Yesterday I went to my first slum. It was so unreal and it really made me appreciate every little thing I have the privileged of having. There are over 50 slums in Bangalore alone, and most of them have different livelihoods. The slum I attended yesterday with another intern and 3 employees has its own mini hierarchy and was composed of maybe 40-50 families. These families live in homes with walls of tin and a roof of tarps and trash. After you walk down what the call The Road to Nowhere, you reach giant heaps of waste. The slum separates the waste into piles of glass, cans, paper, rubber and other, and then they sell the waste to recycling companies for a very small profit that then must sustains the entire community. Wow I stuck out, I was the only American and the only female. I talked (well tried to because most of them didn't speak English except for a few words) to some of the children and they were all so sweet. Most of them don't attend school, or if they do they don't go on a regular basis, most of them were very independent, most of them didn't even own shoes.
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