Distribution days six and seven have been completed at three sites: Panvel, Navi Mumbai, and Thane — all within a two-hour drive of where we are staying in Mumbai.
The drive every morning and late afternoon is through Mumbai. With sixteen million people in this sprawling maze of mankind we have no idea where Mumbai stops and we enter a new town or city.
Construction, bamboo scaffolding, dust, debris, more debris — all driving the changing picture of India as it increases services and goods supplied to the world — and much of the construction is done by hand and by the parents of the children we are seeing at our distributions. They live near the construction in cobbled-together, makeshift, anything-that-can-be-found shelters.
"Anything-that-can-be-found" may include our site distribution signs that are in the picture at left with Judy Snobelen at Thane with one of her donations to her — at the time — unborn grandson. "Baby Snobelen" Carter was born a couple of weeks before we left for India and everyone is doing fine including his grandmother.
Carter AKA "Baby Snobelen" is good news — but our missing signs are not. We suspect the box of signs was carried by one of the volunteers helping us out. It went from the van into one of the distributions unbeknownst to us.
Team leader Douglas Cunningham — we are calling him Douglas to differentiate the two Dougs on the team — in the photo at left may look a little frustrated.
Hey! Improvisation, flexibility, problem solving, patience, understanding of a different culture, different language, different needs, are required as a travelling volunteer.
Trust me: the kids don't care if there is a commercially made sign or a handmade one. What their needs are puts many things in our life into perspective.
Doug MacDougald,
for the SCAW 2007 Mumbai Travelling Team
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