If You Find Yourself in the Mountains Of Colombia

I was just flying in through the clouds outside the mountains that surround Medellin, chatting with an Israeli tourist who was in Medellin for the festival of flowers (he referred to it as the Mardi Gras of Colombia... I didnt have the heart to tell him that he was going to be disappointed and this isnt a secret covert massive parade party session on king street...)

For those of you who dont know or dont remember, I'm in Colombia now as part of my thesis research.  I'm studying something very technically nerdy that is made interesting by the complicated histories of the cities that I am visiting here -- Bogota and Medellin.

I just finished a four day whirl wind series of interviews in Bogota. I think I've been eat, sleeping and breathing my thesis for the past 2.5 weeks. Dont get me wrong, this has been great. Now as I am sitting for over an hour not worrying about work, however, I notice how overwhelming/awesome/exciting/interesting/intense it has been. Really, I guess most of this summer has been this way.

[on the plus side, I rarely feel tired because there is coffee everywhere all the time and it's fantastic. I'm enjoying all of it so much! I suspect this drink-all-of-the-coffee campaign I seem to have going on isnt great... but whatever. I'm sure I'll go back to normal when I get back to Boston. #YOLO..? I guess...]

I've learned a lot of history, read through pages and pages of new legal codes, talked to politicians, journalists, professors, researchers, reform advocates, watch-dogs, taxi drivers, campaign managers, students, and artists about this wonderful, confusing and thought provoking country. I had some time to wander through the colonial downtown, to go out to a horse farm where the forests touch the sky, and through the business districts of a city once feared by the world. It's so full of secrets. Behind the smiles there are memories that make you shiver.

The best conversations I've had were candid. Passionate. Full of truth in the eyes of the beholder. The worst were full of silences, slanted brows and glares, exaggerated movements, standing in the window facing away from me and growling an unrelated response to my questions.

I love the role of interviewer. You get to see how many different ways people process the same questions and ideas. Who allows you to have a conversation with them, and who makes it as painful as possible. One silent space between your questions at a time. You see the people who weave stories out of thin air and bring you right into them. They make you remember. (They are the ones I wish I could drag out for the TEDxYale stage...) It's an ongoing experiment where you realize that regardless of where you are in the world, you will find some of everything.

In the best cases I felt a sliver of my heart drop to the floor. Sometimes with fear of those moments and hoping to God Mexico doesnt head so far and fall so hard... some with pain for the other person. I was humbled by stories I took down in my notebook, scribbling quickly and hoping that I could catch everything before it slipped between my fingers and into the shadows under my chair. I showed up to an interview an hour early, and waited an hour and a half for another one. I sat in hours of the legendary Bogota traffic, enjoying the view of twisting roads and numbers I still dont understand heading into the mountains.

I had arepas of all shapes and sizes, though to be blasphemous and completely honest: I only ate one that I really liked.

And now I have some of those faces etched into my mind. The love these people feel for their country, all in different ways, reminds me of my own love for Mexico. It's complicated. Hard to package, impossible to sell. So many warts and bruises amid patches of shiny and beautiful and something you want to hold close to you. Despite it's claws.

Colombia is beautiful. Even with the wrinkles and cracks, I feel at home here. Which, I've learned, is harder to find that I thought it was. I am lucky to have found a few places I love as dearly as Boston and Mexico.... and perhaps this country is heading that way.

Lessons from Bogota

I've been here for about three days now, and already I've learned a few things from trying to squeeze in a ton of work within a very short period of time. This is different than India because there is time pressure, I speak the language, and I have a master, year long project going on here...

And so, here we go:

1) The American over-scheduling every 15 minute increment of our lives thing is possible to do without. Confession: this moment of acceptance took a LONG LONG time to reach. After weeks of me essentially ripping my hair out trying to get answers, emailing for days, stressing out about the wording of emails to important people (the usual Yale student thing)... I came here with open afternoons which I just spent the morning filling. And wow... this schedule is crazy.

2) Tranquila, Tranquila is actually a life style that I could maybe one day live with. Maybe. I decided we'll try to apply it this year: no more overscheduling, way more open time to let things I wouldnt be able to do otherwise happen. I'm going to push all of my friends to do more spurr of the moment things. It's going to be great.

3) I am bizarrely honest. I hadnt realized how straight forward about most things I am. yes I always knew I was a go getter, but I really just dont beat around the bush much.

4) I'm REALLY thinking on my feet now. What with the whole, oh I have a handful of MAYBE appointments that I'm trying to set up that actually just worked out. And now I'm cranking out and adapting questionnaires to fit the setting.

My thesis is going to be AWESOME. I'm having a great time here!

Wearer of Many Masks

I was sitting in a bar in the South End of Boston (it's one of the really trendy neighborhoods right now. Known for fashionable bars and nightlife, a growing gay community, and old world Boston charm) and laughing to myself while my friend went outside to take a phone call because I really am the wearer of many masks.

I realize those words come with heavy connotations, so let me first dispel those misperceptions in what I am saying here. I dont mean it to say I am a chameleon or that I dont have a real personality. As any of my friends or people who work with me can tell you, I am very definite and uncompromising in who I am. Sometimes to the point of conflict (but hey, how many activists do you know who ARENT confrontational and ready for an argument? Answer: none. We live to cause some trouble and shake it up).

I mean it in the sense that I like a lot of extremely and exceptionally different things. That's probably why the first word people often use to describe me is "quirky," and not as an insult or euphemism.

I was laughing and thinking about my masks because I was enjoying a lovely, mild summer evening in one of the WASPiest cities in the country, drinking something sweet called "tokyo rose" and essentially gossiping with a friend who has known me for my entire life. All while a week earlier I was walking through open sewage pipes in sandals in the monsoons in Dharavi and asking people I didnt know, who I had just met in my passages, to tell me about their lives and their businesses.

Whereas, now I was drawing attention to myself in the bright red pants I purchased when I came home because they remind me of one of my absolute best friends, I was doing everything I could to try and blend into the walls. I was covering myself from wrist to ankle in subtly colored Kurtas and leggings and everything that I could find to match the locals -- no jewelry (for me this is weird. I am a layering kind of girl...), plastic shoes, hair tied into a knot ont the back of my head... and still I couldnt do anything to blend in. And here, bright red pants, summer clothes, henna still all over my arms... and I went about unnoticed, as I had hoped.

Exploring has taught me to love many aspects of life.

From the questionnaires I am writing about now for Colombia, to the emails I'm sharing with friends I met along the way... it's been a really great ride.

Even now as I sit here thinking about Colombian history and what I want to ask people about, I am thinking through a creative project I want to do when I get back to create something to give a friend for his birthday.

And you realize, too, that what makes all of this possible -- what keeps me pushing through the more challenging moments of these experiences, fears of being different and going down the uncharted path (away from consulting or worse -- Ibanking-- which Yale seems to push HARD on us), and defining my own version of success, since I am well aware that I will never happily meet that cookie cutter, Yale definition of success (read: money, rank in a traditional, tried and true company, and my own version of a trophy...husband? even writing that makes me gag)-- are the people you met along the way. My parents who notice when I send them emails at 4:30 am and then tell me to GO TO SLEEP and STOP WORKING AND GO HAVE FUN, my best friends, one whose voice soothes all pain and will never judge me and the other who sits on the phone with me and walks me through new technology apps I should know, fights with me through my ideas and projects, and who doesnt put up with my crap, and all of the people who surprise you by caring more than you thought they would.

I am a wearer of many masks because people show me things, and tell me stories, and invite me into their spaces. And for this, I am grateful.

Bombay and Dharavi: a Brief History

I thought I'd put up chunks of some of my research here, for those of you who are curious.

First: A brief history of Bombay and Dharavi --

Bombay and Dharavi:

A different kind of development took place in Bombay during the 1850s that made way for workers to create spaces like Dharavi within the city. After the colonial period of the city’s growth as a major trade and port city, Bombay expanded from rapid industrial growth and migrant workers who came to the city seeking jobs from the booming textile mills. The “native city” in Bombay developed as workers moved in to live near the textile mills in areas like lower Parel. Chawls sprung up to house the male workers pouring into the city.  It was common to find as many as 12 men living in the same room and about 200 of them sharing the same bathroom.[1] During the American civil war between 1861-5, the cotton and textile industry in Bombay lost a major competitor and did particularly well. The promise of work, better wages, and a chance to escape the limiting caste system of the villages attracted more and more workers to the city. Workers were now earning enough to send home to their families in the villages, work for a few years, and then return to invest in their villages, therefore gaining a better position within their communities. 
           Economic expansion, however, was not limited to mills and formalized industries. Workers developed communities around their work sites because Bombay did not offer affordable housing options to meet the needs of the rapidly growing working class. Dharavi itself developed as a community of workers who were not incorporated into the mills and needed to seek employment elsewhere. These workers took up jobs that offered goods and services to the rest of the city though the work itself was considered undesirable but necessary, like recycling and leather tanning. Most of these workers found jobs in the informal economy, taking up work as daily wage earners. In their lifetimes, most of them will never have a legally protected contract with their employer, and end up with the title of “temporary worker,” which makes them susceptible to abuse, arbitrary termination, and poor working conditions. Communities like Dharavi and Jari Mari expanded over time and supplied the city with many necessary services and alternatives to the formal business sector, providing employment and housing to an enormous number of Bombay’s residents. Today these communities have strong internal markets and self run businesses that international companies are studying for their own production methods. 

Bombay and Dharavi have been interconnected for a long time: neither one can survive without the other. Out of the 21 million people living in the city, eight million people live in Bombay’s slums.[2] Dharavi covers 550 acres of land and has a diverse population of individuals who create their own communities within the space.[3] New migrants arrive in Dharavi all the time for specific training in their trade before they move into other areas of the city.[4] Most of these individuals are daily wage laborers who are members of the Dalit caste, but there is also a significant Muslim population in the area. This is still a space for migrant workers to leave their villages and join relatives or friends in the city and where their social networks help them find work and housing. Dharavi provides labor for many of the services consumed by the upper and middle classes of the city: workers from the slums provide drivers, maids, nannies, cooks, and cleaning services for families across the city. Since the closure of the mills, Dharavi has also become an increasingly important site for manufacture and production. Entrepreneurs and business owners running small shops within Dharavi operate under lower start up and overhead costs that formal manufacturing jobs because the work usually takes place within the same space that a family or group of workers may sleep, eat, and work. There are roughly 5000 informal businesses operating within Dharavi, turning over more than $600 million in economic activity per year.[5] Manufacturers here supply the garment industry with western style shirts for export, dancing shoes worn by famous celebrities, and the leather bags carried by India’s elite families.

Bombay creates some of the demand for work that Dharavi’s residents have developed ways to supply, but Dharavi has also created and supplied its own market. Dharavi is an informal city: there is not enough water for residents, and often ten or more families will have to share a water tap that will provide them with water for less than three hours a day.[6] The city does not provide this part of the city with a garbage collection system, which means locals residents have developed their own way to manage waste and recycle. Services like garbage collection, recycling and others were developed by local residents to meet the needs of their community. In addition to providing an important part of Bombay’s manufacturing sector with products, Dharavi exists as a self-sustaining local economy where products are developed through local innovation to meet the desires, preferences and prices demanded around them.[7] Residents from Dharavi run their businesses without the support of the government or formal finance structures. Banks will reject often applicants for credit cards or loans when they see that the applicant’s mailing address is in Dharavi or similar areas within the city.[8] Microfinance firms are moving into the area and offering their services, but many business still operate independently from formal loan systems. Residents are also challenged by the government when they try to reinvest in their homes and the space despite how much of their time and production happens here: Dharavi exists on a highly desirable piece of land within the city, making it a target in discussions surrounding redevelopment and relocation of the slum-dwellers.

---

[1] Ashish Chandra, Lecture, June 18, 2012.

[2] Jim Yardley, IHT, Dharavi: Self-created special economic zone for the poor, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/216254/dharavi-self-created-special-economic.html, Online.

[3] Hanna Ingber, The Shiva Rules: Lessons from Asia’s Largest Slum, The Global Post, May 17, 2011, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/110516/dharavi-economy-slums-urban-poor?page=full. Online.

[4] Yardley.

[5] Ingber.

[6] Yardley.

[7] Ingber.  

[8] Interview with Mathias Echanove, July 4, 2012.  

Welcome Home

Back to the 5 am wake ups! But that's all right, because it has already been a productive morning as a result.

The trip back from India took about 30 hours in total travel time. This may even be a little bit of an underestimate. It was a long trip full of my usual misadventures. 

It began with the taxi that switched drivers through the course of a 1.5 hour, twisting and winding drive through random parts of Bombay to the airport. We ran 3 red lights that were nearly fatal (this is post Bombay Diana speaking. Which means I got used to cars essentially scraping the door of the cab I was in, turning in front of us, nearly hitting bikers, cows, trucks coming the wrong way down the street... etc.) I joked about it once, but I am fairly certain that the only way I personally could survive driving my own car in India would be if I was completely out of my mind. Either because I had lost my mind or I was drugged out somehow and unable to fully understand everything going on around me. You have to leave everything at the door and survive by instinct. Everything happens in milliseconds on those roads. From the heels of your plastic rain flats melting to the bottom of the car, to the driver pulling over, jumping and and being replaced by some guy who walked out of a convenience store... yeah. None of these things would fly in the US. Cool life experience...?

I made it to the airport by blaring music in my ears and disorienting myself as much as possible (not something I am normally ok with doing) but it meant I was a lot calmer by the time I reached the airport than I usually was after stepping out of cabs in the city. 

The following hours were a mix of papers, filling out forms, being absolutely scalped in the exchange rate for my last rupees into dollars (there are signs everywhere before you enter Satan's Playground, also known as the desks in the airport where you go through the final immigrant exit proceedings for India, that declare: Rupees are a controlled currency, you cannot carry them past immigration. The men sitting at the exchange counters lit up and looked like their were about to jump into the air and click their heels when they saw me walking by reading their signs. YES YES COME HERE DUMB TOURIST YESSSSSS, was what their faces said to me.) I then sat in various airport public spaces trying to figure out what time my body THOUGHT it was versus what time it actually was...

and unimaginable kindness. All because my arms were marked with henna! 

First episode of this kindness took place when I went through the gender segregated security check at the Mumbai international airport. The woman who had to screen me after I somehow set off the metal detector (I honestly wasn't wearing anything but thin cotton and a watch) tried so hard not to smile at me. She was a really tough looking lady. And then her face cracked, as she point to my arms and said, "henna!" She grinned at me during the rest of the very brief check before she waved me off. Of course, I was still super excited about it, so I was babbling about how creative the student who painted my arms was, and where I went and all of this. 

Second episode was when I needed to buy a water bottle found out a few nasty little surprises:

1) the airport only accepted rupees

2) JUST KIDDING ABOUT RUPEES BEING SO STRICTLY CONTROLLED THEN! Awesome. I was burned in the exchange rate on the way back AND didnt have anything to give the guy that he would accept for the water bottle. stellar. 

As I was thinking about how I could get rid of my headache (which was from not drinking water all day... because I am brilliant like than sometimes...), one of those rare cases where a random stranger commits a random act of kindness happened.

The man standing behind me in line bought me one and tossed it to me. He had listened to me argue in vain and nearly try to bribe the guy behind the cash register with dollars for a water bottle, and then decided to help me out. I was speechless. He pointed to my arms and said that he liked them. In an airport of all places. I consider airports to be the spaces where rudeness is almost acceptable because everyone is confused and lost and tired. I dont really seem them as spaces for random acts of kindness but I was stunned and very happy!

Later on when I was searching for a very specific kind of candy that my father loves and requested that I find for him 7 weeks earlier when he heard that I was flying through Britain en route to Boston, a saleswoman stopped me and asked about my arms. She was curious about the color and the design and the meaning of the patterns. It was nice. She tried to give me chocolate and some other samples from all over the store but I still felt queazy from from flight and had to say no. All the same, she was extremely friendly, helpful and nearly went on the quest for this candy with me until I found what I wanted. 

And on the last flight from London to Boston, when I felt stir crazy for the first time in a LONG time, I was sitting next to a little girl who looked like me when I was 8 years old. Same hair color, skin tone, eye color. (This has been a trip with a weird number of dopplegängers running around) She and her grandmother (?) were Romanian, so they couldnt really talk to me, but they were really cute with each other so it made me smile. The little girl liked my henna, I kept seeing her staring at it, so eventually I reached out my arm and let her touch it. She traced some of the lines and grinned at me. I felt like I was sharing HOW AWESOME this experience was with everyone.

So many kudos to Mishel.

And now I'm back. Still wearing my brightly colored Indian clothes everyday, but now my henna covered arms and feet are visible to all. I'm loving it :)

Pounding Rain

Henna Masterpiece