The complicated futility of ignorance

Safe and sound back in Thanjavur. The morning beach think and the four hour car ride back left plenty of time for reflection...

And the following might be boring. Another stream of consciousness rambling session...

Last night we all went to a beautiful rooftop restaurant for Shawns birthday. And had a great time enjoying lots of grilled fruits and veggies (and wonderful meats for the animal eaters out there), cold drinks and the moonlight over the water. We had the opportunity to chat with some other American students taking a weekend break in Pondi. It was really interesting to chat with them and hear about what their experience has been in India.

But I couldn't help but keep thinking about a conversation I had earlier in the day, and the background conversation that's been going on for me since I've been here.

So yesterday while sitting at the beach, a teenager came up and started talking to me. One of the first things he mentioned was the exchange rate between rupees and US dollars. And asked if I've been able to live very nicely here because of it. Yes, we really have...I've been thinking about this from day one and am still not sure what to make of it. We have clean rooms with AC (that uses a ton of electricity in the already strained system) and an abundance of food (which is more plentiful than what many families around the world are enjoying) and all the bottled water we can drink (plastic bottles piling up everywhere!). And I'm at the forefront of doing a lot of these things...because I can just buy clean water when I want it. Wah wah.

And then the traveling, too. Sort of interesting how lots of the foreigners learning about a new place and working with the people who live there (yours truly included) end up in the same swanky bars, buying drinks that the average person could certainly not afford. Or drink, if she happened to be a woman.

I mean, not even a mile away from the beachfront restaurants and air conditioned shopping center is an open sewer ditch where people wash their clothes--see the picture. Because that's what's available (the closed sewer system in the former French quarter doesn't extend out into the rest of the city quite as nicely. Shocking). I mean, just now there is a diarrhea outbreak in the state of Orissa where more than 65 people have died because of unsafe drinking water. I could go on and on about the disparities that are apparent every day, but does that move the conversation forward? It's not like any of these realities are new to you or me. So then, the question I have is, what do I do with this?

Being right at the intersection of observing what's going on and being a part of the reason that some of it is going on has been really... interesting. And challenging. And hard to express without misrepresenting anyone, including myself. No guarantees I accomplished that.

I guess the final question, as it has been throughout these posts, is what are we, as a global community, committed to doing to address such disparities? Anything? Should we be obligated to act, even if we don't want to? What would those actions look like on a person level, community level, policy level? If we don't act, what are the consequences?

Oh what a world.