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Published: January 2nd 2008
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Kolkota. City of joy. City of 15 million. Dirt under fingernails, toenails, up nostrils and in ears. Atmosphere like smog soup. Horns sound constantly and loudly. The smell of rotting garbage mingles with animal carcass and urine. Everywhere you look there are mangy dogs, cows, masses of people - working stalls, driving rickshaws, sleeping, begging, swarming. On trains a human crush grabs tightly to overhead bars leaving the air fresh with BO. A man tells me I'm sitting in the wrong section. I lose my hard fought seat to find its standing room only in the 'ladies' area. At least I'm safe from wandering hands. A female giant amidst a tangle of bright saris.
Along the streets of Dum Dum, where we're staying, a daily circus plays out. A line of rickshaw drivers fights for attention, live chickens are slaughtered on sharp blades on the footpath. Tonight's dinner. Men use the open roadside urinals, bus touts scream at us (there are few Westerners here) - "airport, airport, AIRPORT!" in increasing pitch. Fresh and not so fresh vegies are sold on hessian bags alongside the road - stray dogs paw through enormous piles of roadside litter. People soap and lather at
Garbage
The smell of rotting garbage mingles with animal carcass and urine. water pumps in various states of undress.
Our short stay here is blessed with meeting some pretty remarkable expats doing great things for the poor and sick. Like Sister Cyril, an Irish nun, larger than life - both literally and not. She began as the principal of Loreto Girls school many years ago and transformed this prestigious girls school into a charitable institution. Half the girls here are from needy families who cannot afford the school fees. The other half are the daughters of well to do, influential families. The Rainbow children live within the school building - street kids, (train) platform kids, orphans, the illegitimate children of prostitutes. Cyril runs a multitude of programs encouraging education for all. She commissioned a recent study in conjunction with 500 NGOs (Non-government organisations) which found of the 130 million children worldwide who are not in school - more than half of them are Indian children. The main reason for this is that the requirements of school - like books and stationary - are impossible for them to meet.
Cyril has also coined the phrase 'barefoot teachers'- sending village people, equipped with barefoot training, into village schools as teachers. This extends
Rebecca & Agnes
Meeting some of the girls that Uncle Kev's school sponsors is a great experience. to the Loreto schoolgirls, who for one day each month visit the village schools to teach in Cyril's 'western' style - a framework designed to encourage class participation. The experience is pretty rough. A bus drops a few of us Western observers and well-to-do Loreto schoolgirls in a dusty village outside of Kolkota. Disappointingly, some of the Loreto girls are spoilt and don't practice the Cyril framework. They wield a cane and aren't afraid to use it. Kids run out of the classrooms to the grounds outside and squat and pee right out the front of the school. Next to a cesspool of water we see the cook scooping into a pot for the school lunch. Kids screw up and throw rubbish out the open windows of the school and it lands on the ground outside. We return to Kolkota disillusioned. After our Providence experience this is really disappointing. However, meeting some of the girls that Uncle Kev's school sponsors is a great experience. The sponsorship funds the school fees of four little girls - Jessica, Rebecca, Agnes and Anne. Jessica and Rebecca are sisters, little girls who play and giggle with me, calling me "aunty, aunty". They have no
Kev & I on a chai break @ Prem Dan
The day is physically exhausting, but very rewarding. understanding that their father is dying. Agnes has spent much time in and out of hospital - at one time they were worried she couldn't pull through.
Another incredible Kolkota personality is the enigma - Jim McGuinness. An upright, snowy haired, Aussie expat - Jim moved to Kolkota thirteen years ago and works in conjunction with the Motherhouse - Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity - rescuing the poor and dying off train platforms and slums all over the city. A serious bloke - Jim's stern exterior masks a heart of gold. He takes Uncle Kev and I for a volunteer stint at the Motherhouse. Kev and I brace ourselves for a pretty confronting day. Neither of us is sure we'll be able to cope with the experience, but it seems like such a minor contribution in light of Jim's devotion to the cause. We reckon we can do it. 6am mass at the Motherhouse is for the nuns and volunteers. We sit and kneel on hessian in a noisy room/chapel above Mother Teresa's tomb. The room is full of goodness. Sisters in the white and blue trimmed get-up so synonymous with Mother Teresa, a ramshackle crowd of foreign volunteers,
Kolkota Slums
On the walk through the slums to Prem Dan adults and children thank us and shake our hands. We haven't lifted a finger yet - but clearly the locals are very thankful for foreign aid and volunteers. young and old, backpackers and doctors - an interesting bunch. I feel like a bit of a fraud - a tourist volunteer amidst the hardcore/long-termers. The priests homily is on selfish behaviour characterised by drunken debauchery - surely this isn't targeted at the nuns or volunteers. Maybe he's talking to me? After mass, its breakfast with the volunteers - mostly amazing young people who've dedicated anywhere from a week or several years working here. Amongst the long-termers there's Joan a grandmother from New Zealand and young Martin from Donegal.
Kev and I are billeted out to work at Prem Dan - a hospice for the elderly and dying. We catch the local bus with Spike - a French volunteer - and a bunch of others. On the walk through the slums to Prem Dan adults and children thank us and shake our hands. We haven't lifted a finger yet - but clearly the locals are very thankful for foreign aid and volunteers. Once there, we're separated into male and female workgroups. I'm on laundry duty, sorting piles of sheets and clothing into soiled and not soiled. The flies hovering over the sheets should have been a dead giveaway, in
Shopping Women
Everywhere you look there are masses of people. the first five minutes I find myself scraping shit off a sheet - luckily I'm wearing an apron and thick rubber gloves!! Once sorted, the sheets are disinfected in massive concrete tubs and I work over a metal tub with soapy water hand-washing literally hundreds of sheets, clothing and blankets. Intellectually disabled patients come out to hug us and 'help'. 'Aunty, Aunty' they call to us. Someone mentions they are light on for volunteers today. Back-breaking work.
After chai with the bloke volunteers, its lunchtime for the patients. Within the hospice most of the women are elderly and/or intellectually disabled. We deliver tin plates of rice and vegies to rooms with hundreds of beds - like an army hospital. Dark and smelling of dried urine. Women whimper, curled up in the foetal position. We help them sit up and spoon feed them lunch. Horrible deformities, weeping wounds. One lady I'm assigned to - I suspect the worst case here - has virtual hoofs for hands, swollen, weeping and her eyes blinded. Frightening. I suspect she has leprosy. She calls to me 'Aunty, Aunty' and opens her mouth awaiting food like a baby. She doesn't speak English so, not knowing
what to do or how to cope with the situation, I sing to her! Nothing comes to mind except one of Mum's old ballads - 'Black Velvet Band'. Poor woman - as if life wasn't bad enough! The day is physically exhausting, but very rewarding. Kev and I enjoy a celebratory lunch in Sutter Street - the backpacker district.
We have little time for tourists pursuits in Kolkota. We hit the markets, hiring a bloke to find some shirts, jewellery and a Sari for us and keep other shopkeepers at bay. He's pretty ineffective, but the experience is humorous. Kev and Grumpy's plan to purchase outrageous shirts to embarrass me on our upcoming tour of the south - spectacularly backfires. They both buy XL shirts - bright and bold - but when they get them home and out of the packet - Grumpy finds his so enormous it's down past his knees, Kev's is so tiny it wouldn't fit a midget!! The Fairlawn Hotel hosts a famous beergarden - a cool retreat from the dirty streets. Run by an Albanian/Indian lady who changed her name to 'Mrs Smith' and claims to be English - the hotel foyer is decorated
The great shirt rip-off
Kev and Grumpy's plan to purchase outrageously shirts to embarrass me on our upcoming tour of the south - spectacularly backfires. with countless English knick knacks. We drink chilled kingfisher beer - once again proving the theory that Indian drinking establishments are unable to serve more than 5 cold beers in a row! It's the end of our stint travelling together. Michelle leaves for Kathmandu and Ray for Delhi. Grumpy, Kev and I get ready to depart for some R&R in the south.
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Happy New Year, Ellen. Sending you best wishes for continued adventures in 2008.