Tuesday April 8, 2008
Night on the train went ok, no problems sleeping. I took some asprin and slept really well. Before I went to bed I met a nice chap named Rinku who is an engineering student at a university in Bombay. He taught me some Hindi words and how to write my name in Hindi. He taught me helpful phrases like sealed water? Where is the toilet? Food, water, watch, time, dog, cow and the like. When we reached our first destination we took a auto rickshaw to a pastors house in the middle of what seemed like a slum/govt housing. And I got a really bad first impression, the closest I’ve come to throwing up when eating dinner was today, cold really wet rice and un-chewable meat. The day got a lot better. We went to the Mercy home in Bakaro and met a new group of children. I spent what was left of the day teaching Dev some things on the computer, and then we ate curry, flat bread and fried potato wedges, really tasty! Tomorrow I’m scheduled to go meet a couple pastors and take family portraits and then Dev and I will wonder around the city taking pictures of Indian lifestyle and culture.
The Mercy home here only has boys, they have 20 boys, most are true orphans and some come from single parent homes. All the boys sleep on the concrete floor on top of rugs or thin mats. I watched them eat dinner today and all they get is rice and Dal. Dal is only water, oil, some seasoning, an onion and a little chili. They aren’t getting any nutrients at all. Now I’m just sitting on my bed and it’s not at all better than the concrete floor, I’m already getting a bruise on my side! The whole bed is just 2x4s and a warn-out deck chair pad! Tonight is going to suck. I’m being so humbled here in India. I don’t think I’ll ever get in to bed or take a hot shower without thinking of India. Am I spoilt or are these people just so unfortunate.

Saw two more camels got pictures. I also saw a man in short shorts running around chasing buffalo. This is going to be a good visit, first impression was not so good but I feel much better now. Hopefully I’ll get to play cricket with some of the kids!

Wednesday April 9th And Thursday April 10, 2008

Today was spent taking pictures of the mercy home children and hanging out with them and interviewing them for stories, some of these children have heart breaking life stories. Later in the day we went to the slums and a bunch of pastors got together and preached right in front of a Hindu temple which caused a big uproar and I took a whole bunch of pictures but they told me to be really careful b/c people might get really angry. By this time it was really dark and I had to use my flash so it was really obvious I was taking pictures. I hate using flash; it makes everything seem so fake. After they preached I was invited into one of the pastors homes for dinner. They live in mud huts off of dirt roads. I’ll show you pictures of it, it was incredible. I ate some food, which turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made it a long time. This is when the trip starts going down hill really fast on a slippery slope covered in curry. On the way home I started feeling sick and I thought it was just motion sickness b/c we were driving in a auto rickshaw on bumpy dirt roads, but when we got back to the orphanage I started throwing up and I broke out into a fever. I tried to get some sleep but I kept waking up and throwing up this went on about 5 times of waking up throwing up and then I finally just fell asleep from exhaustion. I didn’t get that much sleep and in the morning I felt terrible, I tried to eat a bit of food but I couldn’t, I just lay in bed all day. Later on I took some portraits of all the kids and I was still feeling bad so the pastor at the orphanage took me to the hospital just to make sure I was ok. Let me tell you this hospital was the dirtiest hospital I’ve ever seen, dirty enough for me to ask the nurse if the IV needle was sterile. I got seen straight away b/c the pastor knows a lot of the Doctors. The Doc said I looked really tired and weak and I’d just eaten some bad food and my body was trying to get it out. He hooked me up to an IV for an hour and then let me go. When I got back to the orphanage I ate some bread and fell asleep for 12 hours.
Friday April 11, 2008 – Saturday April 12
Today I as feeling a lot better but still kinda weak so I took it easy and read a lot and worked on photos. Later on in the evening we set off for the train station and this being India the train was an hour late and we boarded around 8:30. For some reason we didn’t get a confirmed ticket so we didn’t actually have seats so we wandered around the train trying to find the ticket guy so we could get seats but a army officer saw me wandering and said he could get me a seat no problem so we followed him to the back of the train to general/local coaches and he throw some people off of seats and sat us down. I was very impressed until I realized we were sitting on wooden seats, and a million people were piling on with us. The train journey was 12 hours all night and it was the worst travel experience I’ve ever had. I couldn’t sleep at all b/c there was no room, and the wooden seats killing my backside and my back and sides already hurt from sleeping on crappy beds at the orphanage! I just read my book listened to my ipod and tried my hardest to zone out the pain and noise and smell and heat. My back was drenched in sweat and all itchy after a couple of hours. I made small talk with some people on the train who wanted to practice English and talk about a politics. But eventually when the sun came up I decided that we were going to get off of the death coach and move up to a better coach and find a good Samaritan to sit next to. So at the next station at about 4:30 in the morning we jumped out of the train ran down the platform and boarded again and straight away a really nice old man who spoke very good English beckoned me to sit with him. A good cushioned seat and a fan and a nice chap to talk to was very well received. When we finally got of the train it was around 8 and two nice guys picked us up and we rode bicycle rickshaws to a ministry conference. They showed us our room for the night, which was maybe 6x6 with a small bed and no fan. Having no fan is not really an option for me b/c mosquitoes here love me and they carry all kinds of diseases but I go along with it. Then they said we could wash up and brought us around back to the toilets and gave us buckets of water, they explained that I was to shower standing over a hole in the ground filled with human waste. I politely put the bucket down and said up with this I will not put and told Dev to find me a hotel with Air Conditioning and a working toilet and a hot water shower. The pastor’s of conference were taken aback but kindly assisted us in finding a nice hotel. We tried a few places but finally found a suite in a downtown hotel in whatever city we are in. I’m told it’s going to cost 950 rupees, which is about 25 dollars for a clean room with AC and hot water and a TV. Bliss. If only they had Internet. I feel a lot better now but I’m really leaning on never wanted to come back here again in this manner. It’s just a kind of vicious cycle I’m in, I wake up and talk with people about financial problems and interview children on how they were abandoned or their parents died and then I photograph sad little faces and walk around the streets of these run down cities taking pictures of poverty. There’s nothing like a story of a child who doesn’t know his birthday and he doesn’t know when his mother died and his dad used to beat him b/c he was drunk all the time until he too died of alcohol poisoning and the child has to go live with his grandfather who cant afford to feed him or send him to school so he works in the fields until he is sent to an orphanage where he sleeps on a concrete floor plays in a construction site barefoot and eats rice two times with water and seasoning (and maybe an onion) poured over the top to really get your day going. I’m starting to count down the days till I get to come home, which is not a good sign.