Rubbish, air travel & parents

In the 4 years we’ve lived here I’ve seen more rubbish/litter than anywhere else in my lifetime I’m sure. It’s everywhere (except maybe on the golf course across the road from us that is kept pristine by a group of women in saris with hard hats on to protect them from mis-hit balls)! About a year ago a ban was placed on plastic bags and that seemed to have worked for a while but there are still many stores that will pack your groceries in a gazillion plastic bags if you’re not paying attention. Plus there’s also the fruit and veg section of these stores that place each type of fruit or veg in individual plastic bags for the purpose of weighing. I try to tell them to just put the sticker on the item but they refuse. Anyway in the paper today was an article about the amount of plastic waste that India produces annually and apparently it adds up to a staggering 5.6 millions tonnes!!! Not sure what the ultimate solution is given that part of the problem is tied up with culture. Or drivers, for example, when cleaning out the car just throw any trash onto the ground beside the car even if there’s a trash can within a few footsteps. They say that the grounds staff will pick it up later. There’s always someone further down the totem pile who can deal with it!!

These last couple of months we’ve done a bit of internal travel within India and while I’m fully aware of how lucky we are to be able to travel by plane it’s just not fun over here!! The security checks are definitely needed and that adds time onto the check in process of course, but it is so tediously SLOW!!! Women have to go through a separate section to be patted down behind a curtain and that line is always twice as long as the men’s. Putting your hand luggage through the X-ray takes a phenomenal amount of time because the guys doing it are chatting or seeking each others’ opinions which means the guy at the adjoining X-ray machine isn’t doing his job. Anywhere else we’ve travelled these same tasks are done in at least half the time. So coming back from Kerala on the weekend it was doubly frustrating because we had double the security checks. Our flight to Mumbai landed and we were told we had to get off and go to a different plane. Unfortunately there was no way to avoid the 2nd line of X-rays. So again I put my hand luggage on the belt and waited for it go through. I timed it and it took 10mins! Then I had to go to the back of the long line for the women’s pat down behind the curtain (another 10mins). I was at te front of the line when a guard pushed through with a lady in a wheelchair. I let her through and she got up an walked onto the box where you have to stand and then she walked out!! Not long after that she walked onto the bus that we had to take to the plane and stood up the whole time!! So I’m thinking Ill give that trick a whirl next time!!
Just as an aside we got to see part if Dharavi slum flying in and out of Mumbai. That’s the one made famous in “Slumdog Millionaire”. It’s right on the edge of the airport and seems to go on for miles. Just incredible that 1 million people live there. I heard there are now 3 other slums in Mumbai that are even larger.

At the moment I’m on my way to Manju’s school. She and Poonam have arranged admission for 13 of their older students in mainstream schools this week which is fabulous. One of them has made the grade for class 6!! But we now need to meet with the parents of 2 other bright kids because they’re saying that our schools are good enough for their kids. They can read and write now and that means they can more helpful working in their shops/stalls so there’s really no need to take their education further. It’s a typical (and at least partially understandable) view given that they live hand to mouth day by day but we’d like to try to change it and let them give their kids more of a chance.