Wow. All of a sudden, my heart is so full.
I have been happy in Kolkata since arriving, but I always kind of felt like a little something was missing. I was having the hardest time figuring out what it was, too. I mean, I had my babies and the sisters and the chai and friends and Tirupati's was back and I was making new friends. What more could I possibly expect out of Kokata? Well, this morning I found out what it was.
Today, Thursday, is the volunteer day off, so there was no breakfast at Mother House. I went over to the little lane with the Juice World and the chai stands and ordered banana toast and chai and sat down. After a little bit, Baloo the Juice World boy sat down next to me and told me that Anil was not coming back to Kolkata and that he would be staying in Varanasi. My stomach sank. I had been waiting for Anil to come back this whole time. I was waiting for the day when I could sit on the bench outside the shop with him or on my seat inside the shop for hours. I was waiting to talk with him, to listen to him shouting in Hindi to the chai wallahs, to sit and watch the world from the safety of my little Juice World bubble, knowing that if anyone I didn't want to talk to or sit near sat down next to me, Anil would take care of it. I was waiting to hear about how the past year had been for him, what his struggles and victories were, what was in his heart now and for the last year. I was waiting. And now he wasn't coming. I was pretty upset.
Baloo left me to sit there and contemplate over my cup of chai and walked back to Juice World. I sat, wondering if it would be worth it to call Anil and beg him to come back for just a little while or go visit him in Varanasi or if I should just let it go and accept that he wouldn't be coming back. A few minutes into my musings, I hear Baloo shouting "Ooooh, Anil has come! Ey, bhaiya!" I look up, and standing just a few meters from me is Anil. My best Kolkata friend. I shouted happily, clapped my friends, stood up and walked to him. And everything in my heart was right again. Kolkata finally felt like it was supposed to. Dirty, uncomfortable, hot, poverty-stricken, but home. Anil is back and I am home.
My heart is so full.
On a less exciting, but still exciting, note, I am going to be in a Bengali film. I have a friend who is trying to break into the acting business and the movie he has a small part in was looking for a few foreigners to be tourists in the movie, so he asked me and a few French volunteers if we wanted to be in it. The answer was obvioulsy, "Yes!" I don't know what the name of the film is, but it's supposed to be released in about three months. They took our email addresses, so when I find out about it, I'll let you all know.
The filming itself was fun. We were only onscreen for maybe a minute, but it took almost the entire day to shoot the rest of the scene we were a part of, so we spent a lot of time sitting around. I made friends with the actors who were playing the villains in the film. One of them, Tiger, only spoke Bengali so we used another of the actors, Manoj as a translator. I feel so important having friends in the Bengali film industry! It was a fun day.
Gosh, okay, I better go. Anil made up my seat in Juice World for me so I need to go fill it.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tank you, Auntie! Namashkar!
I've been doing a lot of laundry lately.
Saturday afternoon I started having my first (and, cross your fingers, only?) little bout of digestive problems. I decided it was best not to try to do the afternoon shift at Shishu Bhavan and to rest instead, so I took a nap. When I got bored of napping, I thought the best thing to do was do my first round of laundry in my newly purchased laundry bucket. I went up to the roof of the Modern Lodge, filled my bucket with water, and started scrubbing and wringing and hanging. It was wonderful. There's nothing more satisfying than really working to get your baby food covered, dirty, smelly clothes clean. It's also the best time to clear your head. I thought about my babies and what I want to get out of my time with them. I thought about my last trip and what has changed, in Kolkata and in me, since then. I thought about Seattle quite a bit. I thought about chai at New Market. And when my laundry was done and my head was clear, I sat on the roof and watched the lizards (nicknamed "googlies" for the way they move) slither up and down the wall and thought about nothing more than how ridiculous they look when they move. It was wonderful.
Sunday morning I was feeling much better, so I went to Shishu planning to spend the morning walking around with Deepa, trying to get her to find her way around by listening to my voice and clapping (she loves to clap). Nothing here ever goes as planned, though, and I ended up on the roof of Shishu, surrounded by loud Bengali women shouting at each other (in the most friendly way possible) while we scrubbed, wrung, and tossed clothes in buckets. Living on Sudder St and hanging out at New Market has allowed to experience many times over what Indian men are like when they're in large groups, shouting at each other in Hindi or Bengali. This was my first experience with a big group of Indian women who aren't yelling at each other about children. And, wow, they are hilarious. They were shouting and dancing and singing and throwing things at each other and just generally rowdy. It was a pretty wonderful thing to be a part of.
On a different note, I went with one of the Juice World boys, Baloo (the younger one), to his home last night. He told me that yesterday was a "husband puja," which I've never heard of but as there are pujas for just about everything, I wasn't surprised there was one for husbands. My friend invited me over to see his mother perform the puja. When I arrived, Baloo's sister was just putting the finishing touches on her mother's henna. She then went and took a shower and put on her best sari and jewelry and did her hair. She was absolutley stunning. I think I've said before that I think that Indian women are some of the most beautiful women in the world, and when they dress up it's hard not to stare. After preparing herself, she prepared food for her husbad to eat when he came home, though he was not there for the puja. She then lit incense and gave the proper thanks to the proper gods and had her two children do so as well. Afterwards, she fed me and her two children and her daughter made chai. I'm incredibly honored that I got to be there for that. It was wonderful to watch.
I should also mention that while all this was going on, they had the television on in the background playing a movie about Ganesha as apparently yesterday was also Ganesha puja. Bollywood is always over the top, I know, but based on what I saw, I'd really like to go to Lucknow sometime for the Ganesha puja as it looks like a lot of fun.
It's unusually cool today because a storm is making it's way through, so I think I'm going to cut this off and hang outat Tirupati's for a bit. Hope all is well with you all out there in the rest of the world!
Saturday afternoon I started having my first (and, cross your fingers, only?) little bout of digestive problems. I decided it was best not to try to do the afternoon shift at Shishu Bhavan and to rest instead, so I took a nap. When I got bored of napping, I thought the best thing to do was do my first round of laundry in my newly purchased laundry bucket. I went up to the roof of the Modern Lodge, filled my bucket with water, and started scrubbing and wringing and hanging. It was wonderful. There's nothing more satisfying than really working to get your baby food covered, dirty, smelly clothes clean. It's also the best time to clear your head. I thought about my babies and what I want to get out of my time with them. I thought about my last trip and what has changed, in Kolkata and in me, since then. I thought about Seattle quite a bit. I thought about chai at New Market. And when my laundry was done and my head was clear, I sat on the roof and watched the lizards (nicknamed "googlies" for the way they move) slither up and down the wall and thought about nothing more than how ridiculous they look when they move. It was wonderful.
Sunday morning I was feeling much better, so I went to Shishu planning to spend the morning walking around with Deepa, trying to get her to find her way around by listening to my voice and clapping (she loves to clap). Nothing here ever goes as planned, though, and I ended up on the roof of Shishu, surrounded by loud Bengali women shouting at each other (in the most friendly way possible) while we scrubbed, wrung, and tossed clothes in buckets. Living on Sudder St and hanging out at New Market has allowed to experience many times over what Indian men are like when they're in large groups, shouting at each other in Hindi or Bengali. This was my first experience with a big group of Indian women who aren't yelling at each other about children. And, wow, they are hilarious. They were shouting and dancing and singing and throwing things at each other and just generally rowdy. It was a pretty wonderful thing to be a part of.
On a different note, I went with one of the Juice World boys, Baloo (the younger one), to his home last night. He told me that yesterday was a "husband puja," which I've never heard of but as there are pujas for just about everything, I wasn't surprised there was one for husbands. My friend invited me over to see his mother perform the puja. When I arrived, Baloo's sister was just putting the finishing touches on her mother's henna. She then went and took a shower and put on her best sari and jewelry and did her hair. She was absolutley stunning. I think I've said before that I think that Indian women are some of the most beautiful women in the world, and when they dress up it's hard not to stare. After preparing herself, she prepared food for her husbad to eat when he came home, though he was not there for the puja. She then lit incense and gave the proper thanks to the proper gods and had her two children do so as well. Afterwards, she fed me and her two children and her daughter made chai. I'm incredibly honored that I got to be there for that. It was wonderful to watch.
I should also mention that while all this was going on, they had the television on in the background playing a movie about Ganesha as apparently yesterday was also Ganesha puja. Bollywood is always over the top, I know, but based on what I saw, I'd really like to go to Lucknow sometime for the Ganesha puja as it looks like a lot of fun.
It's unusually cool today because a storm is making it's way through, so I think I'm going to cut this off and hang outat Tirupati's for a bit. Hope all is well with you all out there in the rest of the world!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
BABIES!
I don't plan on regularly updating this often, but I wanted to talk about the first day back at Shishu Bhavan while it's still fresh in my mind.
As it turns out, Orientation was cancelled yesterday, so myself and about 25 other volunteers waited about 45 minutes for the Sisters to show up. When we were finally told that there would be no Orientation, I decided that since I was already at Shishu Bhavan, I would head upstairs and talk to the Sister in charge to see if it was okay for me to see the kids. However, she was not around and I was about to leave when one of the masis recognized me and waved me in.
The first day back was definitely weird. It was the afternoon shift, which is usually a bit more laid back, so it seemed very quiet. There were also only 2 other volunteers there, so the kids weren't quite as riled up as usual.
I went over to my side, the disabled kids' side, and sat down on the mat. The first thing that struck me was how many new kids there were. I sometimes forget that it has been a full year since I have been there, so I hadn't expected so many new kids. The new ones, in general, seem to be a happy bunch. There's a little blind girl, Mita, a happy new boy, Goneshkar (I may be getting his name very very wrong - that's just what I heard one of the masis), as well as a few others I have yet to meet.
There are also a few kids who have been adopted or moved elsewhere. Peter, my little blind boy I was helping learn to walk, has been moved elsewhere, as has Jayanti. From the mentally disabled side, Ashapriya and Abilash are gone. I'm really going to miss Abilash, the little terror that he was. That may be one of the reasons everything was so quiet. He was always up to something, getting the kids screaming and running around.
I'd really like to say that all of the other kids are doing very well, better than they were when I left, but that would be a lie. Some of them are doing much better, like the two little ones who came about a month before I left, Sonali and Jyotsni. When I had left, Sonali could not sit up on her own and Jyotsni could only say, "bababababa..." Now, Sonali is close to being able to stand on her own, Jyotsni is learning to use her swollen hand to pick things up, and both of them are learning to speak. Rakhi is able to walk on her own a little bit and has gotten less shy. On the other hand, Deepa has gotten more shy and can still walk on her own but refuses to do so. She won't use the walls to navigate like she used to. She just kind of stands around when you pick her up and will only walk if you grab her hand. A couple of the kids have gotten thinner. Shyama is still quite a little survivor. They had her out on the mattress for exercise time, so I assume she's not nearly as sick as she was when he left. For the most part, though, the kids seem to be in about the same place as they were when I left. That hurts, of course, to see so little progress and even a bit of regression. I just keep reminding myself that they are getting better treatment than they would be on the streets.
As for me, I was quite happy with how easily I got back into things. I remember that the part I found the hardest when I first started volunteering was the feeding, but I remembered the little tricks I had learned to get the kids to eat and didn't have much trouble. I can still tie a diaper. I can still make Lota smile by tickling her a particular way and remember some of her exercises. I'm glad that I don't have to start from square one again. That'll make it easier to continue learning about the kids and helping them as best as I can.
I am still so in love with them.
As it turns out, Orientation was cancelled yesterday, so myself and about 25 other volunteers waited about 45 minutes for the Sisters to show up. When we were finally told that there would be no Orientation, I decided that since I was already at Shishu Bhavan, I would head upstairs and talk to the Sister in charge to see if it was okay for me to see the kids. However, she was not around and I was about to leave when one of the masis recognized me and waved me in.
The first day back was definitely weird. It was the afternoon shift, which is usually a bit more laid back, so it seemed very quiet. There were also only 2 other volunteers there, so the kids weren't quite as riled up as usual.
I went over to my side, the disabled kids' side, and sat down on the mat. The first thing that struck me was how many new kids there were. I sometimes forget that it has been a full year since I have been there, so I hadn't expected so many new kids. The new ones, in general, seem to be a happy bunch. There's a little blind girl, Mita, a happy new boy, Goneshkar (I may be getting his name very very wrong - that's just what I heard one of the masis), as well as a few others I have yet to meet.
There are also a few kids who have been adopted or moved elsewhere. Peter, my little blind boy I was helping learn to walk, has been moved elsewhere, as has Jayanti. From the mentally disabled side, Ashapriya and Abilash are gone. I'm really going to miss Abilash, the little terror that he was. That may be one of the reasons everything was so quiet. He was always up to something, getting the kids screaming and running around.
I'd really like to say that all of the other kids are doing very well, better than they were when I left, but that would be a lie. Some of them are doing much better, like the two little ones who came about a month before I left, Sonali and Jyotsni. When I had left, Sonali could not sit up on her own and Jyotsni could only say, "bababababa..." Now, Sonali is close to being able to stand on her own, Jyotsni is learning to use her swollen hand to pick things up, and both of them are learning to speak. Rakhi is able to walk on her own a little bit and has gotten less shy. On the other hand, Deepa has gotten more shy and can still walk on her own but refuses to do so. She won't use the walls to navigate like she used to. She just kind of stands around when you pick her up and will only walk if you grab her hand. A couple of the kids have gotten thinner. Shyama is still quite a little survivor. They had her out on the mattress for exercise time, so I assume she's not nearly as sick as she was when he left. For the most part, though, the kids seem to be in about the same place as they were when I left. That hurts, of course, to see so little progress and even a bit of regression. I just keep reminding myself that they are getting better treatment than they would be on the streets.
As for me, I was quite happy with how easily I got back into things. I remember that the part I found the hardest when I first started volunteering was the feeding, but I remembered the little tricks I had learned to get the kids to eat and didn't have much trouble. I can still tie a diaper. I can still make Lota smile by tickling her a particular way and remember some of her exercises. I'm glad that I don't have to start from square one again. That'll make it easier to continue learning about the kids and helping them as best as I can.
I am still so in love with them.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Peace only comes when we give up everything.
So, here I am guys. I'm back home.
The trip here was long, but relatively uneventful. Prior to arriving in Kolkata, I had spent about 36 hours in and out of airports and airport buses. I have decided that I will not be doing that ever again. Being in the airplane was not so bad - on my 14 hour flight from Newark, NJ to Delhi, India I watched "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and a Bollywood film that I cannot remember the name of but which had Shah Rukh Khan in the starring role. On my 2 hour flight from Delhi to Kolkata, I watched and Indian cooking show. In between these things, I slept and finished a book called "Kabul Beauty School" (not terribly well written, but a very good and inspiring story lies behind the so-so writing). But the airports were fairly grueling. Did you know that you cannot get a vegetarian sandwich anywhere in the Seattle airport? And that you can't enter the Delhi airport until midnight the morning of your flight? I spent a good 2 hours in the ticketing office next to two red-eyed Indian men who stared at me while I read about Afghan women and their troubles with their husbands, fathers, and brothers. And airport benches are not my favorite thing to sleep on.
So I've decided that the next time I make my way over here, I'm going to make sure to have at least a day or two at whatever International Airport I fly into before my flight to Kolkata.
But now, I'm here and I am so happy. I gaped out the window at the city on my taxi ride to Sudder St, the volunteer/traveler area of Kolkata. My taxi driver was that rare breed that actually does not dart around traffic at a kajillion mph, so I saw a lot more than I ever had on my way in. It was fascinating.
I arrived on Sudder St and was dropped off amidst a whirling mass of Bengali boys, beggar women, and foreign travelers. If the taxi I had taken in hadn't been behind me honking and a motorbike coming at me from the front and someone trying to sell me something on my right side, I might have just stood there and cried at the beauty of it all. Instead, I pushed myself forward.
To my great surprise, the very first people who I recognized on my way in were Kartick, Abdul and Kishore from the food stand Tirupati's. When I had left last, Tirupati's had gone out of business temporarily because Kishore had left for South Korea and the other two boys didn't like the new management (and/or vice-versa). Since then I've heard rumors about the boys coming back and starting up on their own but I didn't actually expect them to be here when I showed up. And I certainly didn't expect Kishore, who was supposed to be in a different country. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. I love these three people with all of my heart and I'm quite happy that I didn't have to work very hard to find them, though I would have.
The rest of the afternoon has been finding a guesthouse and meeting with old friends. For those of you who know and care, I'm at the Modern Lodge for now, in a small room on the bottom floor for Rs. 100/night. I plan on moving to the Paragon once I get settled in, but for now I'm quite satisfied to be in a dinky little room for only about $2.
I've seen Wassim of the Bengal Travel Service, and little Deepok from Juice World. Also, many of the beggar women (from now on, let's call them didis because "beggar women" makes them sound like they're not good people which they are) remember me and I have 3 offers to get my henna done. I "Namashkar"ed the old rickshaw wallah (Akhbar) and bought pants from the Paragon man. Everything about this feels right. So far, so good.
My plans for this evening, if I can keep myself going, are to go to Orientation with the Sisters and see my kids at Shishu Bhavan for at least a little while. I need to find a watch, so I'll be visiting New Market. I plan on dinner at Khalsa's. But mostly, I just want to sit back and soak it all in. It's good to be home.
Love love love!
Melissa
The trip here was long, but relatively uneventful. Prior to arriving in Kolkata, I had spent about 36 hours in and out of airports and airport buses. I have decided that I will not be doing that ever again. Being in the airplane was not so bad - on my 14 hour flight from Newark, NJ to Delhi, India I watched "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and a Bollywood film that I cannot remember the name of but which had Shah Rukh Khan in the starring role. On my 2 hour flight from Delhi to Kolkata, I watched and Indian cooking show. In between these things, I slept and finished a book called "Kabul Beauty School" (not terribly well written, but a very good and inspiring story lies behind the so-so writing). But the airports were fairly grueling. Did you know that you cannot get a vegetarian sandwich anywhere in the Seattle airport? And that you can't enter the Delhi airport until midnight the morning of your flight? I spent a good 2 hours in the ticketing office next to two red-eyed Indian men who stared at me while I read about Afghan women and their troubles with their husbands, fathers, and brothers. And airport benches are not my favorite thing to sleep on.
So I've decided that the next time I make my way over here, I'm going to make sure to have at least a day or two at whatever International Airport I fly into before my flight to Kolkata.
But now, I'm here and I am so happy. I gaped out the window at the city on my taxi ride to Sudder St, the volunteer/traveler area of Kolkata. My taxi driver was that rare breed that actually does not dart around traffic at a kajillion mph, so I saw a lot more than I ever had on my way in. It was fascinating.
I arrived on Sudder St and was dropped off amidst a whirling mass of Bengali boys, beggar women, and foreign travelers. If the taxi I had taken in hadn't been behind me honking and a motorbike coming at me from the front and someone trying to sell me something on my right side, I might have just stood there and cried at the beauty of it all. Instead, I pushed myself forward.
To my great surprise, the very first people who I recognized on my way in were Kartick, Abdul and Kishore from the food stand Tirupati's. When I had left last, Tirupati's had gone out of business temporarily because Kishore had left for South Korea and the other two boys didn't like the new management (and/or vice-versa). Since then I've heard rumors about the boys coming back and starting up on their own but I didn't actually expect them to be here when I showed up. And I certainly didn't expect Kishore, who was supposed to be in a different country. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. I love these three people with all of my heart and I'm quite happy that I didn't have to work very hard to find them, though I would have.
The rest of the afternoon has been finding a guesthouse and meeting with old friends. For those of you who know and care, I'm at the Modern Lodge for now, in a small room on the bottom floor for Rs. 100/night. I plan on moving to the Paragon once I get settled in, but for now I'm quite satisfied to be in a dinky little room for only about $2.
I've seen Wassim of the Bengal Travel Service, and little Deepok from Juice World. Also, many of the beggar women (from now on, let's call them didis because "beggar women" makes them sound like they're not good people which they are) remember me and I have 3 offers to get my henna done. I "Namashkar"ed the old rickshaw wallah (Akhbar) and bought pants from the Paragon man. Everything about this feels right. So far, so good.
My plans for this evening, if I can keep myself going, are to go to Orientation with the Sisters and see my kids at Shishu Bhavan for at least a little while. I need to find a watch, so I'll be visiting New Market. I plan on dinner at Khalsa's. But mostly, I just want to sit back and soak it all in. It's good to be home.
Love love love!
Melissa
Monday, August 10, 2009
One week countdown.
I'm preparing to leave for my second trip to Kolkata, India. The plane departs on 17 August at 10:55 am from Seattle, WA and arrives in Kolkata, India at 8:40 am on 19 August. I will be there for one month.
This is now officially my India blog. I will be using this blog during each of my trips, which I'm sure will be many. At this point in my life, I imagine that the main subject of this blog will be volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India. I've fallen in love with Kolkata and with the children I work with at one of the Missionaries' orphanages, Shishu Bhavan. I may branch out at some point and spend more significant amounts of time in other areas of India, but for the moment, I'm comfortable considering Kolkata my base of operations.
There are a number of blogs from my first trip to Kolkata already posted here. I had begun using LiveJournal to write about my first trip to Kolkata, but LJ seems to have phased quite a bit as of late, so I'm moving on. I've copy/pasted most of my entries from LJ onto here, to give everyone a bit of background as to why I need to go back to Kolkata. I have left out the bits about Thailand and Darjeeling because, while both of those places were beautiful, they didn't really have the same draw for me as Kolkata and a few of the other places I visited. Feel free to read them at your leisure; many of you who are reading this have likely already had conversations with me about my reasons for returning.
One month is definitely not enough time to do everything I feel I need to do, to deal with all of the emotions that need to be dealt with, and that scares me. Throughout the preparation process, I have of course been excited, but I have also felt a lot more scared than I had the first time around. I know that this is something that is necessary for me and that I will be better for it, but I am intimidated by my time limit.
But don't get me wrong. I am so thankful for the fact that I am getting any time at all in Kolkata. I am really lucky to have that option open to me. I also know that not everything has to be done now and that I have my whole life ahead of me to do what I need to do.
And, friends, I am so excited to open myself up to that love again. I know now that making myself vulnerable in Kolkata has opened me up to love so much more no matter where I am. I am excited to push myself again so that my love for humanity can grow that much more. This will be good.
Here I go again, kids. Thanks for being there with me.
Pyaar se,
Melissa
PS - To all my fellow Bollywood fans: You know that I am SO excited to get caught up on all of the new songs, movies, and stars that are big right now. I'll be sure to give you all updates on that as well. Om Shanti Om!
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