International Political Will

In a land of 20 million people – in which half do not have indoor plumbing – making a difference can sometimes seem impossible. The dire consequences of poverty in Mumbai’s slums cannot truly be comprehended until you have waded through monsoon puddles and raw sewage that collect in the pot-holed streets. The slums are filled with thousands of unemployed, whose struggle to find water, food, and sometimes medicine occupies most of their time.

Something small – like tutoring two dozen slum kids in English twice a week – feels like throwing a pebble off the Golden Gate bridge: you know you did it, but you never saw the splash. Everyday you wonder: do they listen? Do they care? Does it matter? Is it hopeless? A stuffy, humid, concrete room that swarms with malarial mosquitoes and amplifies the young teenagers’ simultaneous loud voices isn’t exactly a good learning environment – but neither is the rat-infested trash heap outside.

So you make do with what you have. You try to show the kids the kind of attention that they crave. You praise their accomplishments. You set high goals and let them know you expect nothing less. You cling to the moments when they show progress, and brood over the setbacks and obstacles. And all this with the hope that someday, somewhere, when you have moved on and are only a faded memory to that child, that they will grow into an adult who is living a life one degree better than they would have otherwise. The payback is always off in some distant future, and there will never be any way to quantify, verify, or record your impact.

Unless you look closely.

A few miles down the train line, in a neighborhood across the bay, I venture to the top floor of one of Mumbai’s new middle-class malls to purchase my monthly supply of ground coffee. Shopping malls in Mumbai are only for the affluent (which are few and far between in India – but when you have one billion people, that’s still a lot). It is not uncommon to have to wait behind a family tentatively trying to time their jump onto the “magic stairs” for the first time (as one small child from the slum referred to escalators).

The affluent’s taste for McDonalds, fruit smoothies, and Levi’s are the new trend, and these retail stores are creating thousands of decent-paying jobs. These are the kinds of jobs – steady wages, decent hours, and with future prospects – that slum kids would be lucky to get. But in Mumbai, English is the ticket into the employment market. Even jobs as a delivery boy for Domino’s Pizza require English.

As I dig through my pockets to pay for a pound of coffee, a young woman employee pops her head up from behind the counter.

“Excuse me, you teach at Akanksha, nah? Little kids? In Govandi?” she asks in English with a strong, confident voice that is typically only heard in upper-class Indian women.

“Hah,” I reply, giving her my best Mumbai head-wobble. “How do you know that?”

“I see you. I live there, and I see you many times.”

“I volunteer with one of the classes there. Teaching English. You know about Akanksha?”

“Hah. I used to be in Akanksha when I was younger. Angelia was my teacher.”

“I’ve heard the kids talk about her, but I’ve never met her before,” I say as I stuff the change into my pocket. “Next time you see me, say ‘Hi’.”

She nods and smiles. “I will.”

I walk away, down three flights of magic stairs, and out into the bright autumn Indian sun. Removed from the climate-controlled mall and clean marble floors, I pick my way through the trash-strewn pavement on my way back to the office. The dust of the dry streets blows in my face, the smell of potent exhaust fumes burns my nostrils, and beads of sweat form on my temple.

A shoe-shiner sits with his box on the sidewalk, waiting to earn a few cents from a passerby. Laborers – women – carry heavy buckets of sand and gravel on their heads to their husbands who are mixing cement in the hot sun. A young man squats behind an outdoor kitchen washing steel pots in dirty water. Jobs they are – and these people are lucky to have them – but they are low-paying, unpredictable, and subject to the harsh urban environment. Those working in the mall are the lucky ones – those jobs can be put on a resume and act as a stepping stone to a position at a call center, civil service, or management.

The uncountable people who work with children or the poor - often in difficult circumstances - sometimes despair at any visible sign of change. The change is there; it is real, visible, and quantifiable, but usually will only be documented by those who come after, leaving us in the present to continue on faith.

In the foul air and heat, I lose myself wondering if Angelia – wherever she is now – knows she made a difference.

The young woman working at the coffee shop wasn’t one of my students.

But one day, she could be.

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