"amar Choto Shundarie"

I am incredibly blessed to have made a friend in Kolkata who is able to go back there every year and sends out email updates on the happenings there. I am also incredibly blessed in that she had an emotional connection with a lot of the same children at Shishu Bhavan as I did. I am incredibly blessed to have her even though I find myself in mourning a lot more often than I'd like to (or maybe that's a good thing?).

She is how I found out, before my 2nd trip, about beautiful Jayanti's death. And now she has sent another email and I find that my heart is broken again.

Shyama, perhaps one of the strongest children at Shishu, who has made it through so much - abandonment, malnutrition, fevers, surgeries - in her short life, has passed. She had been taken to the hospital shortly before I left in September and there was always a possibility that she would not make it out. But I hoped she would, as she had at least twice before. She was still in the hospital when I left and I never got to say goodbye. I know she knows I love her, though, and that settles my beating heart a little. Shyama, my little trooper, you will be missed.

Crows

This is just going to be a short one, part Seattle, part Kolkata.

The other day as I was walking to work, I got pooed on my a crow. As I was pulling it out of my hair, I got curious and took a good look at it and gave it a sniff (mostly so I'd know how bad I'd be smelling the rest of my hair). I found it very interesting to note how much healthier the crow poo of Seattle crows looks compared to the poo of Kolkata crows. I'd been pooed on a number of times in Kolkata, and it always smelled awful and was a very disgusting yellow brown color. On the other hand, Seattle crow poo is this beautiful green shade and didn't have much of a smell at all. Though I'd never really thought about it, I realize that it makes perfect sense for the crows in Seattle to be so much healthier than those in Kolkata, considering the quality of the food eaten, and therefore thrown away, here. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Beautiful Moments

I have two stories for you.

The first a number of you have already heard and had apparently known about before I did. See, I have this beautiful friend named Lizzy. She went to Kolkata the year before I did and was a very important presence before, during and after my first trip. We had talked often of how wonderful it would be to be in Kolkata together and share that experience. I figured that such a thing would happen at some point, but I didn't think that it would be happening very soon. Apparently I was wrong.
One afternoon, as I was leaving the Modern Lodge, I noticed a girl walking towards Mother House. I thought she looked an awful lot like Lizzy and was about to shout her name but I had only seen her from behind and thought it couldn't possibly be her. She would have told me if she was in Kolkata, right? Plus, there had been another girl in Kolkata about a week back who looked a lot like Lizzy, only with curly hair, so I figured it might just be another lookalike. I turned the other way because I was headed out to do something else in the Sudder St./New Market area.
Later that evening, I was celebrating the birthday of a friend from Chicago with her and our two Swedish friends. We were walking back to the Hotel Maria to hang out with our fancy coffee and pastries (Barista and Flury's) on the roof. Kartick and Abdul of Tirupati's stopped me as we were about to go inside. They were incredibly excited. They told me in their sign language that Lizzy was in Kolkata. At first I didn't believe them. They had been so excited about the previous lookalike that I figured they were overreacting. But they were very insistent and told me to come back at 9 for tea at Khalsa's and Lizzy would be there.
I did go back, and Lizzy was not there. Abdul and I hung out, sitting on a rickshaw and making fun of each other, and waited while Kartick was off doing his Kartick-y things. She didn't come for another 15 minutes, so Kartick went to see if she was at Khalsa's. When he came back, he was very excited and told us to come.
I looked back in the corner that Kartick and Abdul would usually drag me to when we came for tea, and guess who was sitting there, talking with another friend, Beppe? Yep, Lizzy. I walked up behind her table. Abdul walked up in front of her and pointed at me. She turned around and immediately we both started laughing. She stood up and hugged me and we laughed as we stood there surrounded by Indian men who just thought we were crazy. It was beautiful.

And now for the second story. I wish I were a better writer. I feel like someone who has more of a way with words could do this so much more justice. But I'm going to tell you anyways because it was one of the most incredible moments of my life.
It was my last full day in Kolkata. Lizzy, our friend Matt and I had gone out for an almost silent lunch of Raj Kachori, Kulfi and subpar Mango Lassi. Afterwards, we naturally headed back for Sudder St. and Tirupati's because it was my last day and where else could I possibly want to be?
After sitting and talking for a while, it starts raining hard, although it looks like it is only raining on Sudder St. It seemed as if the skies over New Market and beyond were completely clear and it was just Sudder St. that was affected by this sudden downpour. We sat back and got comfortable because we would probably be there for a little while.
As we're sitting there watching the rain, this little old Muslim Indian man walks in front of Tirupati's in the rain. Lizzy pointed him out to me and he noticed that we were both watching him. He stands in front of us, with two rickshaws parked in front of Tirupati's acting as a sort of picture frame, and smiles the biggest, most wonderful smile at us. He then makes a 90 degree turn, so we see him from the side, and looks up to the sky, embracing the rain. He takes off his cap and lets it fall on his nearly bald head. He stands there for a few moments, just enjoying life. Then, just before he's ready to walk away, he turns back around to look at us and smile that most wonderful smile at us once again.
At this point, Lizzy is crying, obviously, as she is Lizzy. I am smiling wildly and nearly on the verge of tears. We don't even need words to express to each other how incredibly blest we feel to have been a part of that moment in time. It was beatiful.

My life is beautiful.

And what is this letter? S!

I'm back and I've settled in at least a little bit.  I've got no plans for the evening, so I thought it was about time I started typing again.

Let's start  with right now.  I'm feeling a bit out of place.  It seems almost as if Seattle is not quite real.  Or, more accurately, it feels like this is my vacation.  My heart has this idea that in a week or so, I ought to be on a plane back to Kolkata, back home.  I know with my head that that's not true; that's definitely not a possibility right now.  But emotionally, that's where I am.  I feel a bit out of place, lost, confused about what is going on around me right now.  Seattle doesn't feel like home at the moment and I'm not sure when,  or if, it will again.

But enough of that.  I promised you more stories.  I had a list of things that I was going to right about and I'll do my best to remember what they all were, but no promises that this will be a comprehensive account of my time.

I'll start with something I remember well and  have been thinking a lot about.  I'm sponsoring a child (financially) who lives in one of Kolkata's outlying villages through Children International.  Her name is Rina Santra.  She is 5 years old and will be 6 on October 31st.  She lives with her father, a rice farmer, her mother, and her older sister.  She and her sister are both going to school.  Her mother is a housewife.

Since I knew already that I would be in Kolkata, I arranged with Children International to visit her while I was there.  I scheduled the visit for one of my Thursdays, knowing that I wanted to be with my Shishu kids every day I possibly could and not wanting to give up one of those days for the visit.  

We left around 11 am Thursday morning.  The ride there was pretty spectacular, I think.  Once we got outside of the main city and got on the freeway, we hit crazy traffic.  The woman who was acting as my guide and translator, Sunita, told me that she hasn't seen such bad traffic on the freeway in quite a while.  It was festival season and people had already begun preparing pandals for Durga Puja, so we assumed the backup was do to people moving materials in and out of the city.  Our driver was born and raised in Kolkata and had been driving for CI for about 20 years, so he was definitely a Kolkata driver.  And thank goodness, too.  We ended up driving along the side of the freeway for most of the trip, weaving through bicyclists and other drivers and pedestrians the whole way.  It was wonderful and got us there much quicker than had we stayed on the freeway.  Leaving the city also made for beautiful scenery.  Once you get out into the area where all of the villages are located, everything gets significantly more green.  We drove through fields of rice, potatoes, tamarind trees and a number of things I didn't recognize.  Gorgeous, really.

Our first stop was at the local CI headquarters.  I met with the director of that site.  From what I learned through Sunita, this man is pretty amazing.  When the site first started out, they had found about 25 children who qualified for the program.  Now, a few years later (I don't remember exactly how long they said it had been around), they are close to the 200 children mark.  In addition to their work with the children who are already sponsored, the social workers and director go out to the villages and interview the families in the village to see if their children qualify, then go through the process of helping the families organize the paperwork necessary to enter the program.  That's a spectacular amount of work for the 4 social workers and the director to perform, so reaching the 200 mark is extremely impressive.

After chai and biscuits, we headed out to Rina's village to meet her and her family.  We drove past the school and they pointed out to me the backpacks some of the children were carrying that had the CI logo on them.  Backpacks was one of the gifts given to the children for one of the recent holidays.  

The visit itself was, honestly, a bit awkward.  We got to their home, which was one room with a bed, a small table, and a large cabinet containing things like the girls' school books, dishes, and other things they had collected over the years.  Their room is connected to a series of other rooms from which a number of other villagers emerged, so I got the impression that there's a number of families living in the building and there is some sort of communal kitchen in one of the rooms.

Rina was still at school when I arrived, so I talked (through Sunita) to the parents a bit about her.  They told me that she is extremely well behaved and enjoys her studies.  She has a few friends at school and when she isn't studying or helping out in the house, she plays with her friends.  The basic stuff.  She's a normal kid.  When she arrived, we talked for a bit.  It was hard, though.  Rina was quite shy, probably because all of the people who lived in their building were hovering around at the window and the door to the room.  I'm also a rather shy and quiet person, in case you weren't aware, so conversation was short and awkward.  Sunita kept trying to get me to say something more or ask more questions, but I just didn't know what else to say.  Nor did Rina, really.  She did recite some Bengali poetry for me, which was beautiful, and we worked through the English alphabet for a little while.

After visiting the home, we all went back to the CI headquarters for lunch.  This, for me, was the most awkward part.  My lunch, as well as Sunita's, were served on nice plates but the family was served on the standard metal dishes found all over India.  We also got significantly more food than the family.  I just didn't feel right about all the pomp and circumstance.  I have been to a couple of friends' families' homes in Kolkata and I understand that they like to treat guests with the best of everything they have, but I just didn't feel like this was the proper place for it.  I thought the point of doing these visits was to allow the sponsor and child to connect on the same level, not to show the sponsor off as some important, wealthy Westerner.  I, personally, would have preferred to have been treated as another human being, not someone of great importance.  But this is India, after all.  What to do?

After lunch, we headed back and had a much quicker drive.  I talked to Sunita a bit about her own family and we talked about the holiday season.  I also ended up taking an unexpected nap.  I didn't even realize I was falling asleep until I woke up.  We got back to Sudder St. around 4 pm and parted ways.

Let me tell you, though, why I've been thinking about this so much.  I started out in Kolkata volunteering with Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity.  Mother Theresa spent her life as a nun doing her best to help those most in need, the poorest of the poor, the seemingly unloved of Kolkata.  I work with mentally and physically disabled children who have been abandoned by their parents because of inability to care for the child or because of superstition around the cause of the child's disability.  Some of these kids may one day get a chance at a somewhat normal life.  Many of them will spend their rest of their lives rotating through Mama T's homes. 

Rina has a mother and father and sister who all love her.  She has a roof over her head.  She was going to school before I started to sponsor her and probably would continue to with or without me.  Her family is definitely impoverished, but they still lead a relatively good life in comparison to many thousands of people in India.  I just don't feel like she really needs me all that much, at least in comparison to so many other people.  I feel like there are better things my money could be spent on.  Jenn brought up the point that there are different levels of need and that this family does still need help, but I just don't think that I'm the person to offer that help.  My heart is dedicated to people, specifically children, who are in need not of financial support, but in need of love.  So (and this is also somewhat selfish as well) I feel like saving my money to go back to Kolkata and to Shishu is a much better thing to be doing.  That said, I'm going to continue my sponsorship of Rina for now because I believe at this moment that I can save enough money for my next planned trip and still give her some of it.  However, if it comes to choosing between Rina and spending the amount of time in Kolkata that I'm hoping to be able to afford, I will choose saving money for that trip.

Wow.  That took quite a while to type out.  I'll think I'll leave this post at that for now.  More stories to come.

Beautiful Life

This is my blog promise that I will take time when I return to Seattle to finish telling the stories I have to tell. At the moment, I'm too busy saying goodbye to Kolkata and daydreaming about "missing" my flight and "losing" my passport and spending the rest of my life "working" at a bangle shop.

Sala, too much raining. It's no good for my business.

I was talking to an Indian lady friend of mine the other day about the rain. She told me that there has been less rain than usual this year and that the farmers are suffering. Well, hopefully today will help. It's my first experience of knee deep water while walking through parts of Kolkata and I'm crazy so I love it. It's absolutely beautiful. When it first started to get bad, a friend of mine and I were walking around and we stopped in a storefront to wait for it to slow up a bit. It was like watching waves wash ashore at the ocean every time a car drove by. People were walking around with brightly colored umbrellas, still getting soaking wet. Men had their pants rolled up and young girls were wearing skirts. Women were few and far between (not that that's unusual), but the ones who were out were wearing their brightly colored saris and holding them up above their knees. It was quite a scene. My only worry is that my room is flooded. I haven't yet gone to check andit's a definite possibility as I'm on the bottom floor. Ah well, what to do? So my empty water bottles and a few pieces of newspaper will be floating about on the floor. I'll survive.
I am now the mother of four chidren. You all know about Kajol, but one of the masis has officially declared me also Roneshma, Deepama, and Meetama. The other day, she asked if I was married. I told her no, and she told me that I need to find a husband and adopt Ronesh, Deepa and Meeta. That, of course, hurt me just a little because I would absolutely love to do exactly that. I would love to take my three babies home with me. I just don't think that's going to be possible for a long while. It is nice to know that the masis recognize how much I love these children, though. It's going to be hard to leave them.
It's going to be especially hard to leave Ronesh, I think. I love Deepa a lot, but she is a big girl and has been through this whole auntie coming, spending a lot of time with her and leaving a day or week or month later. Ronesh is new to Shishu Bhavan and hasn't had much experience with the way the volunteers come and go. He is also really still a baby. He needs attention. When you hold him for a long while and then put him down, he cries and cries and cries. He hasn't even quite gotten used to the volunteers coming only for a few hours two times a day, either. He doesn't llike when we leave and again cries and cries.
I often feel bad for coddling him so much. I wish I wasn't so compelled to pick him up and hold him against my shoulder when he cries. I wish I hadn't started lying him down on my stomach and patting his back when he was sick. It probably wasn't a good idea to get so attached to him and let him get attached to me. I think it's probably easier for the kids to not have only one volunteer work with them when they first arrive, so that they don't expect that volunteer to stick around.
But I just can't help myself. I fall in love so quickly.

Alright, I have a few more stories for you but it's time to head to Shishu and I think I will go despite the rain. Love you guys.

TWEEKING OUT

Guys, life is so crazy. Completely insane. I wish I could explain to you all why, but I have to get permission from someone first. I just thought I'd let you all know that I'm so incredibly excited for the next two weeks. HAHA!

"You very good man."

Weird. I have 16 days left in Kolkata. The last time I had hit this point, I had been here, or at least outside of the US, for 7 1/2 months. It's so weird to think that this time I've only been here 14 days. It bothers me. It hurts a little. One month. It's not enough. I've just barely gotten comfortable exploring the areas outside of New Market, Sudder St., and AJC Bose Rd. Now I've only got 16 days left to explore further.
I am still very thankful for the time I have and do have, though. How could I not be? I'm incredibly lucky to have this chance.
It's just that my heart aches to be able to call this my permanent home. Don't get me wrong. I love my life in the States. I've got a wonderful life. But it doesn't feel right like this does. It doesn't fill my heart and then break it to pieces and then mend it and fill it again just to break it one more time like Kolkata does.

But on to the logistics. My children are beautiful. I think perhaps I caught Deepa on a bad day when I first arrived, because she's definitely come back out of her shell again. I don't think I'd realized before how musically inclined she is. She's definitely got better rhythm than I do, probably because her ears are better developed than mine are. When the Sisters play music on the radio, she rocks back and forth on her feet to the beat. When the mentally handicapped children are in "school" and you can hear them singing with the teachers, she claps along. She loves the tambourines. She doesn't sing (because she doesn't talk) but I'm sure if she did she would be a wonderful singer. It's really good to see that she's doing better than I had thought and that she has an interest in something.
Have I ever mentioned that I have a thing for pouty bottom lips? This little boy, Amrit, is pretty much the cutest kid I've ever seen with the sweetest big, pouty lip. He's one of the newer kids, so I'm just starting to get to know him, but it's not hard as he's extremely happy and friendly. He's not physically disabled like the rest of my kids, but his development is delayed due to neglect when he was young. He's a little over a year old. We're teaching him to sit on his own by bearing his own weight on his hands and working on crawling and walking a little bit. From the way things are going, it looks like he's going to walk before he crawls, actually. He's got a masi who does most of the excercis work, so I've been trying my hand (or mouth) at a bit of speech therapy while he sits. I'm not terribly good at it, as I've never done it before, but he can say "bababa," "lalala," and "aaaaaah" which is better than nothing. I'm working on "mamama" next, sticking to labials because it's easier for him to see how I'm making the sound.
My other little lovey is Ronesh, who has had a fever most of the time I've been here, though it's finally breaking. He's brand brand new so we don't really have much information on him. He's definitely not Cerebral Palsy or Hydrocephalus, which are the two most common disabilities at Shishu. I think it might just be another case of delayed development. In any case, he's had a fever. The masis don't let the ill children be around the other kids, for good reason, so he hasn't had a whole lot of interaction since he's gotten sick. And I have a thing for sick kids, too, apparently. So I've been keeping him company when I can, massaging his arms and legs and patting his back when he coughs and things of the sort. He's a sweetie, too.
Sonali and Jyotsni, the two who had arrived shortly before I left are doing so well. Jyotsni's a little diva and is always ordering the masis and aunties around and making demands. She can say a few things and understands quite a bit of bengali (nodding her head to show understanding). Her feet are still rather swollen and angled outward, but she is able to walk with support. Sonali is still rather shy and doesn't speak, but she at least lets the volunteers play with her without crying about it. She is also able to walk with some support and is definitely getting stronger. They make me happy.

BOLLYWOOD UPDATE!
I've seen two movies so far: Love Aaj Kal and Life Partner.
I really enjoyed Love Aaj Kal. It's the story of and Indian man and woman meet in San Francisco, start dating and it's implied that they start to fall in love. After a year, the girl decides to go to an art school in India and they mutually decide that they don't want a long distance relationship so they break up. They both go off and start to date other people, though it's clear that they're both a little upset that the other is dating someone else.
While all this is going on, an older friend of the man is telling his love to story to the man. The love story kind of mirrors the love story between the main characters (same same but different, y'know).
I'll let you guess what happens in the end. It's not that hard to figure out. It's Bollywood, after all.
The song and dance numbers were pretty awesome, especially since there was a bit of traditional song and dance mixed in from the older man's story. I really liked the parallel stories, too. It was really the best of both worlds - a bit of traditional Bollywood and a bit of modern Bollywood.

The second one, Life Partner, was pretty lame and not really worth talking much about. The story line was dumb. The main characters (two couples) meet, fall in love, get married, get divorced, then get back together when they realize that they still love each other. The songs and dances were the best part, but they were still just so-so. Lame.

I'm really excited to see Wanted. Salman Khan stars. The tag line is something along the lines of, "He talks casually, he eats casually, he ... casually, he loves casually, but he dances SERIOUSLY." Salman Khan is really the man's man in India. You ask any Indian man who his favorite actors are and Salman Khan is somewhere near the top of the list. I've seen him in a minor role in one other movie, so I'm looking forward to trying to figure out what all the buzz is about. It comes out maybe Friday and I'm seriously considering going the first day. We'll see.

"Your seat..."

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.

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!

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.

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

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!

You're my sweetie pie...

One year ago today...

I want you to know that everything is for you, child.  You give me the strength to get through.

Thank you.  I love you.