After over 50 hours of shootings, grenades being thrown, fires raging and people jumping out of buildings, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai are over....for at least a few months anyway. Surprisingly, people in Mumbai (called Mumbaikers) have already started to get back to their normal life. All of this started on Wednesday night (Indian time) and just finished this afternoon....they really like to take their time with it all! So all day Thursday and Friday I didn't go out of the house. On Friday night, Dennis (the director of Champlain College in Mumbai) invited me over to his apartment for a Thanksgiving dinner. His place is about a 10 minute rickshaw ride away from me, so I felt safe going alone. Everything was still quiet though when I went out and came back from the dinner.
Then today I went to my internship by rickshaw rather than by train. The rickshaw ride was pretty expensive (60 rupees=about $1.50), for Indian standards, but I'd rather pay that then risk my life on the train. I still didn't/don't feel safe taking the train right now. Dennis said taking the rickshaw was a good idea too. While I was at my internship, the attacks finally ended....after 3 freakin days!! Even though they're saying the death count is about 150, I know it's more than that. There's probably 100 dead bodies in one of the hotels alone! The Oberoi hotel and Taj Mahal Hotel (both 5 star hotels) each have about 800 rooms in them, so you can imagine the damage there. They'll have to close down and renovate their hotels, which will make them lose a lot of business.
And believe it or not, if you were in Mumbai right now (excluding downtown area), you probably couldn't even tell that something happened. It looks so normal now. People are out on their motorcycles whizzing through traffic, people buying produce for the night's dinner, and of course the construction on the hundreds of new apartment complexes have resumed. And what I've see and heard, people aren't even talking about it. I've been talking about it with Dennis and his wife, Blanche, and Barbara (who is from Austria and is also here for 4 months helping out at the orphanage) though. It's hard not to talk about it! We still can't believe how much damage 15-20 terrorists can do. The Indian government is so bad, and already everyone is blaming the politicians. The elections here are coming up, so you can imagine the huge blame game that is going to be happening over the next several months here. They seemed so helpless when all of this was going on. At first the police in Mumbai thought that they could handle the situation, but then after several hours of being defeated by the terrorists (and losing countless police officers), they decided that calling in the army would be good. Uh, yeah! What ever gave you that notion?! I just don't understand how it can take 3 days for them to get the guests out of the hotel. Keep in mind that these guests didn't have access to food or water for those 3 days either. Crazy!! They're definitely going to be criticized in the following weeks and months for sure. And I don't blame the media when they do.
Usually I get the newspaper every morning on my way to the internship and read it on the train. But since I didn't go to my internship, I never got the paper. Now I wish I had gotten the paper so that I could preserve history and keep a copy for my scrapbook :)
The funny thing is with all of this is that I was just talking to Blanche about what I was going to show my Dad and his friend Hollis when they arrive in Mumbai. I was planning to bring them to see the Gateway of India, Taj Mahal Hotel, and to have lunch at the Leopold's Cafe. Buuuut I don't think we'll do that. Now I wish I had seen the Taj Hotel interior before all this happened. I've seen the outside of it, but not the inside. Now I never will. Leopold's Cafe, where the terrorists opened fired at, is a very popular place to eat for foreigners. The terrorists were certainly very smart and definitely knew where the foreigners were. At the Oberoi hotel, the terrorists told the guests that everyone could leave except for people with a U.S. or U.K. passport. Not good!
And to reassure everyone of my safety.....Early Thursday morning at 3am, Dennis actually called me up to let me know about the attacks. The attacks all started around 11:30pm Wednesday night, but it takes a while for the news to travel if people aren't watching the news. I guess he had just heard the news at 3am and wanted to make sure that I didn't go to my internship the next morning. After that 3am call, he and I have been in constant contact about if I should go out, go to my internship, etc. Champlain in Burlington has also been in contact with him to make sure that everyone here is okay.
I knew that I was never going to forget my experience in Mumbai, but now I definitely won't forget it. And people all over the world won't forget it either.
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