Poo

Travelling through India makes you appreciate a working septic system. Not because I am overly fussy on having a clean western loo to use but because when you're living in a first world country you can often forget just how big of a problem waste control really is. There are 1.7 billion people in India and everyone of them will poo everyday. That’s a LOT of shit. And when you’re living in poverty in a crowded city, privacy is a luxury many cannot afford.  In fact, if I had a dollar for every time I saw someone shtting by the side of the road I could pay for this entire trip.

The old saying "don’t shit where you eat" can apply to many situations, but when taken literally it is a golden rule. It also applies to where you drink and wash, but unfortunately this is also a luxury for many. I’m not sure if it is a lack of education or a lack of other options, but people will often go down to the waters edge to do their daily business, the same river or pond where they will bathe. The same river that seeps into the groundwater that feeds the well where they collect their drinking water.

In cities it is much worse. The combination of  crowded streets and open drains that doubles as a sewerage system creates a pungent aroma that attracts pigs, chickens, cows, dogs and goats, most of which eat the faeces, some of which end up on dinner plates. That which isn’t eaten is left to be stood in or flushed into the local river to be bathed in. It’s not hard to see how disease is rife. A proper system for waste disposal is not only wonderful to live with, it makes the biggest difference to the health of the population than any other development.

As a side note: Walk away from all water sources and bury it please...

I have subsequently developed a deeper appreciation for three things: proper waste control, my education that allows me to determine what not to eat/drink and antiseptic hand gel. So for all of you living in a first world country, make sure to hug your toilet on the 19th for world toilet day. 
http://toiletday.org/?s=waterforpeople

Hazel eyes

Sweat was making my skirt stick to my legs and my head pounded as another horn pierced through the air. I grabbed the metal bar in front of me to steady myself as I was jolted off the seat of the tuktuk. We were making out way through the crowded streets of Varanasi, the driver utilising his horn as much as possible and often resorting to shaking his fist. Trucks. cars, tuktuks, bicycles, kids, cows, dogs, goats and masses of people swarmed the street, each with a different destination, each trying to make their own way through the hoards. I imagined it would look similar to a swirling river from above.

A truck had stopped ahead due to a stubborn bull blocking the road and traffic was cramming through a bottleneck. We stopped and the driver resorted to fist shaking. I looked out at the women passing through the crowds all adorned in colourful saris wrapped elegantly around their slender frames. As I searched through the crowds a set of eyes immediately cause my gaze. They were a creamy deep hazel colour, the same deep as milk chocolate, surrounded by skin of a slightly darker shade. She was dressed in a black burqua complete with a veil that allowed only for a slit for her eyes. She stared directly at me and we held eye contact. It wasn’t meancing, mearly curiosity that extended both ways.

My first thought was “We are from different worlds” and in many ways it is true. You would be hard pressed to find two women of similar ages that have such different lives. She would be lucky to finish high school; her parents would chose her husband and he would choose where they lived, if she worked, when they have children and how many they would have. She would give birth without medical care or pain relief and could expect at least one of her children to die before they reached adulthood. She would sleep on the floor and eat after her family, if there was enough food. Religion would be embedded in every aspect of her life and she would be persecuted by the majority of the Indian population because of it.
But the major difference between us that I saw is choice. I can choose to live how I want, where I want, with whom I want. I have choices, she does not.

But as I stared into those deep eyes I realised I was wrong. We are not from “different worlds,” we are 3 metres apart. This is the same world and we are both young women. She will care for her children the same way I will, she will feel the same pain when she is ill, she will cry the same way and she will have the same hopes, dreams and wishes as I do. When I made a wish into the Ganges I bet it wasn’t too far off what she would have made if she were sitting next to me. After all, we all want to be happy.

The driver had managed to find an alley barely wide enough and he punched the accelerator, lurching the tuktuk forwards. I smiled at the woman in the black burqua and as she slowly disappeared from view and even though our perspectives were from different worlds, I wished her all the happiness in her world and mine.