Dirty Wall Project

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* Photographs were taken by DWP (Cindy and Kane Ryan). This was DWP’s first time shooting a wedding. 

(Interested in having DWP shoot your wedding or special event, contact dirtywallproject@gmail.com)

Life is Beautiful

Though rather short for an Indian celebration of marriage, (one day compared to the usual three or four days of feasting and celebrating), Sarah and Ashley were married with panache in the St. Vincent Pallotti Catholic Church in the Marol neighbourhood of Mumbai. Because Ashley now lives and works in Qatar and Sarah was back at her home in Canada, they relied on the creative energies of their Mumbai friends (Pradeep, Darshana, Supriya, Amit, Richa & Danny) and family who cobbled together a stylish and poignant event with only a few weeks notice. Along with Sarah’s mom, Rita Petrescu, who flew in from Canada and Ashley’s mom, Amelia Fernandes, from Mumbai, we danced, ate, and celebrated with exuberance for hours.

Dressed in a gold-patterned kurta, Ashley was the very handsome epitome of refined Indian elegance and beautiful Sarah perfectly blended the two cultures with her choice of a fitted, draped white dress, a halo of jasmine and a glittering maangtika. The ceremony was a traditional rite of marriage mass. Later the reception was led with the finesse of a game show host, by the Master of Ceremony. Francis, dressed in a very slick shiny suit that John Travolta’s Saturday Night Live character could only aspire to, kept everyone energized with theme dances and a fast-paced, action-packed evening in traditional Goan style. The reception hall was a bedazzled display of lights, garlands (a hand-made gift from the Girls Can Be women), fresh flowers and Canadian flag centrepieces. The highlight of the evening was Sarah and Ashley’s entrance to the reception. The MC had everyone stand in anticipation of the newlyweds arrival to the booming Star Wars theme music and throw confetti on them as they paraded the circle of guests. This was the kickstart to a wedding reception I will never forget. The wedding was broadcast live on UStream thanks to Ashley’s friend Pradeep and a laptop. Friends and family tuned in from around the world. Also not forgotten was Sarah and Ashley’s determination to include people from the Saki Naka pipeline slum where they met. Dressed in beautiful sarees, the GCB women and their children were excited to attend their first Catholic wedding. Ranjana and kindergarten teacher Usha and family made it to the reception, very excited to be part of this beautiful occasion. When the music stopped and the clean-up began and we all slowly dribbled out of the building, not really wanting the night to end, Ashley and Sarah had the caterers pack up the left-over food to distribute to pavement dwellers on their way to their honeymoon hotel. They also helped the GCB women by hiring them to decorate envelopes with a photo insert given out to everyone at the reception as a thank-you. The cake was brought to the slum community the next day and handed out in chunks and when the small pieces were gone, the plate was licked clean of any remaining icing and crumbs.  Their wedding linked two cultures and two thoughtful, generous people who value their families and their friends and who will live their lives with compassion for others.

Written in their own words. By Sarah and Ashley.

From Sarah:

It’s hard not to believe in fate when the universe nudges you along like a gale force wind. Last September, a long-planned sabbatical from my job as a reporter at the Times Colonist newspaper came upon me. All but one of my plans for the year fell through – and it was a loose-made plan. The Christmas previous, I met Cindy and Todd Ryan at a mutual friend’s party and spent most of the night talking with them about their son Kane’s charity work with the Dirty Wall Project in a Mumbai slum community. A few months later, Kane told me more over a few drinks on the Canoe Club patio and gave me an invite to visit. Not long after that, with fellowships denied and travel buddies bailed, I found myself alone on a plane to India with a year to kill. On that journey, I wrote in my journal wise words from a woman I met doing relief work in flood-ravaged Mozambique years before: Open your heart to know your heart’s desire.

Kane and his parents greeted me at the airport. I stepped into the cacophonous sauna of Bombay and felt strangely at home. I spent my first few days in the Saki Naka slum community playing with children, drinking chai in homes the size of my bathroom and following around the Ryans. On the third day, Dirty Wall and Janvi Trust held a Diwali party in the garden they’d transformed from a dump. This is where I met my future husband.

I spotted Ashley standing with Kane’s dad, Todd, in the garden. He stood out not only because he looked like an old school Bollywood star, think brown Cary Grant, but also because he appeared so fresh and clean in a pressed shirt and jeans. The rest of us were covered in dust and sweat and children. Ashley is a longtime friend of  Ashley Pereira who operates the Indian charity Janvi Trust. They grew up in the same building a few minutes away and their families attend the same nearby Catholic Church. He had also become quite close to the Ryans.

When Todd introduced Ashley and I we gave each other a smile with a future in it. Through writing, phone calls, visits and my eventual return to Mumbai after a few months’ adventures our relationship unfolded with clear commitment and love. The road has not been easy. We’ve faced several difficulties; stares, criticism, racism, bureaucracy, geography, money – from both our cultures. But with every closed door came an open window and helping hands. One example; Ashley was supposed to come visit Canada this summer to meet my family and announce our engagement. After paying hundreds of dollars and providing all the required paperwork his visitor visa was denied. The Canadian consulate officer was not convinced he’d leave after his intended two-week stay and he came from a country of poor income earners. I was indignant at such a prejudiced response but Ashley and his friends pulled into action, organizing a wedding for us in less than a month.

We were married July 26 in the Catholic and Goan tradition with nearly 200 friends and neighbours, including my mother Rita and Cindy Ryan who came all the way from Canada. It was the best day of my life and I’m still in shock at how it all came to be. I’ll have stories to tell for a lifetime in Victoria. Ashley and I both feel that the way we met, in the slum, at an event to help poor people, has shaped and influenced our relationship. In our own ways, we’ve adopted Dirty Wall’s mantra to “See a Need and Fill It” and hope to continue to do so the rest of our lives. We plan to have a Canadian wedding celebration in 2013.

From Ashley:

Little did I know what amazing surprises the future held for me when I resigned from my previous job in Qatar to head back home to Bombay. Through strange twists and turns my career path meandered over the past 10 years, which took me to the Gulf and then back again to Bombay. Being without a job for the first 6 months and then working on a part-time contract with a University in Qatar from Bombay was like a dream.

The past two years of my sojourn in working from home on my part-time job contract with a company in Qatar made me look inward. I thank God for allowing the rough curves, which helped me become a better driver on the road of life. I still remember the day when I dropped by the community center at Saki Naka to thank Ashley Pereira for his kind assistance in helping me with my Police clearance certificate. The moment I climbed to the roof of the Center’s office, I was startled to see a white guy in his 20s playing with a kid from the slums. I questioned myself  as to what was motivating Kane Ryan to go the extra mile to help, and almost be part of the daily lives of, people dwelling in the slums. I was amazed and captivated by the dedication of this Canadian gentleman who had dedicated his life to help the downtrodden in Indian society.

I still often reminisce the first football match I played with Kane before his parents could land in India for their long sojourn. The match was played at the St. Andrew’s College ground in Bandra in almost half a foot of muck. Thanks to Kane in the mid-field we were able to play a goal less draw with one of the best teams in the tournament.

Besides being a witness to the article which was published in the local Times of India Newspaper about Kane Ryan and his work with the Saki Naka slum community; Little did I know that with Kane’s parents in town soon would lead me to meeting my future wife Sarah Petrescu. Kane’s mom Cindy had already paired Sarah and myself in our first week of meeting each other. Todd, Kane’s dad had briefly introduced Sarah and myself at a local Diwali celebration at the Saki Naka slum community — which led to a rendezvous of adventures in Bangalore, Calcutta, Varanasi and culminated in Bombay.

With time I soon became a part of the Ryans’ household and have enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with them over lunch, dinner or coffee outings.  Kane and his family have been a backbone in supporting Sarah and myself through all phases of our relationship, right up to our marriage and even continuing to do so this very day. I am very grateful for all they have done for me, and now my wife Sarah, and hope to always be part of their lives.

On behalf of DWP and everyone in Saki Naka, we wish Sarah and Ashley an amazing life together.

Cheers,

Kane and Cindy Ryan

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Written and photographed by Cindy Ryan

Flying low over Mumbai, the plane rushes over squares of torn blue plastic, pulled and pinched, secured with bricks and steel pipes. Squint your eyes and slum homes from the air resemble a river of water, its tributaries  invading every space not occupied by high-rise towers. With my forehead pressed against the window of the plane, I try to sort out which blue plastic roofs belong to the Saki Naka community and I get excited about landing. Soon I will be in the thick of it and my heart sings at the thought.

I’m only here for a scant three weeks this time and already my guts are telling me to stay longer. There is always so much to do, so many people to see, and what will I find behind the curtained doorways of the slum community this time?

I leave the plane with an imaginary coat of thin armour to protect me from what I can’t do in such a short amount of time and step out into the humid air of Mumbai. Kane, one of the few white faces in the crowded arrivals area, steps out and welcomes me once again. Suddenly, I am mobbed by Indu, Shashi, Seema and Ruby, who have waited patiently to welcome me. Now I am giddy with excitement again. I have worked side by side in the GCB centre with these beautiful women for months, and I think of them as friends, albeit the conversation is limited to what Indu can translate for all of us.

This whirling, active, bleak and bare bones community, stuffed with too many people, is also the scene of a meeting that has ended in a wedding, another reason why I have returned to Saki Naka. Sarah Petrescu, a journalist from Victoria B.C., volunteered with DWP last October. She immediately attached herself to the women of the GCB and helped us create prototypes and products before leaving for a volunteer stint in Bangalore. Within days of Sarah’s arrival in Mumbai, she attended a Diwali celebration in the community. Also invited to this event was Ashley Fernandes, a friend from Mumbai who has  contributed to DWP. A brief introduction in the midst of the overcrowded garden in the middle of the slum community during the Festival of Light, has led to their wedding 10 months later.

On July 26th, 2012, Sarah and Ashley were married in the Catholic church just down the road from Kane’s apartment. Wanting the community to be part of the celebration of the relationship which blossomed in their midst, Sarah and Ashley invited the GCB women and their small children and Ranjana and her family. Ashley Pereira (Janvi Charitable Trust), a devoted member of the church where they married, did a reading, and beautiful fabric garlands, made for Sarah by the GCB women, draped the elegant doorway to the church. A full circle of events inspired by the generosity of a slum community, friends and family, in the middle of the monsoon season where cement walls resemble, thick, wet, green sponges.

Between wedding festivities, I have been running after children in the slum, jumping over puddles thick with mud and gooey remnants of garbage, finding shelter from the rain in the school or in slum homes where I am invited for chai and dal, and nodding in faint comprehension in conversations conducted in Hindi or Marathi.

While the monsoon rains bring relief, and sometimes a cool breeze, slum dwellers, hiding from the rains, stay inside, breathing the foul air of their cramped huts. Infections, coughs, runny noses, plus lethargy, bring a host of complications to already fragile health. Sweet, young, frail Maya, who is four months pregnant with her fourth child, was hospitalized with the worry of TB. Almost excited for her to be confined to bed rest in the relative comfort of a soft bed in the confines of a hospital, I was incredulous when she was desperate to go back to her tiny home, where the family of five sleep in an 8 foot by 6 foot cement room, on plastic billboard vinyl laid over a bare cement floor. Putting aside my assumptions of comfort, I must understand this is what Maya knows and this small, damp hut is where her family heaps its joys and sorrows.

Opening my eyes in the morning, the first shaft of light from dull, cottony skies brightens the room where I sleep and I take it in. The rain water has been sucked through the coarse mix of sand and clay bricks that form the outside of the building, creating water stains on the side wall of the room, damp to the touch. Mould forms at the corners and the flaking paint on the ceiling above the whirling, clicking fan, threatens to fall in thin slices onto the bed. The honking that never abates invades the room with a crying, tinny sound. Mumbai is not comfortable, inside or out, it is never clean, never quiet and never dull. What is comfortable here is the people I have met, the slum community I feel at home in and the notion that why I’m here is because it’s where I should be. It will be hard to leave, again. It will be divine to be back in the fresh air of Vancouver, Canada. That is the push and pull of Mumbai, up close and personal.

* A full post about Sarah and Ashley’s wedding with photos from the beautiful day coming soon…

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From Bombay, with love: My time with the Dirty Wall Project in Saki Naka slum community, Mumbai

Written by Sarah Petrescu who volunteered with DWP for two weeks.

 

We step out of the autorickshaw onto the side of a dust, traffic and waste-filled road. The people, dogs and cars move around each other like notes in a symphony that miraculously do not collide – at least not as often as you’d think. The brown veil of pollution hangs low, intensifying every shallow breath, sweet and sour scent to this newcomer’s senses. We follow a clearing through a garbage dump of sorts and come upon the entrance to the Saki Naka slum community in the Andheri East area of Mumbai. My heart sinks at first glance. Ramshackle, matchbox-sized, lean-to homes go for miles in either direction. A murky mote of sewage runs along a lane where half-naked toddlers play with broken boxes and run barefoot on gravel. The centrepiece of the scene is a thick, rusted metal pipeline that protrudes about three feet above ground. On it, children run, women squat and beat laundry, men gather and chat. I wonder how many millions of impoverished makeshift homes the clear water inside passes before it reaches the taps of the unimaginably wealthy nearby. Though half of Mumbai’s population lives in slums such as this, the city still boasts one of the highest numbers of millionaires per capita in the world.

I’ve come to visit a fellow Victorian, Kane Ryan, and his small, grassroots charity the Dirty Wall Project. An avid traveller in search of an elusive bureaucracy-free volunteer opportunity, he decided to create his own. In 2008, he found the slum and his Indian counterpart working there – Ashley Perriera of Janvi Trust. Kane’s mantra was to “See a need and fill it.” This has manifested in everything from running a school and turning a dump into a garden space to tending the medical needs of community members and starting Girls Can Be, a collective and centre to help educate and employ women who lead difficult lives. I recommend browsing through his blog entries to learn more. The project is fuelled by Kane’s fundraising efforts in Canada – where he returns every six months to sell his photographs and help host money-raising events. With some high-profile media coverage in India – such as a full-colour foil front page story in the Times of India – the project has also drawn many Indian supporters. This appears to be promising for its sustainability as well as morale.
The seed to get me here was planted by Kane’s parents, Cindy and Todd, at a mutual friend’s Christmas party. They told me how their son’s work inspired them in part to sell their popular Sally Bun restaurant on Fort Street, renovate their basement suite, rent out the top floor and move to India to help him. When I mentioned my upcoming year-long sabbatical from my job as a reporter at the Times Colonist newspaper, they suggested I make Kane’s project a stop. The idea held in the back of my mind as I planned for the year. I began to read Kane’s blog religiously, becoming emotionally attached to the people and struggles he documented with frank, descriptive writing and captivating photos. The more I considered India, the more I fell in love with the idea of visiting a country with such a rich cultural history and myriad of riches, issues and opportunities for adventure.  Journalists experience much of the world at an objective arms length with the purpose of inciting others to take matters to heart. This sometimes contradictory state led me to explore my own matters of the heart – namely participating in a community as opposed to briefly observing it.
While Kane was in Victoria on his latest round of fundraising for his projects and working to sustain himself while in India we met and discussed the possibility of me coming. I wasn’t sure what I could offer Kane or the community other than a willingness to learn and to pitch in whatever way possible – even just playing with the hundreds of swarming children. Before I knew it, I was being greeted by the Ryan family (minus their daughter who lives in Vancouver) at the Mumbai airport and shuffled into a rickshaw in the muggy Mumbai night air.
As we walked alongside the pipeline on remnants of train tracks, smiles, nods, good morning and calls of “teacher, teacher” from the children greet us. Kane (or “Kane, Sir” as he’s called) is a veritable celebrity, his parents have become equally so, as it seems do most visitors to the slum – bombarded by generous invites of chai tea, hand-holding and photo requests. I make note of the “outsider” lens with which I am viewing life here, the one that prompts wealthy western tourists to remark how quaint and happy poor villagers appear without truly seeing the challenges they face.
Kane has been here long enough to tune-in to the struggles and complexities of slum life, especially with the help of Ashley who speaks Hindi, Marathi and English. He’s worked in this slum for 10 years and as he walks through the community he is met with greetings and complaints – be it the news a gravely-ill man passed away on a bench the day before or that a feuding group of women are not equally sharing their duties of sweeping outside their houses. This is just one morning’s examples.

It’s impossible not to fall in love with the children here; the raspy-voiced, front-toothless Sanjana who wants to sing and play clapping games, the good-student Sneha who proudly shows off her grade one notebook, brothers Sunni and Arful deep in Bollywood dance character at the Diwali celebrations, even the slightly-menacing Nepalese boy Ganesh, who will as eagerly clean up a mess of paper and crayons as he’ll make it, is easy to love and care for. Cindy and Todd have gotten into the habit of bringing fresh fruit to the slum in the morning and pouring water into the mouths of parched kids.

Every day I look forward to my Prem fix. The two-year-old, shaped like a football with wide-eyes and a tiny smile, struts the lane all “ass and elbows,” as Kane says. As affectionate and full of chutzpah is his older sister Suman, acrobatic and wildly confident, and baby sister Nandini – who crawls around mostly nude in search of arms and play. Their mother Maya is a small whisper of a young woman in her early 20s, from Nepal. She stands outside their home – one of the worst in the slum, adjacent a sewer outfall infested with rats – and smiles and nods hello. Her husband is rarely seen, either working or drinking, as many of the men seem to do. During a tea visit Maya’s neighbor Ranjana refers to Nandini as a miracle child. During her pregnancy, Maya tried to abort the baby by ingesting poison but was taken to the hospital before either herself or Nandini were hurt.

It’s easy to worry about my new friends here. In the midst of an impromptu art class, 10-year-old Ashwini falls into a deep sleep on Cindy’s lap. Despite the teary protests of the two-year-old Bhoomi she looks after, we let Ashwini rest as long as possible – wondering what keeps her up at nights to the point she’d pass out in a room of screaming children.

Beyond the odd bike, jump rope and spinning top, most kids don’t have toys. They turn boxes and Styrofoam into drums and rocks into balls. Kane and I walk down the lane greeting the kids when his eyes widen and he says, “Oh, not good.” A girl about 18-months-old is playing with a white plastic bag completely over her head. Kane rips it off and tries to communicate the danger but she just giggles.

By far the most worrisome moment comes on the last day of my visit ­­- when four-year-old Kumkum goes missing from an amusement park into the streets of Mumbai. The outing is for the slum’s women’s literacy class, whose members bring a few more children than planned. Security footage reveals Kumkum walks out of the park, past a security guard, into the streets of a city where  thousands of kids go missing and are trafficked each year. We comb the busy streets, dodging cows and traffic, yelling her name and grilling passersby for hours. The park staff and local police are apathetic, to say the least. The women don’t know what to do so they do nothing. It’s clear they don’t have street smarts or communication confidence beyond the slum, so they let the hysterical westerners and program directors take charge. Within a few hours we find Kumkum at a local police station, lying on a cot under the stairs – thirsty but calm and safe. A do-gooder who searches for lost children turned her into the police when he spotted her crying in the street.

I find a kinship with the women, and see a great potential, as the Girls Can Be Collective’s sewing centre and product-making employment program takes off.  The women are initially tepid but keen to start making items – including Cindy’s genius discovery of fused plastic bag fabric. Within a day, they are eager to get more creative, learning basic sewing skills and playing with fabrics and adornments. There’s a line-up outside the door. Women such as the lovely Gudi are happily immersed in cutting and sewing for hours while her son Aman patiently plays nearby. Nothing like craftiness to unite and inspire women of any culture! Better yet they’re getting paid.

A promising buzz surrounds Dirty Wall and Janvi in the Indian community, which is as important for its sustainability as its Canadian supporters – perhaps even more so. Navigating the many cultural quirks and “way things are done” in India is no small feat. Visitors and those wanting to volunteer inquire almost daily. Many are curious about the young, blonde westerner in the slums I’m sure.

A local bank sponsors the kids’ to watch the new Bollywood flick Ra-One. Outside the theatre they see another group of children with severe disabilities. One boy cannot use his legs and has to be carried. He has no wheelchair or crutches. He wets himself as Kane carries him from the theatre to wait for the bus. Not an enviable life for a child, even the kids from the slum can see this.

Some supporters take the “See a need and fill it” mantra to heart, obliging to bring prizes for Diwali on the day of the celebrations or computer parts to keep morning classes afloat. Some offer employment and donate materials to Girls Can Be.

Others have their own ideas, which sometimes work and sometimes don’t. Kane gets an inquiry from an American company wanting to support a project with “lasting impact” that they can implement and stamp their name on in one day’s visit. He suggests a much-needed playground for the new garden, which will help attract kids from the further, isolated region of the slum. The company abruptly pulls out when they realize they cannot claim charitable taxes on the project, even when asked if the employees would like to personally contribute.

During my two weeks in Mumbai, I visited the famous Gateway of India, the super malls, nightclubs, street markets and beaches. Nothing compared to the time spent in the slum, to making new friends and to seeing the potential for the lives of the people there. There’s no tax benefit or self-aggrandizing return to seeing a need and filling it, just neighbourly compassion and the faith that if the tables were turned another would do the same for us.

As I make my way by train to the world’s outsource capital, Bangalore, to work in another city’s slums I reflect on my indebtedness to my remarkable hosts, the Ryans, and the heartbreak of leaving new friends in a small, dusty crevice of big, crazy Mumbai.

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