Here, throw me the baby!

Alright.  I have the afternoon completely off, absolutely no plans, for the first time in goodness knows how long, so I decided that now would be a good time to write about my Christmas.

I will begin with the volunteers' Christmas drama.  The whole thing was a bit haphazard and thrown together last minute, as we really didn't get around to starting on it until we only had about 2 weeks left to write, block, practice, and perform it.  But despite that, I think we did quite well with it.  The basic idea of the drama is that Mother Theresa, who has been looking for a home to begin her work but has  not yet found somewhere, has a dream the night of Christmas 1948.  In the dream, we are at Mother House where a group of MC Sisters is preparing for Christmas.  There is a knock at the door, and Mary and Joseph enter.  Slowly, the rest of the nativity also comes in, including the baby Jesus, and the various branches of the Missionaries of Charity join them.  It ends with a touching scene where Mother Theresa asks Mary to join her in bringing the baby Jesus to Sr. Nirmala, Mother's 2nd Sister.
We performed on Christmas Eve, just before Mass.  There were a few little mishaps and last minute changes, but people seemed to enjoy it and I think it went well.  Sophie, Jenn, and myself all played MC Sisters, John was a shepherd, and Jeremiah and Devin were Mary and Joseph, so all of the Seattle group still in Kolkata participated.
After the drama, we all went to Mass, which was lovely.  Afterwards, people gathered in the courtyard for hot chocolate and fruit cake (there's so much incredibly good fruitcake in India!) to mingle and wish each other Merry Christmas.  I must admit, up until this point, it didn't really feel much like Christmas, but having all of those people gathered together, smiling and chatting about Christmas plans really brought out the holiday spirit.  It was good to have that finally happen.

Christmas morning, after a breakfast of fruitcake buns, nutella, and chai at Mother House, I went to Shishu Bhavan.  All of the kids were adorable dressed up in their fancy Christmas outfits with bangles for the girls and shined shoes for the boys.  As we had had quite a few Christmas celebrations already, with the performances of the Shishu Bhavan Christmas drama, there wasn't much of a celebration that morning.  I think it was best that way, though.  It was just nice to get to spend a quiet morning with my kids.
Coming home that afternoon, I stopped a number of times to talk to some of the shop, food stand, and travel agency owners I've grown fond of over the past few months.  I couldn't help but think of how lonely Seattle is going to feel when I get home and, walking down the street, there won't be someone every few meters who I can stop to chat with.  In any case, I had a number of good conversations.
The Seattle group had planned to get together with a few other volunteers to carol while we all walked to Nrimal Hriday, Mother's first home at Kalighat temple, to volunteer together in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, a few of us were sick, so we ended up caroling to the Metro station and Sophie, Jenn, and I rode the Metro with 2 other volunteers to Kalighat, leaving Jer, Dev, and John to get some rest.  Caroling was a lot of fun; we got a number of weird looks and a few people joined in.  I'm also really glad that a few of us still chose to go to Kalighat together.  I haven't been in a long time because I'm now helping with volunteer orientations.  But that places has never failed, not once, to put me at peace with the world.  I have never left there without a smile on my face.  There has been a lot of changeover, and some of my favorite ladies are gone, but I got to see quite some of my old friends and I made some new ones.  I did dishes, which was always a relaxing activity, and hung out with fellow volunteers on the roof afterwards, drinking chai.  I really do love that roof.  Something about it is so peaceful.
The final plan for the evening was dinner with the Seattle group (we really have started doing everything together, we're a single entity now) and a few other volunteer friends of ours at a fancy Italian restaurant called Fire & Ice.  After a confusing taxi ride and walking about half of the way there, we arrived about a 1/2 hour late for our reservation, but luckily early enough that not all the tables were full.  The food, although truthfully only mediocre, was incredible because it did not taste like masala.  I do love Indian food, but it is so nice to break away every so often.  The company was also delightful, although Jer sadly had to stay home because he was quite ill.  It was definitely a good close to Christmas day.

Yesterday, Boxing Day, was for the most part a normal day.  But in the evening, the Seattle group got together for our exclusively Seattle Christmas celebration.  The six of us got together over a picnic of tuna fish & veggie sandwiches, fruit salad, Pringles, M&Ms, Oreos, and fudge and just had a fun time talking and being together.  We had decided that instead of getting gifts for each other, we would work together on getting gifts for our Indian friends on Sudder St., so we worked a bit more on getting those together.  We've grow quite fond of our occasional Seattle picnics, and this was definitely, I think, the best way we could have celebrated Christmas together.  I love those kids.

There was one final Christmas celebration, that I'm aware of, today.  All of the MC homes with children were invited to a party at the governor's mansion, and as John, Jenn, and I all work at kids' homes, we were all invited to come along.  The party was a lot of fun.  The governor's mansion was enormous, and though we didn't get to see much of it, it was obvious that it was quite grand.  The party was on the back lawn, which was absolutely enormous.  There was a bouncy house for the kids, although the volunteers definitely all took a turn in it as well, a live band, and a group of Indian dancers.  It was really nice to see the kids outside of their one room at Shishu Bhavan, running around, dancing, bouncing, and being the energetic little fireballs that they are.  We probably all got fed a bit too much sugar and did a bit too much frolicking, as everyone was sleeping on the bus ride home, but it was entirely worth it.  I love my kids with all of my heart and it was so good to see their gigantic toothy grins.

So, all in all, my Christmas in Kolkata was absolutely amazing, even if it did take a while before it felt like Christmas.  I hope that everyone else had incredible Christmases, and like I said, I'd love to hear all about them.  
And now, I will relax.  Finally. 

A few days ago, I went with one of the many Irish ladies I've met here in Kolkata, named Mags, to visit a village about an hour outside of Kolkata, by train & cycle rickshaw.  We went in order to deliver some monies to help a local Anglo-Indian woman, Susie, add 2 classrooms to a school that had recently been started up at the village which was being run by Susie.  Mags was helping out a friend of hers who is having some trouble back home.  The friend is funding the building of the school and watching over the start-up until Susie is able to run it completely on her own.  
A little background on Susie:  She was a teacher before this school started up, but had to quit because she lost the ability to walk and could not get out to the school where she worked.  
Upon arriving at the village, we were greeted by Susie's son who just turned 16 a few days ago.  He and his brother had to quit school for a few years in order to help out with household chores so that her husband could get a job and keep money coming in.  The very first thing this boy says to Mags is, "Auntie you cannot come in.  I am studying my books.  It is very messy."  This was the kids' day off from school.  And this boy was studying because he was finally getting the chance to go back to school.  How beautiful is that?
Anyways, we went next to visit the school, where Susie told me a bit about the curriculum, the changes that were to be made to the building, and the children that she and one other local teacher were taking care of.  The children live in the classroom during the school year, so it is much like a boarding school.  Susie also lives in the classroom because there is no way for her to get around easily, so it makes more sense for her to just stay there.  They are teaching the standard Indian curriculum so that when the children are ready to move to another school, they will be on the same level as all the other children.
The classroom itself was really quite nice.  Nothing by Western standards, but you can tell that a lot of time and love went into it and that the children have it really well there.  They also have a computer, which you can tell by the way Susie lit up when I inquired about the computer classes that was listed on the childrens' grade sheet, is a rarity for smaller schools.  It's only the one computer, so only one of the classes have it at their disposal, but she was definitely proud of it.
All this was wonderful, but what was really touching is how open she was about her life and how easily she welcomed me into her home and workplace.  Immediately, she offered to have her husband make chai, and I was also given an omelette that I hadn't asked for.  She gave me some background on her husband and sons, as well as some problems that she was currently having with her sister.  She even went a bit into her struggles when she lost the ability to walk and her health began to deteriorate so much that she could not talk.  She's obviously doing much better now.  
It's just so beautiful the way that the Indian people are so open with you.  Nothing is hidden.  People bathe on the street.  They are willing to tell you all about their life having known you for only a few minutes.  They welcome you into their homes and feed you until you're ready to burst.  I can't help but love it.
We also visited a Hindu family that lives behind the school and who are less well off than Susie's family currently is.  They were incredibly excited to see Mags, who knows them quite well, and took us both immediately inside.  We were then offered sweets.  Now, this isn't any ordinary offer, though.  The sweets they offered were not in the home, but had to be purchased at the local sweet shop about 5 minutes' walk away.  But that trip was made with joy.  They were just happy to be able to share what they could with us.

The day before this and the rest of that afternoon were absolutely exhausting for me, as I felt like I never stopped moving.  But having that time in between where people were simply excited to have me sit there and listen to them or eat sweets with them was absolutely wonderful.  It's afternoons like that that give you the energy and the ambition to keep going in this city that never stops.  Thank goodness for teachers and Hindus.

An official announcement

Ahem.

I have changed my flight home.
I will be arriving at LAX airport on 29 February 2008 at 7:20 PM.  I will then spend some time with my family, and will leave for Seattle on 11 March 2008 at 12:40 PM, arriving in Seattle at 6:01 PM (with a layover in San Fran). 

I love and miss all of you back home.  But I need some more time with Kolkata to feel ready to leave.  I will see you all in March.  Be prepared to be assaulted by my love.

Namaste,
Melissa

Ta ta, namasted, goodbye, okay

So, Friday was definitely not one of my better days.  My morning at Shishu Bhavan went well, but the events that followed were frustrating and upsetting.  I was considering just hanging around my room for a while in order to be mopey, but I hadn't gotten a chance to go to Kalighat lately as I'm now also helping out with volunteer orientations Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons, so I chose to not be a bum and visit my lovely ladies instead.  It was definitely the best decision I made today, and perhaps even this week.
I had been hoping to be able to do some laundry in order to get out my aggression on the bedsheets and frocks, but when I entered the washroom, they seemed pretty well staffed so I headed to the women's section.  I visited a few women that I had talked to before, then sat down next to a woman I hadn't visited with yet.  I started asking her how she was, and she began to tell me a story I didn't understand.  I must admit, I wasn't giving her my full attention, so I was mighty surprised when she began to cry.  She had been touching the bandage on her head, so I knew that she was telling me about how she had received her wound, and it was clearly a hard story for her to tell.  As I comforted her and began to listen to her with my full attention, I realized that any pain and suffering I have felt in my life does not even begin to compare to what she had gone through, which she was telling me all about right now.  And then, she smiled.  She finished her story, dried her own tears, and smiled.  And that was the biggest comfort that anyone could have ever given me.  To know that my own suffering was not even a fraction of what she had felt in her life and she could still come out smiling was such an inspiration to me.  
Needless to say, the rest of my evening went quite well.  I had a cup of chai on the roof of Kalighat and watched the people below, I went home and had dinner with the incredible friends I've made here, and had a good nights' sleep.  And I smiled.

In other news, we have two darling new babies at Shishu Bhavan.  Their names are Sonali and Jyotsni.  They were sent to us from one floor down, the baby ward, because they were both diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy.  Sonali is taking a while to adapt to the new environment and continues to look a little bit scared whenever she's away from Jyotsni.  Jyotsni, on the other hand, has taken to our floor quickly and is a little spitfire, rolling around in her crib to get from one place to the other!  I enjoy them both immensely.
Shishu Bhavan Christmas play practice continues, but because I have chosen to spend more time with the physically handicapped children, I haven't been helping out too much with that.  I do, however, have a new project!  I am making posters for the 6 new children we have taken in recently.  I felt honored to receive this project as it allows me a chance to share what I've learned about the kids in the last 2 months.  I feel it's a really good way for me to share my experience here with others.

I still love and miss you all!

Namaskar,
Melissa

Happy Thank You!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!  I hope that each and every one of you was able to share a delicious meal with your loved ones and are currently sleeping soundly with full bellys.

My Indian Thanksgiving was absolutely beautiful.  A friend of ours from New York, Anthony, had his heart set on having a very special feast for Thanksgiving and he (as well as the rest of us) definitely made it happen.  And we worked darn hard for that meal, too!  We spent most of yesterday shopping and cooking (on a 2-burner stove with no oven) and I do think that it was the most delicious meal I've had in India.  We ended up with spaghetti, garlic bread, a green salad, a fruit salad, an amazing pumpkin soup, and mashed sweet potatoes.  And, of course, a delicious chocolate cake provided by some of our wonderful Canadian friends.  I think really the best part of the night, though, was how many beautiful faces we had at our table!  We really weren't expecting quite the turnout we received, but we ended up sharing our meal with 17 people!  It was a delicious mix of Canadians, Irish, and USA friends.  It was truly incredibly to get together such a wonderful group of people to celebrate something that is so special to us back in the US.  So, needless to say, I was most satisfied with my meal last night.

And I certainly hope that everyone back home had just as incredible of a night.

I love you all.

I am thankful that you are all so amazing.

Peace,
Melissa

Melissa, you have very nice handwriting.

This was originally an e-mail just to my surrogate mothers in California, but I find that the more I get to know the sisters, the more I love them and want to share them with the world.

Sr. Karina is the Sister in charge of organizing the volunteers once they arrive in Kolkata.  This woman is so absolutely vibrant!  I really don't know how she does it; I would think she would be exhausted from having to always deal with these crazy people coming in and out of the homes and her life.  But she never shows her exhaustion.  Every time I see her, she smiles and says, "Oh, hello, Melissa!  How are you doing?"  (I really can't believe she can remember my name.)  I went to a talk of hers a few weeks ago for the english speaking folks, and she had us all cracking up the entire time with stories of various other Sisters, her own work with the Missionaries, and of course, Mother Theresa.  I've started working at the orientations, keeping records for the government, so I hope to get in good with her there and become one of her Golden Children.
I work with Sr. Aneill, a Sister from Albania, a lot at Kalighat, and she is another firecracker!  She was chasing a couple of the patients around the other day with a plastic snake the other day, and they were all LAUGHING and SCREAMING.  It was great.  And she is ALWAYS play-arguing with the patients, and just making us all die of laughter.
Even tonight at Kalighat, one of the Sisters I didn't know made me laugh!  A friend of mine, Elijah, had some firecrackers with him and when Sister came by, he asked if she would like to see a few.  She got SO excited by the prospect of fireworks.  He brought out a sparkler and one of the sparkly shower type ones.  The sparkler wasn't lighting, but she just kept at it out of excitement, and when the the shower one went off, she absolutely lit up!  It was so lovely to see.
And the Sisters as a group are just all so cute! It's wonderful to see just how human they are!  They're just such a chatty group of women.  The Seattle kids were sitting in the Mother House one night after Adoration while the Sisters were having their dinner.  We were outside the dining hall, and it was so much fun just sitting under the window and listening to their loud, undecipherable conversation and their girlish giggling.
My final story wasn't in the e-mail because it happened after I wrote it, but it's too wonderful not to share.  This past Wednesday was Children's Day in India, and all of the houses that take care of children had some sort of celebration.  I got to Shishu Bhavan and was told that we would be going to Mother House for a puppet show.  I figured some puppeteers were coming in or something and there just wasn't enough open space at Shishu Bhavan, so we had to go there to see them.  But it was in fact the Sisters who were putting on the puppet show!  We had a brief song and dance from a group of the novice sisters.  One of our kids apparently knew the dance to one of the songs, and it was the sweetest thing watching her get up to dance with them.  And then, the main attraction!  About 8 Sister hid behind a curtain and used handpuppets to dance to songs about Jesus.  It was adorable, to say the least.  And Sr. Karina, who I already mentioned, came out with one of those giant birds on puppet strings and danced with the kids.  It was great.  Oh, those Sisters.  I don't think I've ever seen so many kind and generous hearts in one place.  It's beautiful.

I've survived my first bout of sort-of serious sickness!  But thank heavens for AMAZING friends, Advil, and antibiotics.  I'm back alive, and feeling better than ever.

"Cha, Coffee, Chai!" "Tea, Lemon Tea!" "Puri! Bhel Puri!" "Polissssh!"

I've been back from Shantiniketan about 4 days now, so I figured it was about time I let you all know how it went.

It was very nice.

Thanks for asking, have a nice day. 

Ok, kidding.

We left for Shantiniketan on the first day of the Bandh, which is a general strike.  Sophie and I were a bit afraid that there would be no buses or taxis running and that the Metro would be closed, but I guess we left early enough and nothing frightening had happened, so we were able to catch a bus to the train station (Howrah!  Howrah!  Howrah!  Howrah!).  Both the bus and the train were fairly empty which was very very nice.  It was delightful to stretch our legs across our 6 seats and watch the countryside go by as we ate the bhel puri from the man who hopped on the train at the last station to make his living.

Like I said, the bandh was going on at the time, so when we got to Shantiniketan almost all of the shops were closed down and the streets were quite empty.  We settled into a hotel (with a flushing western-style toilet AND a tv!) and decided to take a walk.  This was one of my two favorite parts of the trip.  Let me preface this by saying that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of foreign tourists who come to Shantiniketan from what I observed.  Our walk led us down a residential street, where women were out hanging their laundry, men were working at their various occupations and children were playing in the streets.  They all stared as we walked by.  And not in the sort of threatening way women get stared at in Kolkata, but in a sort of curious and amazed way.  It was one of the few times that I've felt comfortable walking down the street, smiling from ear to ear.  On our way back down the street, we stopped to ask the names of some of the children who were waving at us.  They followed us down the street a bit.  I couldn't stop smiling!  I was even able to smiled when some of the men gave us weird looks or acted funny when they saw us because you just knew that they weren't looking at you in the same way the men in Kolkata do.  They were just curious and surprised by these white women, one of whom was almost bald.  The almost bald one is Sophie, in case you're wondering. 

That evening, we decided to go to the local theatre to see a bollywood film.  The owner was wonderfully observant, and noticed that we were in fact foreign and probably did not speak Hindi.  He sat down with us before the film and explained the plot of the film so that we wouldn't be entirely confused by the end.  He was great.

The next day we visited the college.  The buildings were closed up for the Bandh, and not many students were around, but the campus was beautiful.  There were murals and statues all over, as well as some beautiful greenery.  I took a lot of pictures, so I'll upload those ASAP and let them tell the story of our college visit.

That evening, we were wondering about in hopes of finding a place to rent bicycles.  We found no bicycles, but we did find a gigantic tent full of Bengalis.  As it turns out, there was a Bengali play touring at the time and was currently making a stop in Shantiniketan.  An ex-professor explained this to us and helped us get our tickets.  We went and bought ourselves a ton of candy and then returned to watch a Bengali play in celebration of Halloween (I should have mentioned - this was Halloween night).  The play was very colorful and involved some very stereotypical characters, so we were able to get a very basic idea of what was going on.  I definitely enjoyed the play itself, but I would say that the most interesting thing was the contents of the tent itself.  It's impossible to describe, really.  I would have thought that the entire municipality of Bolpur (of which Shantiniketan is a part) was there if it weren't for the hundreds of people just standing around outside.  But this tent must have contained at least a thousand, likely many more (I'm not good at estimating these kinds of things) Bengali men, women, and children.  Just a sea of people.  It was incredible.

The next day, through the kindness and generosity of our hotel management, we were finally able to take a bike ride.  We hadn't really expected that renting bikes would be so easy, we thought we might actually have to find one guy who would find another who would finally let us rent, at least that's what our ex-professor led us to believe.  However, when we asked hotel management, they consulted for a minute and decided to let us borrow their bikes for the afternoon.  I really can't begin to tell you how accomodating these guys were.  The ride was lovely and we got quite far.  We also got lost, but somehow magically ended up back where we needed to be.  I won't bore you with details, just know that I thoroughly enjoyed getting back on a bike.

The rest of the trip as well as the time in between the above stories was spent relaxing, reading, watching Spongebob, Discovery Channel, and Bengali music videos, and a bit more exploring. 

My last story of Shantiniketan involved the accomodating hotel staff.  We were on our cycle rickshaw back to the station when I realized that I had forgotten my water, which they had just filled up with their filter, in the room.  I was disappointed, but resigned myself to not having water for the trip or drinking some of Sophie's.  Less than a minute after my realization, a man on a bike rides up shouting "Sister!  Sister!"  We both look over, and it was one of the hotel staff handing us my water bottle.  They were amazing.  If you find yourself going to Shantiniketan sometime, let me know.  I'll give you their card so you can have a similarly wonderful experience.

The train ride back was more crowded and fairly uneventful.

The bus ride from the station (Park Street!  Park Street!  Park Street!) was also more crowded but far more interesting.  After Shantiniketan during the Bandh, MY GOODNESS, I was amazed when I looked out the window.  I had totally forgotten how many people there are in Kolkata.  Just everywhere!  It was actually a very nice thing to have experienced, though, because it was not the initial feeling of being overwhelmed by the people.  Rather, it was more of a ditzy, "Oh yeah, this is what I've been living with for the past month!  I had forgotten!"

Since being back, things have been fairly good.  We had some trouble with the rooming situation, which was frustrating.  It didn't feel quite as homey having us all spread out, a feeling which was underlined by the fact that one of us left yesterday.  But the five of us who are currently in Kolkata found ourselves a five-bedroom room this morning and I, personally, am very excited to all be living together in one room. 

It was also nice to get back to work.  I had missed my women and my children quite a bit.  I'm having a bit of trouble dealing with one of the Sisters and how she likes to organize things, but that's another entry for another day (hopefully once things are resolved).  I don't want to have to pay for two hours of internet time, so I'm off. 

Peace, kids.

Melissa