June 08, 2008
I think I can
I've been in Kolkata a little over a week, and I think I'm beginning to adjust to life here (knock on wood). The heat isn't so bad if you're smart about it, like not being outside during the middle of the day and taking full advantage of air-conditioned places, like internet cafes. Plus, it's monsoon season, and though the roads get flooded and the thunder sounds uncomfortably close, the rain makes it plenty cooler in the afternoon. And things like not drinking water from the tap or getting it near your eyes (it burns, bad mistake) and not eating certain foods from street vendors is to be expected in a developed-but-developing country. Dodging taxis and autorickshaws is kind of like Frogger -- don't get hit, seriously!
Strikes are relatively common in this city -- it's how the Communist Party, which controls the government of West Bengal, voices their opinions. There was a 2-day strike because the central government had relaxed its subsidies on cooking oil and petroleum, so on Thursday, virtually every business was closed and there was no public transportation, even flights were canceled. The only places that were open were Barista and other businesses that don't rely on local commodities, otherwise you were expected to stay closed. Friday was a little bit more relaxed -- a few more places were open, there were a few buses and taxis running (that charged more because they could), and at government offices, employees at least showed up. There might be another on June 10, called for by the powers-that-be in Delhi who want a nation-wide strike, but whether or not that'll actually happen is uncertain. If it does, it means that most people won't be able to volunteer because the buses take us to the majority of our sites.
The volunteer base and just the types of travelers in Kolkata are really diverse, with people of all ages coming from different parts of the world, some who are staying for a week before moving to another part of India and others who have been here since November. In my dorm room alone there are a French girl who has been here 2 months, an Austrian guy on his way to Burma to meet with his guru, a Japanese woman who works for international NGOs and is spending her holiday volunteering at MC, a Korean girl who plans to stay in India for a year to write a book, and a British girl traveling to Thailand. And of course an American college student who's here for part of her summer to help out and learn a thing or two about life.
My morning shifts are volunteering at Shanti Dan through Missionaries of Charity, a non-profit organization started by Mother Theresa, where we teach kids from ages 1-10. Most of them have been dropped off at the school because their families cannot take care of them for some reason or another and live at the school until the parents return, which can range anywhere from 3-6 months or more. There are masis, older Indian women, who work full-time, but mostly we volunteers are left on our own in the morning. I'm with the middle-aged children, ages 4-6ish, so it's more teaching numbers, colors, and common objects in English. The ones who do talk know Bengali, so we were able to learn a few phrases (mostly "bosho" or "sit down"). They're sweet but wild too. One of the volunteers did magic tricks and made balloon animals last week, which the kids loved, but it was absolute chaos. I wonder how much of what we do, teaching and playing games with them, will stick with them after they leave.
I haven't decided on an afternoon shift because I want to try each of the sites first. Last week, I went to Prem Dan which is basically a hospice for 200 people. To get there, we had to walk through a slum -- a long row of shacks built right next to each other, made of wooden boards, tin, and garbage; kids running around half-naked; the smells of trash, urine, feces, and cooking oil all mixed together. This didn't shock me because I have seen slums before, but what did surprise me was when we entered the gate into Prem Dan. It was a whole new world with stone floors, buildings with Mother Theresa's image painted on the side, gardens, a peaceful spot with a statue of the Virgin Mary. Yet the people in here were so much worse off and so close to dying than those living right outside the gates. The main room was dark and full of beds, and the women in there, some lying down and other hunched in plastic chairs, had bodies with inflated or collapsed bellies and limbs so thin that when you wrapped your hand around their ankle, your thumb and fingers overlapped. Most of them had shaved heads or short hair to prevent lice, and it looked like their skin was stretched so much there was barely to cover their frame. We did what the masis told us and changed bedsheets, fed and gave the women water, and sometimes just sat and touched their hands and arms. There was a woman with seizures whom I ended up half-carrying to her bed and another who kept hitting herself on the forehead after she wet her bed and would turn her head away from me during dinner to spit up her food because she couldn't chew the rice. I don't mean to make stick these women in neatly-labeled boxes of "noble, suffering victim" because who knows what they are really thinking and what they were like before Prem Dan. But it reminded me of something that another volunteer said at orientation, that the people MC serves are the Untouchables and we are here to love them because no one else did. Even if I don't go back to Prem Dan, I won't forget this for a long time.
Posted by Eunice Chyung at June 8, 2008 04:22 PM
