A taste of "Slumdog Millionaire"

 Hi fans! 

@GCCMorganIll

I can't believe that a week from today I will be on a flight back home to the US. It's bittersweet that this journey is coming to an end. Two months ago I was sitting at home wondering how on earth I could just up and leave my three jobs behind, but then I realized that opportunities like this only happen once in a lifetime. Being able to spend time in another country can be a culture shock, but it can open up your eyes and give you a different view on life.

Being selected to perform as a International cheerleader on Sony for Extraaa Innings IPL6 is truly an honor as well as hard work. To give you an idea, we've completed a consecutive 50 work days! Long, tiring hours at the studio but every second of it has been worth it. 

Dharavi entering industrial areas 

Regardless of the two months we’ve been living here, every day is a learning experience and I still cannot get used to seeing how some people live. Every drive to the studio is sometimes heart breaking as we see children having  jobs that grown men and women would normally have back home just to make money for their families. There are those who don't know where their next meal is coming from having to rummage through garbage just to have a meal to eat, sleeping on grounds and benches, and many without clothes. It is really inspiring and humbling to see life like this and realize not everyone will have things handed to them on a silver plate, yet we can be thankful for what we do have.

Fortunately, I was able to attend a walking tour with my teammates to visit one of the biggest slums in Mumbai, Dharavi. Dharavi is actually the slum that the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" was filmed in. This tour is designed to show people Dharavi's unique strengths & opportunities as well as challenges & issues in order to help raise awareness and break down the negative impression many people have about slums.  We took a 2.5 hour long walk through the industrial & residential parts of Dharvai. All the proceeds of the tour were given back to the community! Dharavi, also known as "the heart of Mumbai", may look like just a dirty slum for poor people on the outside, but I'm so thankful that I was able to experience walking through it and seeing it with my own eyes because I've never seen so many hard workers in my entire life! 

Residential area

On this tour, we were not allowed to take any pictures. This is due to the fact that we were viewing a society and their way of life on a normal day for them and our tour guide stated that standing and taking pictures of people going about their normal everyday routine may offend them. The few pictures we did get are those that the tour company sent us of our experience afterwards via email, taken from locations that were from more inconspicuous angles.

We first experienced the industrial portion of Dharavi. This part of the slum is where everyone works and makes a living. The workers cannot afford to pay rent for a house in Dharavi, therefore they sleep in the buildings where they work. The owners of each business have no problem with this because they don't need to pay for security to watch over their businesses at night, as well as not having to worry that their workers will be late in the morning! This is why we see so many people sleeping on the ground and around their work areas. The legal working age in India is 14 years old, but it was not uncommon to see boys as young as 8 or 9 years old working hard in factories to help support their families. There are even some jobs in the recycling business that require the workers to breath in toxic fumes every day, shortening their life expectancy, and yet they still work for more than 12 hours a day in order to provide for their families. I felt extremely blessed to see this. Every person there was hard at work for hours a day just to provide and survive.

Next we toured the residential part of Dharavi. Yes, those little "shack" looking houses. There are about 1 million people live in Dharavi. The houses are all extremely close together, in order to make space for the vast amount of people. Families stick together, and generation after generation will continue to live there as they take great pride in the fact that they've built their homes. As we walked around, we saw women making food from scratch and washing clothes with soap and water on the ground, as well as children playing and finding joy in the simplest of things. What a joy it was to see small children that have barely any clothes on and walking around with no shoes laughing with huge smiles on their faces just by playing drums on old rusty pots & pans, and sliding down a slide that they've made on their own from aluminum leaning up against a tree. I thought about some of the kids in back home that act as if they can't have fun without their iPads, Phones, & Playstations and helped me to put things in perspective. With all the houses being so extremely close to one another (literally on top of each other!) there was a huge sense of community and pride for what they've built and where they live! It was an amazing feeling. Everyone was so welcoming, yelling "hi, hello!" as we walked past them, and children sprinting up to us to shake our hands and touch our blonde hair!

 Although, for us this way of live seems heartbreaking, for them it is just life, and they cherish every second of it. This was most important thing that we learned from our Dharavi experience. The people that live in the slum are extremely proud of what they have, and they work hard for everything they've have or want and they do not take things for granted.

This tour definitely will open your eyes to a different life-style than anything we have seen. It was an experience that will forever change how I look at life and an experience I hope many Americans get the privilege to see someday.

I hope to make a trip back to India sometime soon because there is so much more I would love to see and do.

  

That's all for now, stay posted for GCC Sarah's blog next week!

Love,

          Morgan