Law, Partially

What was the number one highlight? Let’s say it was my trip to the villages around Latur. I gave a harrowing speech about the U.S. education system and how when there is no discrimination, children can study to become whatever they want to be: engineer, doctor, lawyer, pilot, astronaut. I also sang the Star Spangled Banner to a gathering of 25 village leaders, and yes, I fell flat on all the high notes. I was so drunk on my success with that song, I followed it up with Redemption Song by Bob Marley. I asked my CRY friends to tell the leaders in Marathi (the language the villagers understand) that Redemption Song is a song about the Jamaican people’s struggle. These village leaders were Dalits and embroiled in their own struggle – ie the struggle for basic human rights in their communities. And all weekend, the villagers treated me like the most revered celebrity. Maybe I will move out there for a short period of time – to write a report for CRY.

Se Cathedral in Old Goa. All that's left of the formerly grand city of Old Goa are a splattering of giant churches like this. With so many huge churches, this must have been a pretty full town back in its day. This is the waterfront of Old Goa. Check out how red that water is. I'm guessing it's because there's iron down there, or maybe some other mineral that makes it red. Not much left of the waterfront today, just this modern junky metal dock. All that's left now is a ship salvaging operation. These huge rusting ships could contribute to the red of the water, but water was red everywhere, not just here. This wide river would have been great for those Portuguese sailing ships to slide up. My hotel, the Panjim Inn in the restored Portuguese mansion in Panjim, Goa's capital city. My tour guide at the Spice Farm in front of the scraggly looking cinnamon tree. Women bent over in rice paddies. This picture was taken from the back of a motorcycle taxi whi...

With Melissa and Sanjay from CRY Mumbai and towing along my three Singapore friends, I ventured 14 hours from Mumbai into the interiors of Maharashtra. I went to villages and met Dalit farmers who are collectivizing and working together and claiming the human dignity that they’ve never had the wherewithal to claim before. Traditionally, a farmer Dalit wouldn’t even look his landowner employer in the eye, let alone request a living wage, let alone request anything. Nobody really spoke much English except for our CRY companions who provided some spotty translation. And never before in my life have I been treated as such an absolute celebrity. I would sit on the ground in these villages and just have children staring and smiling at me the whole time. I like CRY because CRY doesn’t just roll through villages throwing out money like the U.S. and the U.N. used to do. This old strategy achieved very bad results, especially in Africa where increased foreign aid has increased the wealth of dict...

Seeing and listening to the rosy picture painted for us in the villages around Latur, I was reminded of statements I’ve often heard in the U.S. For example, a celebrity spends a day with some disadvantaged children and then says something like, “their strength and determination is an inspiration to me,” and this celebrity gets a pat on the back for caring. Paris Hilton gets out of jail and is inspired to party less and live a life devoted to helping prison women. How selfless of Paris. You can throw some money at the disadvantaged and leave. You can build them a house and then roll out of town. But these things don’t really get to the roots of why these people are disadvantaged in the first place. The house is likely to be taken care of poorly and the money spent imprudently. People tend to appreciate things a lot more if they have earned it themselves through their own work. I think this is why CRY goes about this development work the right way, empowering people through education and...

A recurring theme of this blog has been the bourgeois wave washing over India. Indians are learning how to spend money on things they didn’t use to spend on. And Indians are now learning to drink wine. Nasik, a town about 180km from Mumbai, is nearby India’s most famous winery, Sula. Sula has been making wines for about ten years. Nasik itself is a holy pilgrimage town for Hindus. Jingyi, Christine, Alvin, and I made the pilgrimage to Sula Vineyards last weekend. During our long and arduous journey to the foreign land of Nasik my fellow pilgrims and I were hindered by pestilence, catastrophic weather, death-defying mountain passages, numerous incidences of stranding, filth, and greasy food, only to make it to Nasik where I, the white man, was worshiped as a god. Advice given to me in Mumbai was to take the Mumbai suburban railroad as far as possible, and then catch a bus to Nasik from there. There is a stunted mountain range that separates Nasik from Mumbai, and the road that passe...

(1.) In two weekends, I will probably be going to a Hindu Holy town called Nasik. It’s about 4 hours by bus and train away from Mumbai. It is also the home of India’s most famous wine growing region and winery, Sula. An Indian who made a boatload in Silicon Valley returned to India and brought California wine makers with him to start the winery. They make whites and reds, including a cabernet shiraz blend. (2.) I read this article earlier in the year and was quite moved by it. Cotton farmers are unable to repay their loans with the price of cotton being so low and the price of tractor fuel and genetically modified seeds being so high, and unable to repay their loans, they’re killing themselves. As poor as the population seems in Mumbai, the poverty in the countryside is supposed to be just grinding, and the primary reason why there are so many slums, beggars, and sidewalk sleepers is because people are just pouring into Mumbai from the countryside looking to make a better living. Anyo...