Sunday, Feb.21, 2010

I am ill so this may be very short. I threw up all night and am exhausted. I really have not been well for over two weeks and finally gave in to JP and took a Cipro. He has gone to see some sights around Bhopal but I just could not get up.
Arun did it again ! A friend of his works for the Forest Service here and got us into the Forest Service Guest House. It is high up in the woods and very quiet. Actually, all we have seen of Bhopal is quiet, clean and peaceful. It is mountainous and reminds me of Taos after a wet spring. It is also 40% Moslem. As I collapsed in bed, JP read me the account of what actually happened during the disaster here. It happened in 1984, and George Orwell never envisioned anything as terrible as this. Shortly after midnight on Dec. 3, 1984, tons of Methel Isocyanate leaked out of the Union Carbide plant here in Bhopal. People awoke with eyes and lungs burning and many tried to run. The next morning the world saw the devastation. The number of people killed varies from 4,000 to 10,000, depending on the source. All the animals were also killed and a half million people permanently sickened. It was the worse industrial accident in history. All the leaves of the trees and bushes turned black. Union Carbide paid billions in reparations. They were also ordered to pay for the building of a state of the art hospital to freely treat the half million people affected. These people will never fully recover and will need care for the rest of their lives. Research on the effects of MIC is also done there. There were many heroes in this tragedy. One railroad employee gave his life as he desperately notified all trains to divert away from Bhopal. I noticed many new developments boasting that they were "green". There is also a new, huge, environmentally green newspaper building going up. I'm sure it is all in response to what happened here.
Yesterday we went to Sanchi. There is a huge stupa there built by the Emperor Ashoka.
I am too sick to continue. At 3AM tomorrow morning we take a train back to Varanasi. If there were a flight, I would take it instead, but no luck. So you may not hear from me for a few days, but my notes are with me so I can catch you up when I recover.

Peace,
Nadine