Environmental Protection?

In India, every citizen has a constitutional duty to protect and enhance the environment. In a landmark Indian Supreme Court case in 1991 (M.C. Mehta v. Union of India), the Court held that this duty could not be satisfied unless citizens were educated about environmental issues. To this end, the Court set forth a number of requirements, including two environmental public service announcements per show at the movie theatre, and inclusion of the issues in all public school curriculum. In fact, it seems like the Indian government is more committed than the American government to environmental protection.

At least, that's how it seems on paper. I did not learn about the above case in India - there was no evidence of any pro-environment sentiment in Bombay (other than small posters along the roadways saying something to the effect of "Trees provide oxygen"). In fact, I just came across M.C. Mehta in my International Environmental Law textbook.

Far from being clean and well-maintained, Bombay is filthy. Trash is piled in the streets, the air is so polluted that my snot was permanently black, and the entire city smells of some strange combination of vomit, urine and decaying garbage. There are even "Please do not spit here" signs posted all over the city, because it's disturbingly common to see a man leaning over and spitting on the sidewalk or street every few minutes.

This environmentally-unfriendly mindset extended even to Mr. Sada, our own driver. One morning, a few of us walked down to Barista, a local coffee chain on the corner. Neema had requested plain black coffee, but the closest I could get for her was an Americano (repeating "drip coffee" over and over again was about as productive as it sounds). It was gross, she didn't drink it, and so handed it to Sharan in the car to place in a cupholder until we got to the office and could throw it away. Mr. Sada, trying to be helpful, stops the car, takes the cup, walks over to the curb ... and drops it in the gutter.

In a country with around 1 billion people, it's easy to see the need for public service announcements - however, India may have to strengthen its efforts before the message takes hold. One billion people produce a lot of garbage.

Novartis

So one of the things I worked on over the last three weeks was advocacy on the Novartis case, to be heard in the Chennai High Court on January 29th. This is linked not to the prisons stuff, but to another project I was involved with over the fall term (both projects, however, were done in coordination with Lawyers Collective). While I in fact did very little work - Mike, as the communications guy, put me and my press-release writing efforts to shame - I learned a lot about a very interesting international issue.

Here's the (very brief) scoop on the Novartis case:

Basically, Novartis filed for a patent of Glivec, a drug that treats chronic myeloid leukemia, in India under India's new Patent Law. The patent was denied, because the drug wasn't a novel development - in fact, it was just an old drug (unpatentable under the new Law) with the addition of a salt that technically made it a different compound, without actually altering its results. In response, Novartis sued the government, saying that the Patent Law is unconstitutional and a violation of TRIPS, an international patent regime under the WHO.

This is a big deal because India is the largest generic producer in the world, and if Novartis is successful in getting Section 3(d) (which says drugs must be novel to be patentable) struck down, then manufacturers will make trivial changes in and patent all of their drugs, thus preventing generic companies from manufacturing them. Not only will this prevent Indians from getting access to life-saving medications (for cancer, HIV/AIDS, etc), but it will prevent people in other countries from accessing them as well.

On our side, advocacy has to be delicate, as we don't want Lawyers Collective's name on anything that could be considered controversial before the case is decided. However, we did put out a press release in the name of the Cancer Patients Aid Association that was picked up by a few big publications, including Forbes. The CPAA is the organization that got the patent denied in the first place (the Patent Act allows for a "pre-grant opposition" if someone thinks a patent shouldn't be granted), and is a vocal opponent of Novartis. Mike and I met with the founder of CPAA, Mr. Y.K. Sapru, a couple of times - he's a VERY interesting guy.

In fact, he spent last week in Davos, Switzerland, awarding to Novartis the Public Eye Award. I'm sure most of you know of the World Economic Forum, which was held in Davos last week - the Public Eye Award is granted by an NGO to businesses guilty of dishonorable business tactics, and Novartis was this years' Swiss winner (another award is given internationally). Mr. Sapru had a very inflammatory speech written, which Lawyers Collective begged him to tone down - I'm not sure how much he did so, as he was even trying us to make our press release MORE controversial, but I'm sure it was an interesting address.

Anyhow, if you've got some time on your hands and you're interested in such things, take a look at Oxfam UK's Medicines for Life campaign: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/campaign/mtf/a2m.htm. It's an issue that might impact us all more than you may expect.

Randomness

Some of the weirdest experiences I had over the last three weeks ...

- Sitting with a nun, talking about prisoners. When the issue of sexual violence came up, she very candidly admitted that MSM is prevalent within prisons, and then, in a very calm, nun-like way, cheerily turned to us to say, "MSM means men who have sex with men," an explanation I never thought I'd hear from a nun.

- One night, Currun came home from Colaba Causeway (the tourist shopping area) with a package of dancing dolls. Basically, it's a very cheap pair of dolls, strung on an almost invisible string that you stick to your fingernail on one end, and the wall (or whatever) on the other, making them dance in mid-air. The dolls were pretty cool until we touched the string, which felt uncannily like human hair (and definitely NOT like string or fishing line). Currun insisted they couldn't possibly be strung with human hair (and, when he felt he was losing that argument, instead began defending the human hair trade), but we were all pretty certain.

A day or two later, in the car, Aziza decided to ask Mr. Sada about the dolls. Before she was done with the question, Mr. Sada informed us quite matter-of-factly that they are in fact strung with HUMAN HAIR!!! Apparently, the hair is bought from some temple of a religious sect in which the women shave their heads as a sign of devotion. Faced with this disgusting fact, Currun steadfastly insisted on their coolness, but I must admit, I'm more than a little repulsed.

- Shopping one evening in Colaba, I was approached by a girl carrying a baby. India is full of beggars, but I was especially affected by this pair, because the girl was asking for rice and milk, not money (and because the baby had been taught to reach out and grab peoples' shirts). So I agreed to buy the rice and milk, thinking there's no harm. However, she tried to lead me down a side street to a specific shop, which was both suspicious and a bit unnerving, since it was late in the evening and the street wasn't well-lit. Mike and Neema wisely vetoed, and we returned to the main street, where I offered to buy the girl fruit instead (from a vendor nearby). She didn't want the fruit, however, saying it wasn't good for the baby.

Neema was pretty sure something was going on, since earlier that day we'd been approached by a young boy who wanted rice, and got upset when Neema insisted on buying him fruit instead. So she asked a shoe seller on the corner if the kids were legit. It turns out there's an entire system set up, where the kids bring tourists to vendors, who sell the rice and milk for WAY too much money, and then the kids sell it back, thus gaining a nice profit both for themselves and for the shopkeepers. (The fruit is refused because the vendors certainly wouldn't buy fruit back.) I felt like a dupe - especially considering the fabulous suit-selling scheme I fell for in Thailand - but I must admit a certain admiration for such a complicated system. (Of course, playing to my sympathies with a baby is going a bit far.)

Condoms are safety, safety is condoms

Thursday the 25th was our last day of work, since the 26th of January is Republic Day and not a day of work.* The 25th was also rather busy, with our team splitting up into three groups to cover three different organizations.

Neema and Sharan went to visit Ummar Khadi, a juvenile remand home. Although we'd been focusing on adult prisons, the opportunity arose for access to visit the home and see how "children in conflict with the law" (as labeled by the Child Welfare Board) are treated in Bombay. The most disturbing aspect of Ummar Khadi, though, is not how the children in conflict with the law are kept - it's that they're kept side-by-side with "children in need of care and protection," the state term for orphans and street children. That is, both habitual and violent criminals are mixed with one-time petty thieves and children with no criminal record at all, in violation of a whole host of international norms (and some Indian requirements as well). Definitely a facility worth seeing.

Mike and Currun were sent in the other direction, to visit another drug drop-in centre. Although we'd done interviews with a variety of drug-users at Sankalp, the Prison Ministries drop-in centre seemed a good place to interview a different selection of people - at any rate, since it's at the other end of Bombay, we were thinking it might have users who have experienced different prisons.

And Aziza and myself, the third group, made a return visit to Sanmitra Trust, an organization that focuses on sex workers and HIV/AIDS rehabilitative work. We'd been once before, on our second week, to talk to board members of Sanmitra, and they'd kindly arranged for us to talk to a number of sex workers who'd been taken to Byculla (the female prison). Since all of our Sankalp interviews were with men who'd been kept at Arthur Road, this was a great chance to get some information on Byculla, which is also supposed to be a pretty bad facility.

As it turns out, we did get some great information. We talked to four sex workers, two of whom had been taken to jail, and got an entirely new perspective on Byculla. (Previously, most of our Byculla information had been supplied by organizations that teach meditation classes within the prison, and said information seemed to have been gathered through exceedingly rose-colored glasses.) In addition to looking at uniquely female problems within prison - reproductive health issues, like the supply of sanitary napkins, pregnant women, children (who are kept with their mothers until the age of 6-7, if there's no family to take responsibility) - we were able to draw parallels to the male experience in some areas.

For example, in Arthur Road, there's a notorious gang structure, which is part of the reason Arthur Road is so notoriously dangerous. However, everyone had claimed that there was no parallel structure in Byculla, a claim strongly contradicted by the stories of these women. Additionally, while the atmosphere in Arthur Road - due in large part to the gangs - is one of danger, the female Dawood member at Byculla was looked upon fondly by the other inmates for her efforts to improve the prison and protect the women from unwanted attention of the guards.

Anyhow, we had found a gold-mine of information - unfortunately, the meeting had to end long before our questions were exhausted because the women were attending a Sanmitra gathering of sex workers. However, Aziza and I were invited to attend as well. Not wanting to be rude, we decided to stay for a few minutes before bowing out.

Instead, we wound up staying for HOURS, and ending our work for the trip on a very positive note. The meeting was a gathering of sex workers who'd attended a Sanmitra training session, so it opened with each woman introducing herself and sharing one thing she'd learned at the training session. In a country with an out-of-control HIV/AIDS problem, it was more than a little gratifying to listen to women talking about how they'd learned to never have sex without condoms, no matter what the client may say.

After these introductions (which included Aziza and myself, although we didn't talk about condoms), we were anointed with red and yellow powder on our foreheads, which I'm convinced is a blessing of some sort, although I'm still a bit unclear. (Somehow, even though I went to India with FOUR South Asians, I managed to not have ONE Hindu on the team to explain such customs.)

Then we played a game. It was very simple - we all sat in a circle, assigned one of four names (of fruits). Then, when the moderator yelled "mango!" all the women who'd been assigned that fruit had to get up and switch chairs with the other mangos. Meanwhile, one of the chairs would be pulled out, and the woman who didn't get a seat would be eliminated. (Basically, musical chairs without the music.) However, the women were OUT OF CONTROL, giggling and barreling into each other, knocking the chairs over in their haste. (Okay, so I was too ...) In the end, it was down to me and one of the sex workers. She won, but I got a second-place prize (a pen) - I felt bad taking it, but they wouldn't let me say no.

Once everyone calmed down, there was a second game. Basically a contest to see who talks the fastest, the women took turns repeating "Condoms are safety, safety is condoms" (in Hindi) for one minute, with the winner being the person with the most repetitions. Aziza and I both got sucked into this one, although we were allowed to repeat it in English (thank goodness). I won, with 37 repetitions, and got for my trouble a second pen.** (I'm totally convinced that I won only because I talk too much, so that I have more experience than everyone else.)

After this, the women danced. I kept getting pulled into the melee (I think they liked having a foreigner around - I was certainly novel), but even when I was just watching, it was an incredible experience to be among such a group of women, who were all so positive and happy and enjoying themselves. I don't claim to understand the life of a sex worker, but it was good to know that they too have the chance and the ability to enjoy life.

All in all, a great end to a sometimes frustrating, sometimes depressing, always interesting trip, and a great window into the lives of a group of women I knew absolutely nothing about.


* Analogous to our Fourth of July, with parades and fireworks and other such festivities, Republic Day is different in one odd and disappointing regard - it's 100% dry, impossible to buy alcohol anywhere (even at the airport). What kind of celebration is that??

** I promise, I didn't take them in the end. I had planned on giving them away, one to one of the women who'd talked to us before the meeting, and one to this cute boy who was there with his mom, but actually forgot and just left them on the table. Either way, though, I think they made it to someone a bit more in need of them.

Corruption

It's pretty widely recognized that the bureaucratic structure in India is highly complex and highly corrupt. In our work, we've heard constantly about drugs being smuggled into the prisons with the knowledge and assistance of prison guards, and about (rich) heroin dealers being "inexplicably" released while (poor) marijuana smokers are kept for years, but it didn't really hit home until last Monday.

Us four students were in a taxi, on the way to Arthur Road jail. We didn't have access, but decided to scope out the outside - someone had suggested we talk to either visitors or newly released prisoners, so we wanted to find a place to unobtrusively observe the people going in and out. Anyhow, about two or three blocks before the prison, our cab got pulled over. The driver sighed, grabbed his license and registration from the glove compartment, and then got out of the car to talk to the police officer.

About a minute later (during which we all wondered what exactly we'd been pulled over for), the cab driver came back and asked us for Rs. 10. Currun handed the money over - it's about $.20, so it wasn't a huge deal - and the driver walked back the police, handed it over, and then got back into the taxi and drove off. We asked what had happened, and the cab driver explained that it was the "usual police nonsense" - they told him to pay them Rs. 50 or they would write him a ticket. He seemed less than surprised at the whole exchange, but we were all a bit shocked that it had happened, and that the cab driver not only accepted, but seemed to have expected, the whole thing.

But whatever. Such things happen in India, I suppose.

Two days later, we were on our way back to Arthur Road for a meeting with the superintendent. This time, we were in our A/C SUV, being driven by our regular driver, Mr. Sada, and none of us were thinking about what had happened on Monday.

Until suddenly Mr. Sada got pulled over! He grabbed his license and registration, got out of the car, and picked up his phone. We all sat there in shocked silence as Mr. Sada spoke with the police officers, and a couple of minutes later, walked back to the car. We said nothing until he'd started up and merged back into traffic, and then Currun asked, "So how much did you have to pay?"

Mr. Sada said "Nothing" and kept driving.

"What happened?"

Mr. Sada grinned. "They wanted money from me, but then they looked at the registration and saw that the car is registered to the Police Commissioner."* At this, he started giggling hysterically, satisfied indeed at how the transaction had ended up.

We were all pretty satisfied, too, to see the police fail in this bribe attempt, but considering how often they probably succeed - after all, the Commissioner only owns so many cars - the incident still raised some pretty disturbing questions about a system that supports such pervasive and blatant corruption even at the lowest levels of the hierarchy.


* The company Mr. Sada drives for is a new company the Police Commissioner started, a fact we knew but never considered as relevant for our day-to-day drives to and from town. Apparently, we were wrong.

Good grief!!

So I never really realized how much time I spend on the computer, until I stopped having regular access. This is INSANE! I'm going into email withdrawals (which is silly mainly because even if I only check every three or four days, there are only a couple of good ones there anyway), and I obviously have been neglecting the blog. It's all about priorities, I guess ...

Anyhow, the only reason I have time today is because a meeting fell through. We were supposed to meet up at Sankalp (the drug rehab drop-in centre) with friends of the users who were NOT drug addicts (the theory being we would get a different perspective on the prison experience). Unfortunately, we set this up Friday, and since most of the people who agreed to bring their friends are not clean, they seem to have ALL forgot. Additionally, the counselor who works there, Surjeet, who's been awesome about organizing and facilitating, wasn't around to help us figure out what went wrong. So instead, we passed out sweets (which we'd brought for our little focus group) to everyone standing around, took a few pictures, and then decided we all needed to check our email.

This seems to be a problem with the trip (or possibly with India, or with human rights work): plans tend to fall through. It's really hard for me, since I'm very used to and fond of planning, to deal with things not coming together half the time. But whatever - I guess this is supposed to be a learning experience, eh?

Fortunately, we are getting some stuff done. On Friday, I had an interview with a woman who heads a field action project on public health in prisons from a social worker graduate student program - I got to talk to her and a student who goes into prison twice a week, and they had a TON of information (so much so that I am supposed to meet with the grad student again - except she didn't contact me as planned). And Saturday, Neema and I interviewed someone from the Art of Living, a sort of meditation group that teaches prisoners to rise above their stressful surroundings. He was ... interesting, but made me feel pretty good about the academic interviews I've been having over the last week.

And it's not all work, no play (mainly work, but not ALL) - yesterday, we were invited by the head of our host organization out to his country home. It was a three hour drive for a three-hour visit (and then another three-hour drive back), which some of my team-members didn't appreciate, but I was so happy to get out of the city that it wasn't a problem for me at all! The air was fresh(er), the food was home-cooked, and his house (which he designed) was AMAZING. Also, it makes me think that not all public-interest work means you have to be underpaid! (He runs a private litigation practice on the side, I think.)

Anyway, that's what's going on here - lots of arranging meetings, and then meeting people, and then driving other places ... lots of car time, lots of face time, etc. It's good to build relationships, and we're getting all sorts of interesting information, but sometimes it's hard to see the big picture through all the crazy details.

At any rate, I have definitely learned this month that law school by itself will NOT prepare me for a great human rights career ... now I'm trying to find out if there's some sort of masters program in development & environmental sustainability or something. We'll see. At the moment, my primary focus is on making it through the next week!

Hope all is well! :)

In case you were afraid no "work" was being done ...

So we were surprised in December with the news that Mike Jones, the Program's communications officer, would be joining our mission. Among other things, he's responsible for keeping a blog on our official human rights work (it's going to be a blog for the Program generally, but since he's here now, it's currently all about us!). It's not live (as in, people can't search for and find it, or comment on it), and so far he's only got three days posted, not edited, etc., but if you're interested in the nitty-gritty: http://www.internationalhumanrightsclinic.blogspot.com/.

Cheers!

Sorry!

The internet connection situation hasn't been great, so I traipsed off to an internet cafe the other day to post the previous two blogs - but it was definitely not somewhere I wanted to crawl around on the ground to plug in a flash drive, so I figured you all could wait.

At any rate, we have been doing some substantive work and it feels like we've been here FOREVER. I'll try to post in the next day or so about the projects, meetings and interviews that are going on, but right now I must get back to typing up my interview notes (we spent yesterday at a drug rehab drop-in centre, interviewing former prisoners).

Anyhow, stuff is fun, exciting, stressful, exhausting, and all the other great things that should be happening when one is doing human rights work in a developing country, and will remain so for the next few weeks, insha'allah!

Boo for Colonialism!

Okay, I have to admit that my Indian history isn't great, and my American isn't much better, but I feel fairly certain that it was the Brits, not the Americans, who colonized this great country (well, Portugal had Goa). For example, they write “centre” and “theatre,” which we OBVIOUSLY wouldn't have taught them! However, there is quite the race-based colonialist dynamic here, to an extent far surpassing anything I expected.

And I certainly expected something. Before the trip, Sharan bluntly informed me that my white skin would lose me credibility in the NGO community (“Why is an outsider coming in to tell us how to run our organizations?”), but would help open doors within the bureaucracy. She was convinced that, for example, at meetings with prison officials, all of the discussion would be directed towards me. However, she was willing to use this to our advantage, and I didn't begrudge her that – as the only white person in a group of south Asians, I figured I must have SOME benefit! (And as it turns out, our group was joined by Mike, the Program's communications guru, and I stopped being the token white person – we are now a significant minority!)

My time in Goa didn't really expose me to any of these strange dynamics, however, which made me somewhat comfortable in the idea that maybe they weren't as pronounced as Sharan was thinking. While Neema teased me about it all the time – she was pushing the luggage cart in the airport, having VOLUNTEERED to do so, and then chastised me because “brown people don't have to carry your luggage anymore” - it was all in good fun and without real significance.
Mumbai, however, has made me think of this in an entirely different light. Only a day after my arrival, there have been two BLATANT signs that the colonization's effects are still alive and well these days.

The first, I've already described – the incident in the taxi. When we told Sharan what had happened, she too was astounded - “That NEVER happens here!” - but was also confident that it had, inadvertently, been my fault. In fact, the second thing she said, after that quoted above, was that the driver of the SUV had obviously done it because he'd seen there was a white person (me) in the taxi and was hoping for money. (And it almost worked – Currun started digging out money as the SUV guy walked off, for when he came back, although I don't know if this was a preventative measure or because the SUV driver had demanded payment.)
Which is to say, I got a poor taxi driver beaten up. I mean, I'm sure the taxi driver felt worse than me, but that still doesn't exactly sit easy with me.

The second incident occurred this morning, and Sharan seemed to find it amusing, but it definitely rubbed me (and possibly Mike, who looked a bit uncomfortable) the wrong way. We went to the golf club for breakfast, but the dining room is closed Monday, so we had to eat in the lounge downstairs. We all ordered omelets and toast, and breakfast wasn't long in coming. But oddly enough, at first the waiter only brought out two meals – mine and Mike's.

This is strange mainly because there is NO WAY that this had happened accidentally – Mike ordered the same omelet as Sharan, but after she'd ordered it, and I followed Currun with an order identical to his. Thus, the plates COULD have come out in order, which meant Currun got the first tomato/cheese omelet, and Sharan got her cheese one, OR they could have come out with like omelets together (for example, serving me and Currun at the same time) – assuming our meals weren't all cooked at the same time, those are the only legitimate serving patterns. And if our meals WERE all cooked at the same time, there was no reason to bring out just two at the beginning – after about 5 minutes, the waiter carried out all four of the remaining meals in one armload.

All of this is to say that there's no way that the serving of the two white people before anyone else was ANYTHING but race-based. Sharan was the first to notice and, as mentioned, found it hysterical – they all insisted that we go ahead and eat, because cold omelets can be pretty nasty. Mike and I, however, agreed that it was awkward enough to get SERVED first – we certainly weren't going to encourage the waiters to keep up that approach by eating first as well.

I knew that I would stand out as a white person, and expected the gawking as I walk down the street that was so common in Cairo. Honestly, though, this is a race dynamic that I've never experienced, and that I NEVER expected. Neema made another colonialism joke today, and I found myself unable to deal with what was obviously good-natured teasing and nothing more. Hopefully, I either develop a thicker skin or stop having such experiences, but I feel like two in less than 24 hours isn't a good start at all ...

Welcome to Mumbai

I must admit, I embarked on this particular adventure with the assumption that NOTHING could be more stressful than my first few days in Cairo last summer. Turns out I was wrong; at any rate, Mumbai is certainly running a close second.

Neema and I regretfully left Goa (after a day of shopping) and flew back into Mumbai, an entirely acceptable, relaxing, non-threatening experience (although the second time in the last week I've been allowed to board an aircraft without showing ANY identification to ANYONE). Our luggage all arrived fine, and Currun was outside waiting as promised. He'd been confused about our arrival time, so apparently got to the airport a couple of hours early, but was in good spirits all the same. We head outside, get in the queue, and catch a cab to Chembur (a district of Mumbai), where we will be spending the next three weeks.

Traffic was INSANE, but I was fondly reminded of Cairo, so wasn't shaken. In fact, Mumbai looks a LOT like Cairo in many ways – out of control traffic, disgusting pollution, 20-year-old taxis, new modern shops sandwiched between old, worn out storefronts ... According to those in my group who have visited India before, Mumbai is actually incredibly clean and modern as compared to New Delhi, and it certainly doesn't seem any worse than Cairo.

So, even though I hadn't wanted to leave Goa, I was in fairly good spirits. Currun, who'd spent the last week with family, was very glad to see us, and we were having a pretty good time, even though the cab was spending WAY more time standing still than actually moving. In fact, the driver shut off the car on a regular basis, to save on petrol (yay for British vocab words!), and we just sat parked in the middle of the road.

Except one of the dozens of times the driver did this, something weird happened – the silver SUV in front of us pulled forward slightly, and then the driver got out of his car and came back towards us. He leaned in the driver's window and started saying something, and then suddenly slapped our poor driver upside the head! He did it again, then tried to open the driver's door – although the driver tried to keep it shut, he was unsuccessful and the SUV driver managed to pull him out into the road, hit him a few more times, and kick him into our car, before storming back up to his own SUV.

Our driver, shirt torn, got back into the car, took a few deep breaths, pulled forward a bit (traffic had moved), and then started to get back out. We all pleaded with him to stay in the car, and he did finally climb back in without approach the SUV driver, although he was pretty upset. The rest of the car ride was VERY silent, and we gave him a pretty big tip (actually, we just didn't bargain when he gave us a hugely inflated price, but it comes to the same thing) because he'd had a rough night... What was most perplexing about the whole incident, though, is that it seemed entirely without cause – apparently, the SUV driver was claiming that we'd hit his car, but I'm 98% certain our car was OFF at the time, AND there was nothing wrong with his car (I looked as he drove off).

Neema, Currun and myself were all pretty shaken, although they both say they haven't seen or heard of anything like this happening in India – apparently, it was quite the aberration.
After a dinner – during which we alternated between silence and nervous giddiness – we piled back into a cab to head back to the airport, to pick up the rest of our team. Aziza was scheduled to arrive on a direct flight from Atlanta around 10:20, and Mike and Sharan were coming via Amsterdam about an hour later. The plan was that the three of them would meet inside, and then come outside (“visitors” aren't allowed into the airport without paying for a visitor's ticket).
We arrived right on time for Mike and Sharan's flight, and after about 20 minutes of wait time, they made it out. Without Aziza. Which doesn't sound like that much of a problem, unless you had read the email Aziza had sent out a few days ago. Apparently, she's been added to some immigration list (she's Muslim), and the last two times she's flown back into the US, she's been detained by Homeland Security for hours on end. Her email pleaded with us to call her parents and her boyfriend if something happened. Thus, when she wasn't anywhere in the departure terminal (Sharan and Mike had watched for her, and then Mike actually convinced security to let him back in and looked around a second time), we had every reason to suspect the worst.

There followed an intense and slightly frantic search. Mike verified that she was on the passenger list as having boarded the plane in the US, and that the plane had landed about an hour and a half previous to these inquiries. A few of us headed up to the airport manager's office, where Sharan took full advantage of our Harvard backing, explaining that she had just come from America, where she works at Harvard University, and one of her Harvard students was missing. The manager was completely ineffectual, and didn't even manage to acquire the information Mike already got (that Aziza had boarded the plane), but he did provide the extension number and phone access so that Sharan could call immigration directly. They claimed that 1) there was no one currently detained, and 2) that flight had never landed.

Oh, dear.

Eventually, just as we had exhausted our (admittedly short) list of options, Currun came running into the office to tell us that he'd found her! In fact, her plane had landed early and she'd been waiting in the arrivals area, just as she'd been instructed. The fact that none of us had seen her, and she hadn't seen us, was astonishing – not only had Sharan specifically checked those seats, but apparently Aziza had walked through the exit a couple of times to access phones, dragging her luggage with her and making what she claims was quite a scene. However it happened, though, we were grateful that nothing more sinister had happened to prevent her from meeting us.

All in all, a VERY stressful first night in a new city. Despite everything, though, it's really nice to have the whole team here and feel like things might start happening soon – plus, now that Sharan has arrived, the rest of us can abdicate all responsibility (if we hadn't done so already ...).

Yay for Goa!

Being from Idaho, I never spent too much time sunbathing on beaches, but I have decided I can understand the appeal of that particular life. For the last couple of days, Neema and I have been doing nothing more strenuous than shopping, eating and relaxing on the beach ... neither of us really want to go to Mumbai tomorrow.

There isn't too much to report, as we didn't actually DO much, but the beach was nice, I'm only slightly sunburned, and now that it's dark we're off to do more shopping! HOWEVER, the above picture is a pretty classic example of what you see in Goa - very "east meets west."

Made it!

Despite minor delays, I made it! Met up with Neema in the Boston airport, and she had made lodging arrangements. In fact, she asked her uncle - who lives in Delhi and is apparently well-connected as the owner of the first medical facility in India with an MRI machine, or something like that - to make the arrangements for us, which I guess meant he had to call in some favors.

Thus, the arrangement: we spent last night at a hotel in Mumbai called Orchid Hotel, the only certified EcoHotel in the country. The place was ridiculously decadent and decorated for an over-the-top Christmas, but plastic Santas were a small price to pay for a FREE hotel room at a place listed in my guide as "Deluxe," the best Lonely Planet rating out there.

Of course, this being India, there was a HUGE wealth disparity issue - looking out the window the next morning (we'd arrived around 3:00 AM), I was presented with my first real Indian slum (actually, Neema assured me that it wasn't even a slum, just a poor neighborhood, but I'm not sure I believe her). Made me feel less great about the fancy hotel, but I reasoned with myself that since I wasn't actually paying anything for it, it wasn't - for ME - an exercise in excess.

This afternoon, we hopped on a plane to Goa, the hippie Mecca of India. Goa's actually an entire state, and we hadn't told Neema's uncle where specifically we wanted to stay, but she did tell him that we needed to be very close to beaches and tourists - we're here for a vacation, not a cultural experience! He assured her that we were about a mile from where we needed to be - not as close as we'd like, but good enough, because 1) it's high season, and 2) this place was also free. (The first hotel is owned by a friend of his, and this place is government lodging, so he called in a favor from the Minister of Commerce or something.) Besides, we also have a driver, so a mile is nothing (Neema's uncle also knows a guy who owns a driver/tour guide company).

Except the drive from the airport to this place took about 40 minutes, even though the airport is kind of in the middle of things. And when we placed ourselves on the map, we found that we were a good hour or so from the "tourist" area we'd been hoping for. Fortunately(?), the boarding house couldn't find our booking, so we asked the driver to take us to an area of Goa called Calangute, where the tourists tend to congregate.

The only real problem was Neema's uncle. He didn't seem to understand our desire to leave, called the driver like 10 times before we checked in to our current hotel, and scared the poor man so much that he was afraid to leave until we need to get back to the airport. We tried to tell him that we just want to stay on the beach, which is now a 2 minute walk away, and wouldn't need a car to get anywhere, but the driver was terrified that Neema's uncle wouldn't find this satisfactory. In fact, he didn't leave until Neema's father (who also kept calling) apologized for both himself and his brother-in-law and verified that our plan was legitimate.

Apparently, it was a combination of inter-caste relations, protectiveness towards girls travelling alone, and a good work ethic, but for me it was just annoying (every time Neema's uncle called while we were on our way from the guest house to Calangute, the driver pulled over for the duration of the conversation, in case he was told to turn around). Indian culture is weird.

Anyhow, tonight was spent finding a new swim suit and eating a slow, leisurely dinner. Tomorrow will be spent sleeping and sunbathing, as will the following day or so. I love vacations!

And yes, Mom, I have sunscreen. :)