Hand over and back to the UK

Well, we are back, and I know it is early (05:00 am in the UK), but hey, that's the body clock kicking in.

The Inauguration of the centre was attended by around 500 people, stunning welcome, the pleasure on faces, enthusiastic handshaking, much dancing by some of the children who had dressed up specially to perform in front of all their family and friends all added to making it a very special event.

A part of the opening were the interviews for television. Dick, Tina, Julie and I were "volunteered", so we shall see what happens. They wanted to know what we had done, why we had come, and what were our impressions, all difficult to sum up in a few short sound bites. They were also interested in the training that Tim and Dick had done for local Doctors and that I have been able to do some work with Kiran to help prepare for meetings with local bankers where Asha is working with them and the Finance Ministry in Delhi to start putting together a scheme that will make banking facilities available to those in the slums.

Yesterday (Sat) brought the trip home, a long day with a 9 hour flight which (looking back) went quite quickly. reflection time for all of us. We looked at the slums and and saw the difficult circumstances its residents lived in, the crowding within the slums, lack of water supplies, lots of evidence of poor health, but we also saw determination to improve, immense pride in the homes that had been built, (often on previously waste ground), the gratefulness that people had for Asha and the work it was doing, helping to improve health amongst all the population, especially the rates of infant mortality. Many of the people we met had lived in the slums for many years, having moved from rural villages, where there was limited food (especially if a harvest failed) no work and worse poverty. Their moves to Delhi were driven by looking for work, a better life, and in some cases for the women, being sent through an arranged marriage to join another family (often at 16) and to be part of a household in the slum with the husbands family. By our standards, very hard, but accepted as normality by those we met, with no regrets.

Water is a constant issue, there is no piped water to Kasumper Pahardi (hope I spelt that right!) Water is delivered by 40 tankers each day (still not enough for the 5000 who live there). All over the slums there are rows and rows of blue water carriers, some full, some waiting to be filled all the constant flow of tankers into the slums. Being an illegal development, we are told that the Government will not install standpipes or any other system to alleviate this problem. As a result all water is precious, making it even more special when we see how generous people are being towards us. Many of the people we met have lived with this for 25+ years.

As others have said, we were taken on walks around the slums. Crowded with familys living very close together, here are some images of this.

It was always amazing to walk round a corner and find a cow, goat or sheep. Often a cow would wander down the lane. Cows are sacred in India, and often left free to roam.

Nigel.