Mumbai: Day 2
Today we woke up very early to head to the United States consulate to Mumbai to listen to a woman who spoke about a variety of things relating to Indian government and the U.S. India relationship. A new government will be elected by May 16th so everyone is very anxious to know what the results will be, since India is such a big country the democratic voting takes place in 9 sections and 7 of them have been completed so far. The speaker spoke very well about a wide variety of topics from agriculture and Indian demographics relating to workforce to how the U.S. and India collaborate on climate change policies. She also focused on disaster mitigation in the city relating to a flood that occurred in 2005 and the reaction of the terrorist attack in 2008 in Colaba, which is a couple blocks away from where we are staying now. The dialogue was very interesting and made me want to learn more about the various topics that we discussed and opened my eyes a bit more to what we will discuss on this trip and how complex the conversations, and eventually the war games, will get to be.
Coming back to the hotel we had a bit of free time for lunch and some of us ventured out to the open market to see what we could buy. There were so many beautiful pants and shirts and art pieces and so many noises from traffic and haggling prices. That area kind of reminded me of Once in Buenos Aires, especially with the amount of people walking in the streets and the traffic. We came back to the hotel, basically drenched in sweat because the humidity and heat is ridiculous here, and headed to our first official class with Professor Ganguly.
After class some people went to play cricket, which can be compared to baseball but with very different rules, and soccer but Mariana and I were exhausted so we decided to take a nap. Lindsey and I then decided to venture off the the Chabad House of Mumbai, which we are very close to, because we needed to experience Jewish life in India and it was amazing. Most of the guests were Israeli or at least spoke Hebrew, but since it's a time of the year in which not many tourists come and the kids are out of school the guests were mostly residents of Mumbai or in town for business. The Rabbi and his wife welcomed us very well and the conversations around the Shabbat table were amazing (even though I could only understand some things since most of the time everyone was speaking Hebrew) and the stories of why or how some people are in Mumbai were very interesting. It felt like a community and I'm so glad I got to experience Shabbat with this awesome group of people!
Tomorrow we are off to a slum very early in the morning, so I'll see you in the morning Mumbai!
Today we woke up very early to head to the United States consulate to Mumbai to listen to a woman who spoke about a variety of things relating to Indian government and the U.S. India relationship. A new government will be elected by May 16th so everyone is very anxious to know what the results will be, since India is such a big country the democratic voting takes place in 9 sections and 7 of them have been completed so far. The speaker spoke very well about a wide variety of topics from agriculture and Indian demographics relating to workforce to how the U.S. and India collaborate on climate change policies. She also focused on disaster mitigation in the city relating to a flood that occurred in 2005 and the reaction of the terrorist attack in 2008 in Colaba, which is a couple blocks away from where we are staying now. The dialogue was very interesting and made me want to learn more about the various topics that we discussed and opened my eyes a bit more to what we will discuss on this trip and how complex the conversations, and eventually the war games, will get to be.
Coming back to the hotel we had a bit of free time for lunch and some of us ventured out to the open market to see what we could buy. There were so many beautiful pants and shirts and art pieces and so many noises from traffic and haggling prices. That area kind of reminded me of Once in Buenos Aires, especially with the amount of people walking in the streets and the traffic. We came back to the hotel, basically drenched in sweat because the humidity and heat is ridiculous here, and headed to our first official class with Professor Ganguly.
After class some people went to play cricket, which can be compared to baseball but with very different rules, and soccer but Mariana and I were exhausted so we decided to take a nap. Lindsey and I then decided to venture off the the Chabad House of Mumbai, which we are very close to, because we needed to experience Jewish life in India and it was amazing. Most of the guests were Israeli or at least spoke Hebrew, but since it's a time of the year in which not many tourists come and the kids are out of school the guests were mostly residents of Mumbai or in town for business. The Rabbi and his wife welcomed us very well and the conversations around the Shabbat table were amazing (even though I could only understand some things since most of the time everyone was speaking Hebrew) and the stories of why or how some people are in Mumbai were very interesting. It felt like a community and I'm so glad I got to experience Shabbat with this awesome group of people!
Tomorrow we are off to a slum very early in the morning, so I'll see you in the morning Mumbai!
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