Trying to be a saint of Calcutta

So we finally started our trek across India. We are currently in Kolkata and have been here for 3 days. So far everything is going according to plan, and we did our first day of voulenteer work today at one of mother teresa's homes, which I will get into in a moment. We took a train from Guwhatti at 10:30 pm and arrived in Kolkata around 7:30 pm the next day, so almost a full 24 hour train ride. But despite the time, it actually didn't turn out to be that bad. We went to bed almost immediately after the train started moving and didn't wake up till the next day around 9 am so we only spent a few hours actually being awake on the train. This all happened of course, after having the gruelling task of saying goodbye to all of the children that we had established such strong relationships with during the time we spent with them. This was honestly one of the saddest moments of my life, and I will never forget the children's crying faces. They had all told me that when it finally came time for us to leave, for good, that they would be crying, but I never thought that they would cry as hard as they did. They all came up to me one after another, sometimes a couple at a time, and hugged me crying their eyes dry. I've never felt so bad for leaving someone in my life, because these kids seemed like they REALLY did need me. I always wondered what it would be like to say goodbye to someone forever, and I always went through life thinking that when I said goodbye to someone I would surely cross their paths again at some point, but this time I knew. I knew that I would never see their faces again, or play with them again, or be the source of their laughter. I have never felt an urge to stay somewhere so strongly, knowing that in the end, I had to leave. But we had some fun times, and I taught them many things, and I guess in the end that's all you have to look at. There was one girl named Aroti, that I particularly had trouble saying goodbye too, but I gave her the keltic knot knecklace that I had worn around my kneck since I moved to Oregon, and to me it signified new beginnings, hopefully it does the same for her and also keeps me fresh in her mind.

When we arrived in Calcutta it was 7:30 pm, like I said, and by the time we got to sutter st. (the tourist area we were staying at), it was around 9. We were dropped off at the salvation army hotel which in our India book told us was a great hotel for tourists, only to find out that it was now rubble and no longer operating. So we then procedded down the street with our bright orange rolling bags to find another hotel, gaining the attention of every beggar on the street (which around a tourist area is a lot). We went to a bunch of different places and they all said they only had one room, with 4 to 5 beds in it, and that the price would be around 900 rupees (which is rediculous). They did this because they knew it was late and knew we didn't have anywhere to sleep, and were relying on our paniced minds to make stupid rash decisions. We finally found a room that had just been freshly painted which left a strong smell of fumes, and had blankets that looked like they had never been washed, for 600 RS. We took it and decided we would go to another hotel first thing in the morning. As we ate dinner I was completely freaked out about having to sleep on the gross beds in our room, but when we got back my sister reminded me that we had our nice new sleeping bags, and our mosquito nets (necissary since we had to keep the windows open to air out the paint fumes). This is when I got down on my knees and thanked my mother, who insisted on me taking a bunch of "useless crap," that I didn't think I needed. Turns out it wasn't useless crap at all, but very helpful necessitys. I actually slept pretty well that night, and the next morning we got up early and immediately found another, much nicer, hotel.

The next day we didn't have much to do because we could only check into Mother Taresa's home on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays, and it was a Tuesday. We looked in our India book and found out that there was some botanical gardens in the area with a giant banya tree in it. So we got ready and went to catch a cab to the gardens. When we found a cab, a man aproached me selling bonsuri flutes and asked if I wanted one. At first I said no immediately after being aproached by so many street vendors since I've been here, but after he played it a little bit for me I reconsidered. We the proceeded to bargain and we settled on 250 RS, which may have been a little steep, but since we were both happy that was all that mattered. We then got into the cab and headed to the gardens. We walked around the gardens for quite some time, trying to figure our the stupid arrows on the signs that pointed in different directions that we SUPPOSED to help you get to where you wanted to go. The gardens were huge, so these arrows were definitely needed, but they were really quite terrible at deciding how to write the arrows on the sign. It turns out that left meant left, right meant right, but up meant down, and down meant up! How very easy, we should have seen it from the start. After this we found our way to the banya tree with a man who had a little girl with him and was taking her around the gardens. The little girl was actually a little boy he would later tell me, but I still don't believe him at present because this little "boy," completely resembled a girl in every way. Anyways, the banya tree was awesome, it actually looked like a giant forest because it stretched out for 200 meters and was still growing. After seeing that we walked around the gardens some more looking for the cafateria that they said existed, but due to the horrible arrows, we found ourselves at a lake and sat down on a bench to rest beings we were both so fatigued. It was here, that I took my bonsuri flute and began to play it for the nature, and contrary to what my sister believes which is of course me being a moron, I think nature really enjoyed my flute playing. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and playing the flute, which Cami now wants to break in half and burn.

Now too the thing we came here to do, which was work at Mother Taresa's homes. We had registration yesterday, and over much debate, Cami and I for some reason decided on working at Kalighat, which is the home for the dying! During registration, the coordinator said that Kalighat was the worst, and most horrid, of all the homes. Cami of course gets into her gung-ho religious state of mind and starts telling me that this is the once in a life-time opportunity, and that we have to suffer as Mother Taresa had. For some reason this made sense to me, and we decided to go with Kalighat. All night last night I was dreading going thinking I was going to see horrible things and would most likely die by the end of it all. After sleeping terribley, and waking up at 7 o'clock (the time we were supposed to be at the mother house,) we rushed down the streets of Kolkata on the 20 minute walk to meet with everyone. Of course we missed the breakfast we were supposed to partake on, and immediately set out for Kalighat. We took a very nice bus there, and then walked some 5 minutes to the actual home. When we walked in at first I was terrified and had no idea what I was doing, nor who anyone was besides of course Cami. Things started out slow though, by doing all of the destitudes laundry, which gave us some time to socialize a little and get to know some of the other volunteers. After we each rang out some 50 pieces of clothes, and had blisters to show from it, we set out to "the floor," you could call it, where all the destitude were lying on individual cots. The men and women split into different rooms, I was alone. Our job, after inquiring from another volunteer, was to get water for the men, carry bottles of urine from the men on the cots after the relieved themselves, to the toilets, giving massages to any of them that asked for one, and walk around if you had nothing to do and pretend like you did.

I started things off by walking around and shooting stupid blank smiles at every man on a cot that looked at me, thinking I was doing my share of good in the world. Then one man called me over and asked me to give him a massage on his legs, so I grabbed the oil off the table, threw my gloves on, and gave that man a massage. When I was finished with that massage, another man next to him called me over to massage him, and so it went until break time at 10:30. That was literally all I did, give massages. I later found out that I just kept massaging the same men over and over again who were taking advantage of a nice massage, but I didn't mind, they all deserved it. To top it all of, I was the confronted by one of the sisters, insisting on where I had gotten the massage oil that I was using on all the men. I told her I had gotten it from the table where other volunteers told me it was. She then told me that the oil I had been using on all the men, was COOKING oil, and all I was doing was dirtying up the mens clothes after their so called "massages" were finished. Disheartened, we then went up to drink tea and have some snacks. I was starving after missing breakfast, and wanted some food badly, but of course they were serving fish, my aversion, and was forced to fill myself on tea and crackers. After this we went back downstairs and were to feed all the men and women, this part was not bad at all. I took plates of food to the men, took around a giant bowl of rice and served more to the men who wanted more, and then took their plates in back to be washed. I went back out to collect more plates, when one of the volunteers who I believe was Indian, told me to "give that man a bath," as he pointed to one of the men lying on the cot. I had no idea what I was doing, and the Indian saw that, so he grabbed the man by his shoulders and I grabbed him by his feet (as the man could not walk), and we carried him to the bath room. The indian man helped me set this man down in the bathroom, and then took off. I first had to completely stip the man down naked, and then found a bowl and began soaking him with cold water. The man began to shake, so I stopped pouring water and started rubbing the water in his hair and on his body. I then left the man in the bath room to inquire about some soap, but they don't use soap, only water, so I went back to him. I started pouring more water on him when suddenly I smelt the worst odor my nose had ever endured. I began to think that the water was mixing with his body scent, and really emmiting it into the air, but my idea was suddenly shot down when the man pointed to his ass and when I looked down, noticed that he had literally shit where he sat. I grabbed the bucket of water and splashed it all around the defiled area until the shit washed to the drain. Then he lifted his butt in the air and wanted me to splatter his ass with the water to clean it out. As I did so he took his had and rubbed in in his ass till he felt like it was clean, and then sat there as if nothing had happend. Utterly disgusted I ran for help, and had another man who seemed like he had been there for a while because he didn't miss a beat, help me dress him and carry him back to his cot. After this I noticed that Cami, all the girl helpers, and pretty much every guy heper as well, had their bags on and were ready to go. I went in the back and washed my hands throughly, and went out to meet cami, who said we were going to go back to sutter street with 2 girls from Seattle that we met there. We then went to eat and had some laughs about what had happened from the day. I then found out from them, that they had each been there for 7 weeks, and never given one of the women a bath. I guess I was just thrown straight into the worst of it on my first day, but it was good to get it done and over with.

Cami has decided she wants to live the life of a sister while we're here, so we are going to adoration at 6:30 tonight and still have a couple things we want to get done before we do that so I will stop here. We have to get up every morning at 5:10 am for mass because of Cami, so we have to get to bed semi-early.

Peace on earth,

Colin

---

---