Secondly, I'm here, in Calcutta, Kolkata, whatever you wanna say. And 2 days ago was the 1 month anniversary of being here! Been a long and short time all at the same time. And this time next month I'll be getting to winding this all down. Kolkata, not the city I imagined it would be. First of all, there's a United Colors of Benneton and an Adidas! And tons of old school cars painted yellow, Taxis! Real ones, not white "tourist cars" but actual taxis. This seems to be India's answer to NYC, and I'm sitting in a net cafe that has AC and little cubicles, looks like a call center. Everything here is more modern, and the stereotype I had of this city, which was everyone begging, peoole lying on the streets, is only somewhat true. The overarching thing about it is the old colonial british archetecture, old relics still standing and leaving their stylistic imprint all over, its not hard to see how this was a colony, here. The old white buildings with palm trees in front, some majestic well laid out parks with actual trashbins, and a fine for litter! This is only in these main parks however but it just blew my mind yesterday.
I volunteered in an orphanage for these 3 days through the "motherhouse" Mother Theresa's organization here in India. I showed up for the meeting for volunteers friday, a few hours after my train finally arrived (3 hours late, didn't get out of gaya till 2 am, that was... fun...) and they briefed us on the different houses we could work in. Some of them have a minimum of one month, but one that didn't was the orphanage, where I'd wanted to work anyway. I asked to be put in a classroom if possible, and I got what I wanted! Saturday morning we had to show up at 7 am for breakfast, and then we all go in groups to our respective houses. There were probably 40 people there this morning, lots of them have been here for at least a week or 2, there were a lot of Americans! First time I'd really seen them. I guess thats kind of nice, that you see Americans out there trying to help out, just wish they would actually travel through these countries as well instead of flying in, helping out, and flying out, which some of them do. Lots of Catholics of course, and yesterday morning I received a mini-sermon from a westerner guy that had been here 35 years and was preaching on how McCain was the only one to vote for because this man is emphatically pro-life, and talked to us about not voting for someone who kills babies. Yikes. I murmured to the american guy (from brooklyn!) next to me that I came here to volunteer, not to be religiously indoctrinated. He nodded in agreement.
In any case, I worked with the kids that morning. SO CUTE! I mean seriously adorable kids, my classroom was 9 kids and they were like 3 years old. As soon as I walked in the room, one little boy just ran up to my legs and threw his arms around them. He was absolutely the cutest boy ever, and I found out later that some Italians are adopting him and coming to get him in a couple of weeks.
Apparently the turnover is really high there which is nice, that a couple of years ago someone worked here and came back and only a couple of kids are still here, they all got placements. It makes it easier to think about it all. The nuns are pretty rough with the kids, pretty strict, saw them just throwing them into the chairs when they were resistant, and slapping them around a bit. They seem to have their best interest at heart but it is different methods. Yesterday I was wearing the same chinese beaded bracelet I always wear and wore before with the kids, and didn't think about it. While two of them were curiously playing with my watch, and I was explaining to them about time, another little hellion went and ripped off my bracelet, breaking it and sending beads everywhere. I freaked momentarily, knowing they could be choking hazards, and thankfully my little ally Deepak went rushing around collecting them all, I was worried he'd cram them in his mouth but instead he picked them all up and came running over to me to return them. So sweet. Unfortunately the nun saw him with one bead as he was returning it to me, and started freaking out and I told her it was from my bracelet and she shook her head disapprovingly and yelled at me in hindi and pointed to her throat and mimed choking. I apologized profusely and felt like crying/guilty/5 years old, that amazing ability that catholic school atmospheres never seem to fail to do to even adults, no offense to anyone.
Anyway the kids are like monkeys, lemme say. They climb the barred windows! Don't know how they get up there and you have to go over and just remove them and put them on the floor again, where they just start re-climbing, and then they hold on with all their might and its like trying to get my cat out of her cage when she's at the vet. Somehow they possess this super human strength. And like all little kids, they crave attention, and I think the hardest part about it is that sometimes they would just look up at you and hold out their arms, wanting to be picked up. It was so cute, and we weren't really allowed to pick them up which was just so sad. Usually a kid would spend all his day with other little kids, sharing the attention, but come home to a family that would show attention to them... well the lucky kids I guess. Just makes you want to take them home. And the nuns are so strict! Some rich Indians came breezing in for acouple of minutes to hand out hard candies (and she was worried about my beads being chocking hazards!) and cookies 5 minutes before their lunch time, which of course made all the kids spit their lunch food back out into the bowl when I was trying to feed it to them later, really great planning) ... ps seeing a lot of class divide here that I haven't seen this plainly before. The cutting edge rich people in the coffee houses that look like starbucks, people riding nice cars, people hiring others to carry their suitcases for them on their heads, etc. Interesting.
Anyway the nuns are not abusing them however, and its a lot better than the alternative for these kids. On sudder street where my hotel is there is a well known sceme where poor adults will pay for kids for the day to use to beg for money. sick. We spent the mornings singing nursery rhymes, even though the kids just sort of stared at us which was a little odd, they didn't speak english at all and i was put in this room with an irish girl about my age that is a teacher at home and she was remarking about certain differences. It is old catholic school style strictness here, they prbably think we're big softies. But trying to feed them was quite hard! They have the same curry potatoes and rice with some chicken every day for lunch and dinner, and I don't think they love eating it. My little boy just kept spitting it back in the bowl, or swatting me away, and ripping his bib off! We tried to do color-matching with them, they seemed to respond pretty well to that, and "head and shoulders knees and toes" they seemed to like. They are 3 years old for gods sake so I guess its ok they aren't writing essays. I immediately felt like writing some sorts of lesson plans and having some curricular guidelines. It didn't seem like the two indian nuns who were there had any particular focus for them... anyway I guess its different here. I wanted to take a couple of those kids home with me honestly, I think it goes to remind us that adoption is such a good option, there really are tons of really little kids that need families, and so many adoption agencies abroad. Certainly a possible option for the future that I would consider maybe. Who knows.
I think this is one of the more organized charity centers, and because of this there seem to be a steady stream of foreign volunteers. They make it easy to sign up, but I feel like I might feel more that I'm really needeed in a smaller town or something, I might see what other volunteer opportunities there are as I head down south. It was not a reality check, I know how it is out there for so many kids, but it was certainly a reminder and some hands on experience helped me to think about how important it is to spend some time doing quality things for people who need your help. I don't know how this will be a part of my career but I am determined to make it one.
Anyway it was really easy to meet people these last 3 days through the volunteering, and at an internet cafe I met someone too. An american couple from texas, a spanish woman from barcelona that i spoke only spanish with for 3 days, i did pretty well if i say so myself! And an american guy volunteering as well. This allowed me to go out to a couple of the restaurants that Kolkata has to offer... there's a park street which is kinda like park avenue (im telling you its kinda like nyc) which had some big fancy restaurants with waiting lists on a sunday night! Greg the american guy (lives in brooklyn actually!) and myself waited last night to go to this india place, when we finally were seated we were taken to the back room which had more cafeteria like lights but everyone was dressed up, there were ugly old 70s light fixtures, sorta like applebees, and the oddest part was we were seated on the same side of the table, there was no other side! Just one bench. Looking out into the restaurant, totally exposed! Good mutton kebabs though, a northern dish. And I thought I'd order the "Brandy Honey Bee" cocktail, not realizing it was just straight brandy! And a chocolate "sundae" which was ice cream and fruit, chocolate ice cream, weird combo. And the waiters were in full regalia, turbans and all. It was funny. And the nights before that I hit up a traditional bengali food place and a tex mex place called Jalapenos! Been quite a good mix of cuisine here.
All in all, I think this is a really cool city, clearly a fusion of old and new, colonialism and indian tradition, big old buildings falling apart, fancy hotels (one of which I went inside just to use their bathroom and their nice handsoap and MOISTURIZER!) ... anyway its a cool place to be. Flying out in a couple hours to Chennai, decided to bypass the 45 hour train ride and just spend the extra 60 bucks for a flight. I'll be in chennai by 8 tonight. Starting the south! 2nd half of the journey begins! I'll keep you posted.
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