all children attend school, but children from very poor areas do not have the advantages of wealthier students. Many are not in school at all, and if they are, their education is often inferior. We help these disadvantaged students master the essentials—reading, writing, math, and also English, to give them a stronger foundation for school. It is summer break and the students do not have school now, but we are having a special program to celebrate your visit.”
The two young men with the handcart unload the bundles in the middle of the floor, and we unpack them. A few deflated soccer balls and a pump. Two brand-new packs of toy instruments for children.
Rosie shakes a tambourine and eyes the other instruments thoughtfully. “I don’t really know how to teach children music,” she says. “I’ve never done it before.”
“They will be happy to learn anything you can teach them,” Shreya assures her.
I open a bundle to find boxes of Lindquist Original Pancake Mix and bottles of syrup. The happy sunburst shape looks cheerfully out of place. I also find two frying pans, ten eggs, and a bottle of cooking oil as well as a liter of bottled water. I’m all set.
Already a half dozen children are poking their heads around the doorway, giggling. I wave to them, and their heads pop back outside amid shrieks of laughter. Rosie sorts her instruments, humming a little jazz tune under her breath. Abel sits cross-legged in a c
orner, inflating the soccer balls. I help Shreya lug the pancake supplies over to a two-burner gas stove top sitting on a small table in the back corner.
“The people who live in this slum are fortunate,” she tells me, fiddling with the knobs of the stove. “The government makes sure that each house has electricity and a gas stove. Also most residents have access to clean water. They have to pay to use the public toilets, sometimes three hundred people for every one toilet, but many of their basic needs are met.”
“This is all new to me,” I tell her, a little embarrassed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Of course not,” she says with a small smile. “You are from America.” She shows me how to light the stove and adjust the flame.
“How did you start working with this program?” I ask her.
“I was raised in a slum here in Mumbai,” she says. “My parents still live there. They worked very hard so that my brother and I could go to school and have an education. I had many good opportunities in my life, and I want to help other children in the slums have the same.” She slants a sideways glance at me. “No matter where I go in life, or what I do, I am still a little girl from Dharavi. I cannot forget that, nor do I want to.”
She turns off the gas burner and steps back. “There. Do you feel prepared to cook the pancakes on this?”
“I think so.” The stove works similarly to the Coleman camp stoves we used on family camping trips when I was growing up. “I just have to figure out the ideal cook temperature, and then the rest is easy.”
We arrange the ingredients nearby so I can access them easily.
“How do you like India so far?” Shreya asks as I hand her boxes of pancake mix and she stacks them on the table beside the stove.
“It’s not what I expected,” I confess, gingerly passing the eggs to her.
“How is it different?” She looks genuinely curious.
I hesitate, trying to formulate the words. I imagined the more colorful aspects of India, the postcard images, the novelty of it, the exotic beauty. But I was unprepared for its sheer overwhelming otherness, the myriad stares and unintelligible syllables of a foreign language, the garbage and the strange odors and the press of thousands of people in a city bursting at the seams with humanity. I was unprepared for different when different doesn’t look like a magazine.
“I thought it would feel like the pictures,” I admit finally, embarrassed. I hand her a bottle of syrup.
She smiles. “Life never looks like the pictures,” she says, not unkindly. “Pictures are just a moment frozen in time, but this”—she sweeps her hand to encompass the slum community—“This is real life. If we want to help people, we cannot focus on their problems, on what we can see just on the outside, the garbage and poverty. We must enter into their lives, be a part of their community. That is where real change happens, person to person, day by day, when we live life together.”
I look down at one of the happy sunshine-shaped maple syrup bottles in my hands, suddenly unsure. I’ve come on this trip because I want to do something that makes a difference in people’s lives. If Shreya is right, what does this mean about the efficacy of our trip? We are only here for a brief visit, a few hours, a blink of time. Can we really hope to change anything? If not, what are we even doing here?
The next hour passes quickly. Two student teacher volunteers arrive and usher about two dozen children into the room. The children are divided into groups that rotate through different stations. A beginners’ English class led by one of the student teachers meets in one corner, a music class led by Rosie in another. Abel takes a third group outside to play soccer in the street. The alley is narrow and not conducive to sports, but through the doorway I can hear him running practice drills with the children, his instructions punctuated by their yells of victory or groans of disappointment as they make or miss their shots.
At a signal from Shreya, I begin to prepare the pancakes. In a large plastic bowl I combine oil, water, and eggs with the pancake mix, stirring energetically with a wooden spoon. I pour a little oil into the flimsy frying pans and start heating them slowly. It rights me somehow to be baking again, although, to be fair, making pancakes from a boxed mix can only loosely be considered baking. But it feels good to be working with flour and eggs, oil and heat. Life just seems better with a wooden spoon in my hand.
As I mix the batter, I watch the hubbub around the room.
“Here, here, like this. Watch how I do it.” Rosie stands in one corner ringed by children sitting cross-legged on the floor. She plays “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on a sparkly green plastic recorder. “Now you try.”
Rosie vainly tries to bring order to the pandemonium as the children enthusiastically shake, blow, and tap their various musical instruments. Their efforts don’t bear any resemblance to an actual tune, but they appear to be enjoying themselves immensely. One little boy beats a tambourine on the floor. A little girl in a threadbare red dress and little gold hoop earrings jangles a triangle and bobs up and down.
In the opposite corner the children sit around the chalkboard, dutifully shouting out the English words the teacher is showing them.
“Monday,” they yell with fervor. “Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday.”
The air is stifling in the enclosed space, smelling strongly of unwashed little bodies. None of the children wears shoes, and their bare feet are caked with dust. However, as I watch, I am struck by how universal childhood is. Their circumstances are vastly different from any I’ve seen back home, indeed a world away from the privileged life of my niece and nephews in Chicago, but their boundless energy and infectious grins are the same.
I ladle batter into both frying pans and turn down the heat a little, watching closely for the telltale bubbles to appear on the top, signaling that it is time to flip the pancakes. As the lessons and games progress, my stack of cooked pancakes grows. The room gradually fills with the scent of them, and the children turn every few minutes, eyeing them covetously.
When I take the last pancake from the skillet, Shreya moves to the center of the room. She claps her hands. “Children, it is time for our special snack. Line up here please.”
The children obediently line up, squirming, wiggling, giggling, and poking those in front of them. I hand each child a pancake, pouring a thin stream of Lindquist pancake syrup on the top in sticky loops.
“Enjoy,” I tell each one. I ask their names and tell them mine. They grin and chatter at me in Hindi and Marathi with the occasional English word thrown in for my benefit. Then they sit cross-legged on the floor, devouring their treats, hands and faces sticky with syrup.
As I watch them, I can’t help feeling a warm glow of satisfaction. What we are doing here is not epic, not monumentally life changing, I know that, but surely there is value in these little things too?
Chapter 21
“Congratulations,” Milo announces, opening the door to his room when we return to the guesthouse later that afternoon. “You’ve officially survived the hottest day of my life.”
He waves us into the room. The rest of team one is already congregated there. The air conditioner is going full blast. Winnie sits in a plastic chair under the cold air, a wet washcloth over her eyes. Kai is sprawled in another chair, shirtless, holding a tall glass of some orange substance. He’s wearing only a pair of basketball shorts with the words Charlottesville Black Knights emblazoned on them.
Jake is nowhere to be seen. Milo stretches out on his bed in a pair of khaki shorts, displaying freckled and surprisingly toned abs.
“You want a mango lassi? It’s cold. Help yourself.” He gestures to the small laminate table next to Kai. It is crowded with full glasses of the same orange beverage.
Abel, Rosie, and I each grab a glass. It’s so hot outside that the thought of doing anything other than sitting right here in the cool comfort of this room is unthinkable. It must be in the midnineties, maybe more, but the smog and the still air make it feel much hotter. I feel wilted from t
he intensity of the sun.
Rosie sits gingerly on Jake’s unmade bed and sips her lassi.
“Please, Mia, sit.” Abel leans against the wall next to me, gesturing for me to take the only open chair, across the tiny table from Kai. I do. The lassi is essentially a mango and yogurt milkshake—delightfully cool, creamy, and sweet. “Oh this is delicious,” I sigh, sipping blissfully.
“Mmm.” Rosie agrees appreciatively, holding the glass to her forehead.
We all sit in silence for a moment, wrung out by the heat and our experience in the slums. I think about the people we have just left, those who live day to day in these temperatures with no air-conditioning, no cool drinks for respite.
“How was making pancakes?” Kai asks me, stretching out in the chair and lacing his fingers behind his head.
“Great. It was fun. The kids were so cute.” I concentrate on the glass in my hand as though it’s the most interesting thing in the world, trying to keep my gaze away from the tanned, smooth plane of Kai’s upper body. His shirtless state is unnerving. I can talk normally if I focus on something other than his bare chest.
“Did you play basketball in high school?” I ask, gesturing to his gym shorts.
He nods. “Varsity shooting guard, till I tore my ACL my senior year.”
Chalk that up as another of Kai’s hidden talents. Nana Alice would be so impressed. She loves watching men’s basketball. I stare at the mango lassi, admiring the creamy orange color, the coolness of the liquid. I press the cold glass to my suddenly pink cheeks.
“Looks like you got some sun, Mia,” Milo observes from across the room. “Us white kids have to be careful. We burn like Wonder Bread.”
“I must have forgotten my sunscreen,” I murmur, not looking at Milo. I turn back to Kai. “How did it go at your location?”
He shrugs. “Okay, I guess. We played soccer and gave kids pancakes. Honestly, I was expecting something more.”
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