A ridiculously busy week

Namaste friends!

So I've been here in Mumbai a little bit over a week and I've met more people in the last 9 days than I’d met in the last year of my life. The community here is so welcoming it’s unbelievable. I keep thinking about what my mother always told me (which is what her mother always told her): if you ever find yourself in any kind of trouble or in any new situation, all you have to do is find the nearest synagogue and the Jews will help you. Three nights this week Kimberly and I were invited into people’s homes for dinner, to meet their families and bring in the new year. We met Jews who have been in Mumbai for generations, learning their family history and traditions. It has been wonderful to learn the tunes specific to the Bene Yisrael Jews (the largest group of Jews in India, whose ancestors are said to have landed here centuries ago), and hear the universal ones that all Jews recognize worldwide.

Both last Sunday and today I helped teach the Gat Katan class, which is the Sunday school here in Mumbai. The children are adorable and know a lot about Judaism and Jewish tradition (they definitely know more than I did at their ages). They love to color, sing songs, and chase each other around the room, but also really enjoy learning and pride themselves in knowledge and talent. One of the boys, who is five, is the most amazing colorer I've ever seen, and while he is very humble, he’s also quite proud of his finished products (I would be, too if I were him. He is seriously amazing.).

Monday, Kimberly and I went on a tour of Mumbai with Hannah, another member of the Jewish community. We saw the Gateway of India (a giant archway built at the port to welcome the king and queen in 1924), the Common Laundry (where men wash clothing for people all over the city, mixing it all together and still getting it back to the correct owner), the Victoria Terminus (as seen in Slumdog Millionaire, and also a World Heritage Site), Knesset Eliyahoo (one of the oldest synagogues in Mumbai), the Gandhi Museum (even Obama saw it!), the Hanging Gardens (beautifully landscaped terraced gardens overlooking the bay), the dabbawallah (a huge lunchbox delivery and pick-up service), and more.

That night, we had a text discussion with Rabbi Judith, who is here for the holidays from Israel (though she is originally from Wisconsin). We met some of the active adults in the community and personally, I learned a ton about the forms of Judaism here in Mumbai and how the congregations think about Judaism and god. It is probably not so different from how many people in the US think about it, but very different from the way I look at it as a decidedly Reconstructionist Jew from Los Angeles.

Tuesday morning we woke up early to go to Thane and see the Gabriel Project Mumbai. This was especially exciting for me because this is where I’ll be living and working starting next week. We took the train there (and I forgot to mention I’d taken the train there once already, to see the synagogue and meet the adults taking Hebrew classes). The trains so far really don’t seem as crazy as everyone says. Honestly, I've seen subway cars in New York that are just as crowded and the stacking on buses in Samoa (just sitting on strangers’ laps when there is no more room) trumps the trains here.

I met the people with whom I’ll be working most closely, though the director of GPM, Jacob, lives in Israel most of the year and I won’t meet him until October when the first group of volunteers arrives (But just so I can prove how nice everyone is here, he left a box of chocolates for me to welcome me to the apartment and the GPM team.). We went to the kitchen to meet the women from the Kalwa slums who cook for the schoolchildren everyday. They got a new kitchen about three weeks ago and are so proud to have this business. They work with REAP, which is an organization that provides the women with lessons in English and math as well as this work. One woman I was talking to said, “Before REAP we had to just sit in the house all day and we had no skills. Now we get to come here and learn and do something good.”

Then we walked to the slums, which was HOT HOT HOT. We got there as the women were delivering the food and the children were so happy. I also must point out that this food, unlike the free food children get in the US, is actually quite wholesome and completely unprocessed or sugary. We saw three classrooms, one preschool and two “elementary schools,” all of which are small, one-room shacks made from corrugated metal and blue tarps. They are dark, dingy, and dirty, but the smiles on the children’s faces when they saw us coming melted all of that away. They are so happy to learn. They LOVE education. They all want to do well and be the best. They want to graduate and go to college and get good jobs. They want to speak fluent English. And they love everything the volunteers teach. I taught a song in the second classroom and the kids were still singing it as we left (the banana song, of course).

The slums looked exactly the way I thought they would. But they didn't feel the way I thought they’d feel. People don’t sit there thinking about poverty. They get up in the morning, wash up, put on clean clothes and go to work. They braid their daughters’ hair and send them to the train to go to a better school in the next town. They go to buy supplies for the store they run in the slum. They live their lives and have a community to support them.

That night we went to dinner with a couple from the Jewish community at the Bombay Gymkhana, an historic sports club that felt like the epitome of British luxury in imperial India. It had an old ballroom, a library, grandfather clocks from the turn of the century, etc. It was very different from the slum in which we’d spent the morning.

The rest of the week was a whirlwind of services for Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat, and wonderful dinners in wonderful people’s homes. The services on Thursday were the most meaningful I've ever experienced. It was amazing to see the traditions merging and I kept thinking about how my friends and family would be reacting, especially Paula, my grandmother who passed away in May and loved both foreign eccentricities and Judaism, and Ian, my friend who passed away in June and was constantly attempting to learn all he could about other people’s ways of life and also thinking of converting to Judaism. The community is also just that: a community. If someone has an honor during the service, they go around the room after to shake hands and “share” the honor with the whole congregation. It’s very touching. We went to a lovely dinner at the home of one of the largest families in the congregation and learned the symbolism of their Rosh Hashanah foods.  I also had a very meaningful Shabbat at the JDC India director Elijah’s home. His family is beautiful and their traditions very lovely. I recorded Elijah's wife singing a Shabbat song in the tune that was her mother's favorite and is remembered today by very few people. 

For tashlich, everyone goes to the wharf for prayers and to cast away their sins, but really it’s an excuse for the mothers of eligible youngsters to mingle and make matches. Because of this, everyone wears their very best clothing and the whole ordeal is very colorful.

We’ve also been keeping busy making friends so we’ve had some people over, gone out a few times, and went for a group run yesterday. It’s a very difficult country to get used to and I miss things like sliced turkey, shorts, and being dry. But overall it’s been a very positive first week and I think this year is going to be absolutely life-changing.

Sorry this was such a long post, and sorry if any of it was confusing. Please leave a comment or email me with any questions!

With as much love as colors on the Tashlich wharf,

Leah