An Eternity of Illness

It seems that every time I start to think I'm getting better, my stomach does a flip and starts to cramp even worse than it did before. If I had to describe my pain, I'd say it feels like my stomach is like a wash-cloth. Things are going through my stomach, like water would go through a wash-cloth if it were hanging up and water was being poured onto the top of it. My stomach is trying to take nutrients out of the food and liquid I am giving it, but something that I have been giving it, it does not like. So now, my wash cloth stomach is trying to wring out all the frail things it does not want, all at once. The cramps wake me up in the middle of the night, around 2 am, and last till morning time. Being horribly sick again has lasted for the past 2 nights, and I am just now starting to feel better, but only words can describe the pain I was feeling 2 nights ago. I woke up after having the first big meal since I had been sick the first time; spaghetti, garlic nan, lemon garlic soup, and orange juice. I ran to the bathroom feeling noxious, and threw up every last bit of spaghetti, or at least that's what it tasted like. I then went back to bed hoping I had gotten everything out of my system and would be fine, but I was wrong. This time I woke up with stomach cramp, and feeling diarrhea coming on, ran to the bathroom again, only this time sitting on the toilet instead of hugging it. Then in the middle of this, I felt noxious again. Having only our washing bucket near and not wanting to dirty it, I cleaned up AS FAST as I could, then flushed the toilet and held back my vomit until fresh water came into the toilet, and then began to puke immediately after. This went on non-stop the entire night, and the next day I wanted to do nothing but lay in my bed. I felt an extreme amount of anger towards the country that not more than a week ago thought of as very nice. I told my sister in the deepest of my anger that the number one thing I dreaded most about the day was going down onto the street and seeing an Indian face, trying to haggle me to buy their merchandise. Now that I'm feeling better, these thoughts have long since subsided, but the amount of anger I was feeling was baffling. Before all of this illness, I started feeling an extreme pull towards god, one I had never felt before. I began praying to god every night no matter what the circumstances of the day produced, and my prayers began to flow more freely to me: All of this was very new to me. I can't help but feel like this illness was something trying to stray me away from god and bring hatred into me. I believe that identifying that is a huge leap in itself, and still feel like I am now back on the right path.

I have actually somehow managed to form a mortal enemy, here in the Kolkata, with an Indian man who speaks no english whatsoever, and has actually never done me any harm. This man is the newspaper courier, and annoys me more than anyone in this world. A couple hundred feet from our hostel is a small cafe called the Blue Sky Cafe. It is the place that every traveler eats at and they serve all sorts of western types of food, not excluding eastern though. This is practically the only place me and my sister eat at because the food is delicious and the staff is the friendliest in all of Kolkata, which actually isn't saying much as the most you might get at another restaurant is a slight head nod from the MANAGER of the place! But this newspaper man has some deal with the Blue Sky, and comes into it literally every 2 to 3 minutes trying to sell his papers to all the foreigners. I wouldn't really mind this at all actually, if the newspaper man would only ask me if I wanted a paper once... but this guys is annoyingly determined. In order to appreciate just how annoying though, I believe you need a good picture of this guys in your mind. He is pretty old, around 60 or so, and he has a typical Indian mans face... Alright that's all you need to know. So he comes in after we first sit down, stops where you are sitting, holds his newspaper out, and just flat out stares at you. When you look up at him and shake your head no and give him the no gestures with your hands, he proceeds to put the newspaper on you table as if you are saying yes. Once you give him the newspaper back, he gets the hint and moves on to the next table to bug. After doing the same routine to every single person in the place, even the ones that don't look at him and force him to stand there for 5 minutes before acknowledging him, he will leave the store. Then everyone in the cafe gets some number of minutes of peace, before the man comes back again. Now you would think that he would only go for the new faces that he saw in the cafe since his last entry, which would actually require him to stay out of the cafe for more than 5 minutes, but he goes for every single person that is in the cafe again. He just stops at your table again and looks at you with those dumb eyes, expecting that in the last 2 minutes you've changed your mind about buying a damn paper. In a good long meal in the morning, you can expect at least 5 or 6 of these annoying little interruptions, but each time the interruptions seem to grow more and more with your anger. Today he even asked me on the street while I was walking back from eating breakfast at the cafe, after already asking me 4 times inside it, what nerve. I never really do anything about it, except that my replies are becoming more and more rabid. Cami thinks mine and his relationship is actually quite comical, and I don't really see the hilarity in it, but then again I have been sick and angry for the past week.

I'm beginning to think that coming to Kolkata was borderline waist of time. We have not nearly done the amount of volunteer work we wanted to do and the whole time has been spend being sick. But I think I would have rather been sick here than any of the other places we are going. I don't want to miss out on any of the ten day meditation, and I definitely don't want to miss out on a single day at the ashram. Maybe this was god helping me to get my immune system stronger so I could learn later on the things he really wanted to teach me by coming here. I have definitely seen a lot of things since I've been volunteering at Kalighat, but I think I would have to stay a lot longer than 2 weeks to really learn something that I can take home with me. I'm very glad for my time spent here, but also very excited to proceed to the next part of my journey. We have 4 more days here until we leave for Viranassi, and I will most likely spend that time volunteering, getting my stuff together and in my bag after washing it, and at the book store trying to finish the fifth harry potter book because I just bought the sixth one on the street and need to finish the fifth before i read the sixth. I was trying to find the sixth book for some time around the area because I knew I wanted to read it, but the bookstore didn't have it for some reason. They had one through five, and then seven, but no six. We were actually walking to the bookstore, Cami and I, when I saw it laying in a pile of books owned by a street vendor. I asked him how much he wanted for it after inspecting it, and he said 300 rupees, I proceeded to say no and hand the book back to him. He than asked me how much I would buy it for and I told him 150, he said that he could not sell it for 150 because he wouldn't make a profit off of it. He than said 250 and I said no, and that I would think about 200 and on my way back from the book store I would maybe purchase it for that. I was actually 100 % probably going to buy the book for 200 on my way back, but wanted some time to think about it and see how much they were selling the harry potter books for in the actual bookstore. I tried to give the book back, but he said no and asked how much could I do? I told him 150 was my final offer, and he said
"ok" and put the book in a bag. I did feel kind of cheap after I took my 2 500 rupee notes out of my wrist band and asked if he had change, but what can you do. He gave me my change back, resiliently giving me the last 50 to make it 350 change out of my 500, and I went on my way. The rest of the walk Cami had the privilege of listening to me talk about my bargaining skills, and kept telling me that I got luck, but I thought that I had done a VERY good job!

Anyways Cami is getting antsy and wants to go, so until next time, namaste!

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