but we got to the marble palace alright which is actually the residence of this bengali family who grew wealthy from trade w europeans and so built their home out of italian and indian marble and filled it w (mostly european) statues, paintings, furniture, and fountains. there was a ginormous mirror that went from floor to ceiling and was built from a single piece of glass. all the paintings were of white people except for the few that showed the bengali family, but it was interesting to peak out the window, past the parqueted floors and marble pillars to look outside the iron gates at the rest of squalid kolkata. there's evidence of this kind of thing everywhere -- movie posters plastered to the same wall where a homeless man is sleeping, stray dogs and kids bathing a few streets away from a 5-star indian restaurant. i found out that the street that i walk down every morning to get to the motherhouse is actually the red-light district, so if i ever was there at night, it'd be a different story.

anyway, it's been starting to rain earlier and earlier, so today after getting back from shanti dan, i waded around sudder street taking pictures of the water. the guy who works at the internet cafe told me to take his picture, which i did, and then he took mine next to a rickshaw. men who were standing outside liked to comment on my camera ("photo?") and of course the little kids love posing and looking at the images afterward.

shanti dan - school for street kids and center for women who have either been abused, in prison, or have disabilities. the womens' building has 2 floors w a peaceful courtyard w a garden in the middle. we talked to the women, painted their nails, sang songs, washed their hair w lice shampoo, and gave them haircuts. the ones who are able to help out the sisters and masis w tasks like folding clothes and some are allowed to go outside if they want to buy fruit. one woman named mona seemed completely normal except that she shuffled instead of walked and didn't speak. but she understood the masis and vols and could even paint our nails, slowly and carefully, after we did hers.

sishu bhavan - orphanage for kids w and w/o disabilities. it is w/in walking distance from the motherhouse and probably the most popular site along w kalighat. there are about 20-25 disabled children and vols work mostly w the ones who are not as severely affected. using each child's binder, we did exercises w their limbs and made them sit/stand in certain positions. there were also toys for those who could play w them and we helped feed those who needed help.

prem dan - see 1st entry

daya dan - home for children w disabilities. there are 2 floors, and the 1st floor has about 20 boys, all w physical and mental disabilities. some have families but a few are orphans. there are toys and books for the boys, and the vols play w them, help them go to the bathroom, and pass out food at mealtime. when i went yesterday, there was one boy named mongul who may have muscular dystrophy but had one of the best english i've heard from any indian national. he is by far the smartest of all the boys and helps out the masis by keeping the other boys in line. they all listen to him when he tells them to do something in bengali (1 of them is even his special wheelchair-pusher), and yesterday he asked one of the sisters for candy which she gave to all the boys.

kalighat - the only home that i didn't find physically attractive at all. men and women, about 60 each, are separated from each other and vols work w the same gender. usually patients at kalighat don't recover and their conditions can range from severely ill and unresponsive to mentally completely intact and just physically affected. i met a woman there who used to be a school teacher and so knew bengali, hindi, and english and could speak easily. she was in an auto accident long ago and had been taken care of her husband until he died a couple years ago and has been at kalighat ever since.

i'm really glad i got to go to all of the homes, but i don't know how much use i will be at each of them. some places there were far too many vols and at others we were limited in what we could do so the masis mostly took care of the patients. shanti dan makes me exhausted after the mornings, too, so i don't want to over-commit myself only to have to back out again.

i learned something really bad about the adoption process at sishu bhavan. one of the other vols who works there regularly and was here 2 years ago doing the same thing said that the nuns don't tell parents who are adopting the full physical and mental histories of the orphans. there was a european family there earlier this week who were getting ready to take home a brother and sister and suspected that the boy was autistic or deaf b/c of his behavior and he didn't speak. but the nun denied that he was anything but normal and for an hour, she and the parents went back and forth about it. the vol who was translating thought there was something abnormal about the boy, and she said that a few times, adoptive parents have brought back orphans b/c they were disabled in some way but weren't told that. apparently, the nuns don't tell the parents b/c they believe that god will make the child better when he/she gets older. it's absolutely ridiculous that people would disregard science and facts b/c of religious beliefs and completely unfair to potential parents who have every right to know everything about the children.

it's also upsetting b/c actions like these make christianity seem like an outdated and hypocritical belief. obviously not everyone who is christian believes and acts like this, but it's almost as though you have to be careful from becoming too religious or else you go crazy. it's a perpetual war b/w religion (i really don't like that word) and science or religion and modern life.

Speaking of Sudder, I am paying only 70 rupees per night for Hotel Maria ($1=42 rs). And I am getting what I pay for, meaning a dorm room w 12 beds (not the most comfortable things, metal w a mattress that's more like an enlarged, worn-down cushion) and 2 bathrooms (no tiles, running water w temperatures that vary depending on the time of day, 1 western toilet, 1 eastern toilet, neither flushes consistently). Showering is creative business of trying to get as clean as possible while avoiding getting water into your eyes and mouth and not breathing through your nose b/c, well, it's a bathroom... in the room, there are clotheslines that always have towels and shirts drying b/c laundry is a never-ending task and the rains can start unpredictably and quickly so you don't want to leave your stuff outside.

There were new vols at Shanti Dan this morning, so this time I was actually the more experienced one. Turns out the kids are closer to ages 8-10 but are so malnourished and have been raised on the streets that they are physically and mentally younger. Subash, who's probably the smartest, is an orphan, and Laltu is really tiny b/c he has a heart murmur and his parents can't pay for an operation. I found some picture flashcards that could help the vols learn some Bengali words while they learn English (spoon sounds like "cha-moosh").

With all of the wordliness of the other people here, mostly everyone knows English tinged by whatever regional accent. It's downright embarrassing for Americans, or at least for me, that we aren't more fluent in other languages. These European and Asian schools are doing something that ours aren't. The sort of funny thing is that the locals will vary their responses to me depending on who I'm with -- if I'm with white people, it's "hello madam", and if they are Asian, it's "arrigato". Once when I was walking w an Indian girl from Delhi, no one said anything to me, although this might have just been a coincidence.

The bus on the ride back from Shanti Dan today was packed -- the driver didn't deny anyone who wanted to get on, so we all were inside, mostly standing, squished against each other, and sweating. There was an Indian guy next to me who was about eye-level and staring. It was beyond awkward, and normally I would've stared back and maybe say something like "Can I help you?" to make him stop, but here all I can do is look away. Although there are special seating sections for women on public transportation, it would be so much easier to be a guy. Luckily, all I've gotten are stares -- my friend hit a man with her water bottle because he grabbed her butt and other female vols have told me about walking on Sudder when it was dark and being followed by creepy men who say things like "You're so pretty" and "I love you". It's especially prominent around this area b/c it is such a tourist hub -- in more village-y areas, the locals will look at you b/c you look different and the kids will run up and say "hello!" but that's about it.

I went to the famous Kalighat, home for the dying, yesterday afternoon. The women there are worse off than at Prem Dan, and the conditions aren't nearly as nice, but other than that, it wasn't a life-altering experience. I think I expected too much b/c other vols would either tell me that it was too intense for them or that they absolutely loved it. It was intense, like any of the other sites, and I'm glad that I went, but I didn't come to any great realizations or anything. We changed bedpans, distributed food and water, helped w feeding for a few of them, and gave massages to those who wanted it and talked to those who could -- like most of the people at MC, the women didn't know English, but some just like to talk to anyone who will sit and nod and listen. Some of the women looked completely normal, it was almost incredible that they would be at Kalighat. But it is the same w the women at Shanti Dan -- some may seem completely regular on the outside, but they could be mentally disabled or come from places of domestic abuse or from prison.

I accidentally went to a nice restaurant this afternoon (thanks, Lonely Planet), meaning that there were waiters who were all dressed the same, tableclothes and silverware already on the tables, comfortable chairs, low lighting, a menu with a wine list. The food was so much more expensive than what I'm used to paying but still, nothing cost more than $5 and my entire meal, which was the most money I've spent so far on food, was a little over $2. I'm not going to buy anything when I go back home.

Funniest discovery of the day: most of the matrimonial ads in the Indian newspaper are by parents who are looking for a nice girl for "our son, handsome, degree in such-and-such, good family, etc."

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.