A Winter in India

Here is a photo that Kate took of our neighbor across the street on his exercise bike. He is out there faithfully every morning around 7 AM.

And the woman who is sweeping the street at the bottom of the photo is out there faithfully every morning before 6 AM. She is a Delhi employee, so she is well-off compared to many people because she has a steady job. But she won't ever need to use an exercise bike.

We found out today what happens to our garbage. Our two cleaning people take the garbage from our apartment and sort it some (cardboard, empty plastic bottles, food scraps) and put it out in the back patio. Today I watched as our cleaning person opened the gate in the high back wall of the patio and a rag-picker came in and removed the trash. I have seen this rag-picker woman sitting on the ground in the alley, sorting trash. Next to her was a full-sized garbage truck like you would see in the U.S. But very little of what we throw out actually makes it into the garbage truck. She takes every useable shred and sells each to diffrent buyers.

We had a meeting yesterday with Dr. Altaf Lal, the Health Attache at the U.S. Embassy here in Delhi. He commented that India is many countries. And for some people life is changing fast; for others it is not changing at all. The photo illustrates that well. Yet, real attempts are being made.