Conversation of Contrast

 Yesterday was our first day of our adventures in and around Mumbai. We saw a lot of shocking and eye opening slums and some beautiful buildings. There were people who were desperately poor and people ridding in Mercedes Benz sedans. The contrast between rich and poor was evident in many ways and it was incredible to see modern buildings, both office space and residential, next to slums that have been there for fifty or sixty years. As foreigners a lot of us have very little perspective on India’s cultural divisions and class and we seemed to be able to only tell the two extremities of wealth. When conversing with another student on the trip we talked about how there only seemed to be two distinct classes of wealth, desperately impoverished and extremely wealthy. We talked about the theme of skyscrapers and modern buildings with desperate slums adjacent to them, which could be found throughout the city. How could this be? To build these giant structures you have to employ masses of people, you would think that this scale of employment would help the surrounding slums.

--Dale