I don't know how I let this happen but it's almost been two weeks since my last post on here and for that I am very very sorry. A lot has happened with us here in India so this will probably be a pretty long post, feel free to read it in sections.
We recently finished up our "last" days volunteering in Kolkata. On Monday we said our goodbyes to the Sisters at Motherhouse and I said my goodbyes to the Sisters and patients and Kalighat, however I decided that when I return to Kolkata in a week I'm going to continue to work at Daya Dan for a few days to see the Christmas Play that we've been working on so hard with the kids. We got to see the first official dress rehearsal and I got to hear Benoi play the drums, which I have been working with him on everyday for the past two months. It was incredible. Truly, truly incredible.
It was very hard to leave as Sister Olinda and Sister Anelia have become one part mother-figure and one part spiritual guide to me in the past few months. A few of the patients that were there when I left have been there since I arrived. I left a few familiar faces and many that had arrived that morning. The klepto, the professor, and the O.G.'s are just a few of the patients that I have grown to know and love without even being able to talk to them for the most part. It's strange but I'm going to miss laying out laundry on the roof and squatting to wash dishes for hours on end.
We left monday evening for a small town in the northern hills of West Bengal called Darjeeling. A cozy remnant of pre-partition India nestled in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. Remember when I said that India was hot? That I had to lay on top of all my sheets while I slept at night and make sure that no body part was touching another so I wouldn't sweat out all the liquids in my body? Those days seem long gone. It would have been foolish of me to pack winter clothes for Kolkata but now I seem to be regretting that decision. The high throughout the day is about 36 degrees Farenheit and at night it drops to about 20, with no heat! BRRRRRRRRRRRR! It doesn't snow here but it easily could.
We took a night train from Kolkata's Sealdah Station to Siliguri, a small city at the base of the hills, from Siliguri our group of ten people took a 5 hour jeep ride along a precarious one lane road that winds and snakes it's way up the hills past villages and ramshackle homes that dot and line the road. We pass children bundled up and mothers cooking chipatis over tandoori stoves. Rubbing their hands together to keep warm. We see signs that warn not to drive recklessly on this mountain road that is falling apart that read, "Drive slow or DIE" and "A slow ride means no suicide". Warning signs in half-english that were more entertaining than cautious, but definitely got their point across as our driver sped around blind corners passing slower jeeps and buses. Scary to say the least.
We arrived in Darjeeling shivering and rummaging through our bags to get as many layers on as we could, then we started the hike straight up winding roads to our hotel. Hotel Aliment is very nice compared to Hotel Maria, carpeted floors and beds with thick blankets and a couple hundred rupies cheaper. It's quite a hike to get there, or anywhere for that matter, as the whole city is built on the side of a steep sloping hill. Between the rows of backwinding roads are miles and miles of tea plantations that supply over 10% of the worlds tea. We spent the evening in the hotel's rooftop restaraunt drinking hot cocoa and warming our tired frigid bones. The next day we wandered around from shop to shop buying scarves and gloves and hats, all those things that remind us of winter at home,. Later in the day we took a pony ride down to the lower part of the town to the Happy Valley Tea Estate where we sampled a selection of delicious local teas and were able to purchase some for about 1/8 of the price we would pay in the states. Beautiful.
The next morning we woke up at about 3:30 and took a hour jeep ride to the top of tiger hill to watch the sunrise. It was absolutely incredible. The sun came out of the middle of the sky, because the horizon is so high, and broke through the clouds illuminating the Anapurna mountain range on the other side it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and despite the cold we were able to tough it out with a few glasses of chai. I decided to take a little bit of a trek and walk the 15km back to city along the winding roads and I am so glad I did. Walking down the hill was an amazing experience, I was truly alone for the first time in three months. It was quite, peaceful, and around every corner was a new beautiful view. The road going up to Tiger hill ends in the small village of Ghoom and I spent time dwadling around taking photos and saying hello to babies. I visited a few of the Buddhist monastaries in the area and had a wonderful discussion with a monk comparing the similarities and differences between Buddhism and Christianity and exploring ideals. It was great.
For the most part Darjeeling has been pure relaxation, breathing in the mountain air and admiring the scenery, visiting the zoo, and talking with the locals at the Buddhist monastary or in the doorways of shops. It's a far stretch and a much needed break from the hustle and bustle, not to mention pollution, of Kolkata. While I think I might always consider Kolkata my Indian home it was definitely a smart choice to leave for a while, my lungs feel fresh and my boogers are no longer black. I haven't been hassled by a single shop owner and the mountain food has been nothing short of delicious. It's hard to believe that I'm still in India. Everything about Darjeeling is such a stark contrast to Kolkata from the people, to the streets, to the scenery. Both are beautiful in their own ways and I know that both will hold a special place in my heart for a long time to come.
We leave Darjeeling tomorrow afternoon and will start the journey back to Kalkota. After five days in Kolkata finishing up the christmas program we catch a flight to Bangkok for three days. At the end of those three days we take a flight across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco and then I go my own way back to the beautiful Northwest. I'll save all my feelings for the next post or two because it's going to be a doozie to say the least.
Brrrrrrrrrr...
heath
Friday, December 4, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
My Bollywood Movie Career or Nico Park pt. 3
Sorry I haven't posted too much in the past couple of days but we've been busy busy busy! This will probably have to be a short post as well which is sad but it makes for light reading and writing.
When we got back from Varanasi we got into the Calcutta swing of things full force again which was really nice, it was like that little trip really rejuvenated all of us for this last little home stretch we have with our toes in the Indian dirt. It's been nice to be able to stop myself from being overly distracted and being able to have some great discussions with my friend Skylar the past couple of days, including one or two with a Missionaries of Charity Father about the Catholic church and Jesus and Spirituality and all those things that are so confusing but really make your heart smile (and sometimes cry) ya know?
I also was given the opportunity to 'star' in a Bollywood movie (obviously I use the term star a little loosely, I think the credits will have me billed [if at all] as man in red hat). A grand ol' group of volunteers took sunday night to go to the set of Iti Mrinalini, the new film by director Aparna Sen, a fairly large name in the Bollywood industry. If you don't know what Bollywood is then A: I suggest you get yourself educated and B: It's the worlds second largest film industry based out of Mumbai, India. It was an awesome experience to see how a film gets made and, unlike most things in India, it was very legit. No bamboo poles holding up lights, no, this was a real movie set. There were about 30 westerners there and we each were in about three or four scenes a peice but were on set from 8:00 pm til 8:00 am. It was exhausting but I got to meet a lot of people, some good, some bad, and got 500 rupees (about ten dollars) and a free dinner for all of my acting skill.
Now on to today, yesterday Sr. Johnava (the head sister at daya dan) approached us and told us that a large group of volunteers and Sisters would be needed tomorrow because we're going to take the boys to Nicco Park. This was exciting news for me (touch of sarcasm) seeing as I had just been there on Thursday to ride the paddleboats and escape the noise of the city with a few friends as well as having been there about a month ago for the same reason. Nicco Park is Kolkata's theme park, which I may or may not have mentioned in this blog before, either way it's worth another general recap. Normally when I think of theme parks I think of DisneyWorld or Universal Studios or even Six Flags, but to Kolkata, Nicco Park is the premiere ride and attraction destination. It has two rollercoasters, one that goes about twenty feet in the air then does a gradual downward slope and ends after the car has gone around the 30 second oval track one time, the other is a slightly more legitimate wooden rollercoaster that looks like it was made in the 1930's with all the Indian ingenuity the designers could muster. While Nicco Park would barely pass as a children's public playground in the U.S. it does have paddleboats to go around a little man-made lake, a 60 ft. replica of the Eiffel tower, a toy train that goes around the park, and a carousel plus a few more rides that you might find at the Central Washington State Fair. So when the kids heard that we were going to go to Nicco Park they flipped everyone was so excited and could, literally in some cases, not control themselves. It was all they talked about yesterday and getting Benoi to practice his drums was in fact an impossibility.
The other thing about Nicco Park is that if you happen to look around in the context of an American horror movie you would realize that this would be the perfect set. It's the kind of place you absolutely would not want to be at night. As you walk in the main gate you're greeted by a fairly realistic looking clown sitting in a glass box and as you pass by he utters the most meniacal and terrifying laugh that you can possibly imagine. Think every nightmare you have ever had about clowns and put them in this glass box and you might have an idea what I'm talking about. Next to the clown is the park's mascot, a 14 ft tall yellow and black cat that is standing on two legs, his eyes and head move left and right and his arm waves greeting children into the park. This in itself is not creepy whatsoever, what is creepy is that there is a speaker emminating his voice that seems like a toy losing its battery. "Heeeeelllooooo. Weeeeeelcome to Niiiiiiiico Paaaaaaark. IIIIII aam your beeeeeeest friend.", the cat says in a monotone voice that chills you to the bone. It seems like every ride with music or speakers, from the carosel to the Eiffel tower replica, was meant to scare american horror movie fans out of their minds. Not to mention the shoddy construction of many of the rides and the way that broken toy train cars and paddleboats are half-hazardly stored, leaning up against the fence or simply sitting in the middle of a walkway. You wouldn't catch me trying to break into Nicco Park after hours that's for sure.
So today (FINALLY) rolls around and we get to Daya Dan to shuffle all the kids on the bus and there was not a single face without a smile on it. It was great because we had enough volunteers with us that we could take a lot of the boys that don't get to go on the normal outtings, literally I think we had 40 children with us (keep in mind they are all mentally and mostly physically handicapped). The first thing we did was ride the toy train around the park, and of course for some it was amazing for others terrifying. There were screams of joy and of pure horror as the train moved (at about 3 mph) around the broken or decrepit looking rides.
After the toy train we all ran to the paddleboats and took all the kids around the little lake on a boat. You could tell by the looks on their faces that it was something they had never experienced before, floating on top of water! Let alone so much water! Isn't it amazing the things like a simple boat ride that we take advantage of, that we can lose the ingenuity and beauty that it took for the human mind to realize that we could if we work hard enough cross land on top of water instead of walking around it? We took all the kids on the boats, even the ones that are wheelchair bound or whose legs and arms are twisted and contorted, and you could tell from the smiles that graced their beautiful faces that they loved it. After a short boat ride we walked and wheeled the kids around the park and got some lunch, but the only thing they could think and talk about was, "THE HORSES!!!"
Of course, everyone's favorite was coming after lunch. The carousel. The only part of the park that resembled an american ride or attraction was an ornate and beautifully painted carousel, the kind with 50 horses that all move up and down very slowly and gracefully as the whole platform spins to piano music and makes you think you're dancing. We get everyone (including the sisters!) onto a horse and as it started to move every child started screaming with joy, no one was scared, no one was tired, nothing hurt. Everything was perfect in the world for a minute and a half for these children who have suffered so much. It was truly amazing. They were all in open fields riding horses made for kings to go save a princess in one story or another that they've . There was screaming and yelling and laughing all around, every boy, every girl, every volunteer, and every sister was truly truly happy.
That's something you don't see everyday.
I love you.
-heath
When we got back from Varanasi we got into the Calcutta swing of things full force again which was really nice, it was like that little trip really rejuvenated all of us for this last little home stretch we have with our toes in the Indian dirt. It's been nice to be able to stop myself from being overly distracted and being able to have some great discussions with my friend Skylar the past couple of days, including one or two with a Missionaries of Charity Father about the Catholic church and Jesus and Spirituality and all those things that are so confusing but really make your heart smile (and sometimes cry) ya know?
I also was given the opportunity to 'star' in a Bollywood movie (obviously I use the term star a little loosely, I think the credits will have me billed [if at all] as man in red hat). A grand ol' group of volunteers took sunday night to go to the set of Iti Mrinalini, the new film by director Aparna Sen, a fairly large name in the Bollywood industry. If you don't know what Bollywood is then A: I suggest you get yourself educated and B: It's the worlds second largest film industry based out of Mumbai, India. It was an awesome experience to see how a film gets made and, unlike most things in India, it was very legit. No bamboo poles holding up lights, no, this was a real movie set. There were about 30 westerners there and we each were in about three or four scenes a peice but were on set from 8:00 pm til 8:00 am. It was exhausting but I got to meet a lot of people, some good, some bad, and got 500 rupees (about ten dollars) and a free dinner for all of my acting skill.
Now on to today, yesterday Sr. Johnava (the head sister at daya dan) approached us and told us that a large group of volunteers and Sisters would be needed tomorrow because we're going to take the boys to Nicco Park. This was exciting news for me (touch of sarcasm) seeing as I had just been there on Thursday to ride the paddleboats and escape the noise of the city with a few friends as well as having been there about a month ago for the same reason. Nicco Park is Kolkata's theme park, which I may or may not have mentioned in this blog before, either way it's worth another general recap. Normally when I think of theme parks I think of DisneyWorld or Universal Studios or even Six Flags, but to Kolkata, Nicco Park is the premiere ride and attraction destination. It has two rollercoasters, one that goes about twenty feet in the air then does a gradual downward slope and ends after the car has gone around the 30 second oval track one time, the other is a slightly more legitimate wooden rollercoaster that looks like it was made in the 1930's with all the Indian ingenuity the designers could muster. While Nicco Park would barely pass as a children's public playground in the U.S. it does have paddleboats to go around a little man-made lake, a 60 ft. replica of the Eiffel tower, a toy train that goes around the park, and a carousel plus a few more rides that you might find at the Central Washington State Fair. So when the kids heard that we were going to go to Nicco Park they flipped everyone was so excited and could, literally in some cases, not control themselves. It was all they talked about yesterday and getting Benoi to practice his drums was in fact an impossibility.
The other thing about Nicco Park is that if you happen to look around in the context of an American horror movie you would realize that this would be the perfect set. It's the kind of place you absolutely would not want to be at night. As you walk in the main gate you're greeted by a fairly realistic looking clown sitting in a glass box and as you pass by he utters the most meniacal and terrifying laugh that you can possibly imagine. Think every nightmare you have ever had about clowns and put them in this glass box and you might have an idea what I'm talking about. Next to the clown is the park's mascot, a 14 ft tall yellow and black cat that is standing on two legs, his eyes and head move left and right and his arm waves greeting children into the park. This in itself is not creepy whatsoever, what is creepy is that there is a speaker emminating his voice that seems like a toy losing its battery. "Heeeeelllooooo. Weeeeeelcome to Niiiiiiiico Paaaaaaark. IIIIII aam your beeeeeeest friend.", the cat says in a monotone voice that chills you to the bone. It seems like every ride with music or speakers, from the carosel to the Eiffel tower replica, was meant to scare american horror movie fans out of their minds. Not to mention the shoddy construction of many of the rides and the way that broken toy train cars and paddleboats are half-hazardly stored, leaning up against the fence or simply sitting in the middle of a walkway. You wouldn't catch me trying to break into Nicco Park after hours that's for sure.
So today (FINALLY) rolls around and we get to Daya Dan to shuffle all the kids on the bus and there was not a single face without a smile on it. It was great because we had enough volunteers with us that we could take a lot of the boys that don't get to go on the normal outtings, literally I think we had 40 children with us (keep in mind they are all mentally and mostly physically handicapped). The first thing we did was ride the toy train around the park, and of course for some it was amazing for others terrifying. There were screams of joy and of pure horror as the train moved (at about 3 mph) around the broken or decrepit looking rides.
After the toy train we all ran to the paddleboats and took all the kids around the little lake on a boat. You could tell by the looks on their faces that it was something they had never experienced before, floating on top of water! Let alone so much water! Isn't it amazing the things like a simple boat ride that we take advantage of, that we can lose the ingenuity and beauty that it took for the human mind to realize that we could if we work hard enough cross land on top of water instead of walking around it? We took all the kids on the boats, even the ones that are wheelchair bound or whose legs and arms are twisted and contorted, and you could tell from the smiles that graced their beautiful faces that they loved it. After a short boat ride we walked and wheeled the kids around the park and got some lunch, but the only thing they could think and talk about was, "THE HORSES!!!"
Of course, everyone's favorite was coming after lunch. The carousel. The only part of the park that resembled an american ride or attraction was an ornate and beautifully painted carousel, the kind with 50 horses that all move up and down very slowly and gracefully as the whole platform spins to piano music and makes you think you're dancing. We get everyone (including the sisters!) onto a horse and as it started to move every child started screaming with joy, no one was scared, no one was tired, nothing hurt. Everything was perfect in the world for a minute and a half for these children who have suffered so much. It was truly amazing. They were all in open fields riding horses made for kings to go save a princess in one story or another that they've . There was screaming and yelling and laughing all around, every boy, every girl, every volunteer, and every sister was truly truly happy.
That's something you don't see everyday.
I love you.
-heath
Friday, November 13, 2009
Varanasi
On Tuesday night the girls and I, along with 4 of our close friends that we have met in Kolkata decided to get the heck out of Dodge (or Kolkata if you will) and have a short vacation in Varanasi, India. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi
We took the overnight Himigri express from Howra Station to Varanasi Junction. A train that was supposed to be 14 hours but ended up being closer to 22 due to some amazingly long delays at other stations along the way. We heard rumors that there were people protesting a recent arrest of a political candidate by laying down on the tracks in Patna. That could be one of the many reasons that we were delayed but no one really knows for sure, it could just be the oh-so-reliable Indian Railway system.
The train was a very interesting experience in itself, it set off from Howrah station at midnight and we had 5 out of the 6 beds in our sleeper compartment with no one in the sixth, and two more beds in the same car, in a different compartment. The beds were stacked three high with middle one folding down to make a chair/bench when not sleeping. We were basically alone for the night but as soon as morning hit (about 4 a.m.) I was awoken by a quick grab of the ankle and a man yelling at me asking if I wanted chai. I said no and only then did I notice the three men sitting on my bed and the three others on Emily's. Not talking, not rummaging, just sitting. Slightly surprised, I looked around and realized that they simply didn't have seats, I'm still not sure if they had bought tickets or if they just bought standing tickets but my awakening didn't seem to bother them much, in fact as I sat up from my reclining position it made more room for them to stretch out and invite their friends over. I spent most of Wednesday trying to figure out how long till Varanasi, first answer: 30 minutes, second answer: next stop, third answer: 4 hours. How we ever made it off that train I'm not quite sure. But while we weren't trying to figure out when to get off we were reading or being part of the spectacle that is WESTERNERS IN RURAL INDIA. People climbing over people to look in the barred windows of our cabin from the outside of the train and shouts in Hindi followed by bellowing laughter from everyone around except for us. All in all it was an amazing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything, and if you've seen the Wes Anderson film Darjeeling Express and think that's what an Indian train is like, than you are sorely sorely mistaken.
We arrived in Varanasi at about ten o'clock on Wednesday night, a whole 8 hours after we were supposed to arrive. Needless to say we were all exhausted so we made our way to a hotel and passed out right quick. The next morning after breakfast we went on a walk with a guide from our hotel along the Ganges river to each of the famous ghats (steps down to the water) that line Varanasi's shore. Each one has a different story and serves a different purpose (although all are used for public bathing) the most interesting of these being the burning ghats. Where public cremation ceremonies take place 24 hours a day 365 days a year. In Hindu culture if you die and are burned on the banks of the Ganges river you are able to escape the exhausting cycle of reincarnation and while I don't pretend to completely understand why or how this works, people are passionate about it. So passionate that there is a fire burning in this Ghat that has been burning for the past 3000 years! People from all over Varanasi and the surrounding villages bring the bodies of their loved ones to the shore to be burned in public. It's a beautiful (and yes quite shocking) tradition that proves to me that there is never one 'right' way of doing things. It was amazing how easily people opened up and shared about their culture and while sometimes bits and pieces got lost in translation it was a beautiful time nonetheless.
We made our way down shore a little bit and found ourselves looking at these giant fortress/ palace walls that have deteriorated over the past thousand or so years. Each one has a different story but most were built by wealthy kings of India at the end of their lives so they could die in Varanasi and have their bodies burned at the very same ghat that we just walked through. AMAZING!
We spent the rest of the day getting ourselves lost on the tiny, and I mean tiny (about 5 feet wide at the most!), streets that make up Varanasi's old city. It's amazing that so many people, cows, dogs, and goats can live in such close proximity to each other. If you think New York City is crowded, think again. It was beautiful though, there were monkeys jumping from roof to roof over our heads and hanging from telephone wires, snake charmers that sat on the ground and played a sort of wind instrument to get cobras out of their wicker baskets, and staircases that seemingly went on forever. One of the best parts of the whole trip was that our hotel was the tallest building around and we could see everything from the roof. Truly truly spectacular.
Friday morning we woke up at about 5:30 and hopped on a row boat that took us all the way up and down Varanasi's shore. We got to see the sunrise over the Ganges river, illuminating the faces of devout peoples lining the ghats, stretching out last nights sleep and bathing their sins away in the polluted water. Our boat ride lasted about two hours and was a really really relaxing experience, something that hasn't really happened a whole lot in India. Our boat driver let us all row for a while and every once in a while another boat would pull up next to ours to see if we wanted to buy postcards, bracelets, tiny shiva statues, or other souvenirs as well as the chai boats peddling tiny glasses of chai from their floating shops. It was great.
We left Varanasi on Friday night, again taking the overnight train to Kolkata and we didn't get delayed as much as the last train, only about a four hour delay this time, and for the most part it was uneventful with the exception of Emily and I waking up at 3:30 in the morning and realizing that there were three men sitting in our cabin, one on her bed and two on the empty bed below me, holding very large guns. Now that's not all that uncommon for India, every police officer, security gaurd, or general ruffian hired to stand watch and ward off potential criminals has a fairly large gun strapped to their back, unfortunately for us at 3:30 in the morning it was too dark to tell if any of the men had uniforms or any sort of indication of being military or police officers so we both just laid in bed hoping for the best. After about 20 minutes another "gentleman" carrying a large rifle walked up to them and started barking orders in hindi, they all got up immediately and left and we never saw or heard of them again, thank God!
So Varanasi was amazing and it was great to get some time out of Kolkata, a little vacation of sorts, and even though we were only gone for about three days I think we all realized how hard it's going to be when we do leave to come home for good. I missed my boys at Daya Dan and I missed the regular faces at Kalighat. I missed walking out the gate of Hotel Maria and seeing Abdul, Kurtik, and Keshore. I missed the regular beggars and the man who walks around with the monkeys on a leash. I missed it all and I was only gone for three days. When the girls and I finally piled in the taxi after arriving at Howrah station on Saturday morning we all sighed, looked at each other, and said, "Finally we're home!" Oh boy. This might be rough.
More tomorrow.
Love you all.
Heath.
We took the overnight Himigri express from Howra Station to Varanasi Junction. A train that was supposed to be 14 hours but ended up being closer to 22 due to some amazingly long delays at other stations along the way. We heard rumors that there were people protesting a recent arrest of a political candidate by laying down on the tracks in Patna. That could be one of the many reasons that we were delayed but no one really knows for sure, it could just be the oh-so-reliable Indian Railway system.
The train was a very interesting experience in itself, it set off from Howrah station at midnight and we had 5 out of the 6 beds in our sleeper compartment with no one in the sixth, and two more beds in the same car, in a different compartment. The beds were stacked three high with middle one folding down to make a chair/bench when not sleeping. We were basically alone for the night but as soon as morning hit (about 4 a.m.) I was awoken by a quick grab of the ankle and a man yelling at me asking if I wanted chai. I said no and only then did I notice the three men sitting on my bed and the three others on Emily's. Not talking, not rummaging, just sitting. Slightly surprised, I looked around and realized that they simply didn't have seats, I'm still not sure if they had bought tickets or if they just bought standing tickets but my awakening didn't seem to bother them much, in fact as I sat up from my reclining position it made more room for them to stretch out and invite their friends over. I spent most of Wednesday trying to figure out how long till Varanasi, first answer: 30 minutes, second answer: next stop, third answer: 4 hours. How we ever made it off that train I'm not quite sure. But while we weren't trying to figure out when to get off we were reading or being part of the spectacle that is WESTERNERS IN RURAL INDIA. People climbing over people to look in the barred windows of our cabin from the outside of the train and shouts in Hindi followed by bellowing laughter from everyone around except for us. All in all it was an amazing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything, and if you've seen the Wes Anderson film Darjeeling Express and think that's what an Indian train is like, than you are sorely sorely mistaken.
We arrived in Varanasi at about ten o'clock on Wednesday night, a whole 8 hours after we were supposed to arrive. Needless to say we were all exhausted so we made our way to a hotel and passed out right quick. The next morning after breakfast we went on a walk with a guide from our hotel along the Ganges river to each of the famous ghats (steps down to the water) that line Varanasi's shore. Each one has a different story and serves a different purpose (although all are used for public bathing) the most interesting of these being the burning ghats. Where public cremation ceremonies take place 24 hours a day 365 days a year. In Hindu culture if you die and are burned on the banks of the Ganges river you are able to escape the exhausting cycle of reincarnation and while I don't pretend to completely understand why or how this works, people are passionate about it. So passionate that there is a fire burning in this Ghat that has been burning for the past 3000 years! People from all over Varanasi and the surrounding villages bring the bodies of their loved ones to the shore to be burned in public. It's a beautiful (and yes quite shocking) tradition that proves to me that there is never one 'right' way of doing things. It was amazing how easily people opened up and shared about their culture and while sometimes bits and pieces got lost in translation it was a beautiful time nonetheless.
We made our way down shore a little bit and found ourselves looking at these giant fortress/ palace walls that have deteriorated over the past thousand or so years. Each one has a different story but most were built by wealthy kings of India at the end of their lives so they could die in Varanasi and have their bodies burned at the very same ghat that we just walked through. AMAZING!
We spent the rest of the day getting ourselves lost on the tiny, and I mean tiny (about 5 feet wide at the most!), streets that make up Varanasi's old city. It's amazing that so many people, cows, dogs, and goats can live in such close proximity to each other. If you think New York City is crowded, think again. It was beautiful though, there were monkeys jumping from roof to roof over our heads and hanging from telephone wires, snake charmers that sat on the ground and played a sort of wind instrument to get cobras out of their wicker baskets, and staircases that seemingly went on forever. One of the best parts of the whole trip was that our hotel was the tallest building around and we could see everything from the roof. Truly truly spectacular.
Friday morning we woke up at about 5:30 and hopped on a row boat that took us all the way up and down Varanasi's shore. We got to see the sunrise over the Ganges river, illuminating the faces of devout peoples lining the ghats, stretching out last nights sleep and bathing their sins away in the polluted water. Our boat ride lasted about two hours and was a really really relaxing experience, something that hasn't really happened a whole lot in India. Our boat driver let us all row for a while and every once in a while another boat would pull up next to ours to see if we wanted to buy postcards, bracelets, tiny shiva statues, or other souvenirs as well as the chai boats peddling tiny glasses of chai from their floating shops. It was great.
We left Varanasi on Friday night, again taking the overnight train to Kolkata and we didn't get delayed as much as the last train, only about a four hour delay this time, and for the most part it was uneventful with the exception of Emily and I waking up at 3:30 in the morning and realizing that there were three men sitting in our cabin, one on her bed and two on the empty bed below me, holding very large guns. Now that's not all that uncommon for India, every police officer, security gaurd, or general ruffian hired to stand watch and ward off potential criminals has a fairly large gun strapped to their back, unfortunately for us at 3:30 in the morning it was too dark to tell if any of the men had uniforms or any sort of indication of being military or police officers so we both just laid in bed hoping for the best. After about 20 minutes another "gentleman" carrying a large rifle walked up to them and started barking orders in hindi, they all got up immediately and left and we never saw or heard of them again, thank God!
So Varanasi was amazing and it was great to get some time out of Kolkata, a little vacation of sorts, and even though we were only gone for about three days I think we all realized how hard it's going to be when we do leave to come home for good. I missed my boys at Daya Dan and I missed the regular faces at Kalighat. I missed walking out the gate of Hotel Maria and seeing Abdul, Kurtik, and Keshore. I missed the regular beggars and the man who walks around with the monkeys on a leash. I missed it all and I was only gone for three days. When the girls and I finally piled in the taxi after arriving at Howrah station on Saturday morning we all sighed, looked at each other, and said, "Finally we're home!" Oh boy. This might be rough.
More tomorrow.
Love you all.
Heath.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
But I'm so small I can barely see,
...How can this great love be inside of me?
Well look at your eyes, they're small in size, but they see enormous things...
...But I'm so afraid and I'm set in my ways,
Well He'll make the rabbits and rocks sing His praise...
...But I'm so tired, I won't last long,
Well He'll use the weak to overcome the strong...
...Though all that we eat brings us little relief,
we don't know quite what else to do, we have all our beliefs,
but we don't want our beliefs,
G-d of peace, we want You.
-mewithoutyYou
I've been having a quite a strange string of coincidences all relating directly to St. John of the Cross. Not like reading his name a couple of times coincidences but having multiple extremely difficult/deep/spiritual/whatever-you-want-to-call-it discussions that all end in talking about him then pulling his name out of a hat containing over 200 saints names. There's no doubt in my mind that God is trying to tell me something, the only hard part is figuring out exactly what it is. I can't find any of his books here and all I've really been able to find out about him is what I've found on Wikipedia. If anyone who reads this happens to be an expert on The Dark Night of the Soul, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel or knows anything about St. John of the cross it would be greatly greatly appreciated.
Today was quite an eventful day, to start it off our dear friend from Seattle, Lizzy, left today. She was the one who surprised Michelle, Emily, and I by sitting in our hotel lobby the day we got here without us even knowing that she was in India. We all grew very close to Lizzy while she was here and it was very hard to choke back the tears as we were walking back to our hotel from motherhouse this morning after mass. She is an incredible girl with a heart made of pure gold and with enough laughter to drown a clown. She is simple, easy, lucky, free, and beautiful and I am so so so thankful that I got to spend so much time with her the past two months.
After the tears I went and met with Adrianna to go take photos for a different organization called Calcutta Rescue. This is another amazing opportunity that I think only Kolkata could possibly offer. Calcutta Rescue is a non-profit NGO that was started more than 20 years ago by a doctor, Dr. Jack, traveling through Kolkata. While he was here he started giving free treatments to people living in the slums and on the streets out of the back of an old jeep, he loved it so much that he decided to keep doing it permanently, and now it has grown to have about five medical clinics, a certified fair-trade handicraft workshop, a leprosy clinic, and two schools. A few weeks ago I met Charlotte, the administrator for CR and asked if they needed any photography work done and that I would be here for another month or so and her response was, "Of course! We always need photographers!"
Exciting to say the least.
So Adrianna, the education director of CR, and I headed to School 1 to take photos of their children participating in a drawing/painting contest that is going to be displayed in galleries in England, New York, Switzerland, and even in many European Hard Rock Cafes. We got to the school and for the most part it was all smooth sailing. Very strange for Kolkata. We took photos of about 75 children with their artwork and I took some photos of the classrooms so they can update their website and then we went to the boarding schools where they sponsor tuition for another 40 or so children and did similar.
After we wrapped up at the schools we went to go "take snaps" (as Adrianna likes to say) of the students homes in three different slums. Each of them were just as awful of living conditions as the last. The first row of slums that we went to were alongside the river where extremely steep cement slopes caught me off balance on a number of times and almost sent me and my camera gear tumbling into the Hooghly. There is literally nothing to stop you from falling in the water if you misplace a step walking out of your front door, say you step eight inches instead of the six inches that make up the flat cement walkway you would soon be taking a bath in the muck and myre at the bottom of the thirty foot embankment. The students homes along the embankment can't really be referred to as houses. Homes? Yes. Houses? No. When we arrived it we saw a line of black tarps, clear sheets of plastic, and old vinyl signs seemingly hanging with no support about a mile long. No bricks. No wood. No cement. Thick bamboo poles, ropes, and twine were the only thing holding the plastic tents up and together. People were everywhere and we couldn't make out where one structure ended and the next began. Small holes served as doors and cardboard or rice straw served as carpet over bare ground, although some were lucky enough to have cement poured half-hazardly on the floor of their shack, none of which were larger than 7 feet long or wide. We talked to the parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles of the students who welcomed us into their homes which were shared by the entire family with open arms. I was lucky enough for them to let me take pictures with them and their patience and excitement was almost as overwhelming as the sight of eight people crammed under a four foot tall tarp.
The second slum we visited was near by, where the railway into Kolkata runs alongside the river separated by a road and a row of shops selling everything from snacks to flowers to Hindu prayer beads. We made our way through a small pathway between two shops and found ourselves in a different world. Along both sides of the railway track were the familiar structures found in the last slum. A mix of tarps and vinyl signs suspended by bamboo poles and tied together with small bits of string and rope. Some families had split bamboo roofs or bits of wood planks for walls and even more some had small brick "fences", about two or three high to keep out the water during monsoon season. Another warm welcome and exchange of smiles, bows, and the Hindu tradition of respect of touching ones feet then your own head and I felt like I was at home the people of the slum laughed and joked with us while our translators helped us from feeling like we were invading too much personal space, although to be honest I still can't help but feel more than a little invasive about the whole ordeal even though we were assured we weren't. The homes at the second slum bordered the railroad tracks by about three feet on either side. And I thought out-loud, "Surely trains don't still run on these tracks do they?"
"Of course they do! Why wouldn't they?"
It wasn't really the response I was expecting, in fact my question had been quite hypothetical before the answer. Children as young as two or three were walking, running, playing, shouting, and dancing on the tracks and men were pushing old rusty bicycles right down the center of the track to avoid running over a neighbors rope holding their roof in place.
Then the unimaginable happened. First a low rumble, then the ground shook, everyone, even the children, calmly stepped off the tracks and between huts to let the passing steed of steel and grinding gears pass. As it did it blew the tarps and rope with hurricane strength gusts which I could have sworn would have ripped the roofs right off the old huts. But they held up and as the train went past people went back to doing what they had been as if nothing happened. Girls strung flowers together in garlands and boys threw rocks down the track. Men tended to the stove or mixed cement with straw to patch a part of their fence while women carried water or hemmed the ends of their sari's. We chatted a little longer with the women of the tracks then made our way to the days last destination.
The third and final slum that we went to was near the Howrah Bridge and just down the road from the world famous Kolkata flower market, which Emily and I visited in the beginning of October. We walked past this vast stretch of tarps and twine and I had absolutely no idea it could serve as a home, let alone to so many people. These structures again were similar to the last ones with the exception that they were built along a tall cement wall on a sidewalk and spilled out into the tiny street, which for Kolkata had a surprisingly small amount of traffic. Goods carriages, three-wheeled delivery vans, rickshaws, and bicycle carts packed the side of the road and the spaces where you could see in between vehicles men and women stood or sat and mingled while naked children, wearing nothing but a chord and stone around their tiny waist, clung tightly to the edge of their longhi or sari. Another warm welcome and we walked from home to home and where we were greeted similarly with handshakes, hugs, smiles, and "Namaste"s. Two women invited me into their home to have a look and as I ducked through the door and turned to the right I couldn't see anything but their beaming eyes so proud of their home, not only because I couldn't take my eyes off of them but because the three of us took up the entire room. I couldn't see around them to make out what the back wall looked like but I knew the second woman had her back to it the same way I had mine against the wall facing hers, both of our shoulders touched the two side walls and I had to hunch over in fear of doing irreversible damage to their roof. I looked around and saw two pots, a serving spoon, a calendar, some scrap wood, and a doll with half a head of hair and made the assumption (again just an assumption but I'd say it's pretty accurate) that these were their family's only possessions.
As I walked out a little boy grabbed my hand and led me to an upturned cart with an axle once holding two bicycle wheels that at one point had been attached to the back of a bicycle cart known as a van. He showed me his "room" with pride. He pointed to the bits of scrap paper adorning the walls and my heart couldn't help but break a little more than it's stretching point. He was beautiful with dirty black hair, a light Indian complexion, dark brown eyes, and a smile that wouldn't stop.
Another couple that we met here were the grandparents of one of the students CR sponsors who is living and studying in a boarding school about a forty-minute walk from the slum. Both were very old and very sick but still made it out of their home to greet us and welcome us with pride. The boy was orphaned when he was very young and the grandparents, who are both too old to work (but still manage to make it, God knows how), raise him and love him as their own. They didn't have any pictures of him but I had met him earlier in the day and he was a quiet little ball of joy that was as anxious to have his picture taken as any child would be standing in line at Disneyland.
There's a saying that's been pounding in my head all day, "Let's make this house a home." or something along those lines. In an area where houses are all but non-existent I found the true definition of home, about a thousand of them. It's hard to explain but I feel as though these people have such a richer, truer sense of community and family than I would ever be able to experience anywhere else and I was only with them for a few hours. These people need each other and rely on their neighbors and the other people who no one else will care about to care for each other and that is a beautiful thing. If there is only one, then that is the only beautiful thing.
I would think that seeing these slums would make me miserably depressed, disgusted, sad, angry, or at least give me some sort of negative feeling, but in fact it's done the opposite. I had one of the best days of my entire life because I swear to you I saw Jesus today. I saw God in every one of those people that I met and in the communities that I so briefly visited. I'm not naive enough to think I know or could even imagine how these people live their day to day lives or that I know the true struggles that they go through but I do know from what I saw that it's a completely different level of poverty and suffering than I have ever seen in any magazine or news story but each blow is seemingly met with a smile even as every day must be a struggle to survive (again an assumption, but how could it not be?). I don't know if any of them were "christians" or not, I don't think many of them were being that this is primarily a Hindu city, but I do know that these people know God. The one true God of love and peace, the one that resides in everything in all of creation, from the yellow leaves falling in Autumn on the west coast to the pink clouds that come with the setting sun to the lines in the Indian dirt. I felt him stronger in the handshakes that I received today than I ever have and I know that he lives inside these people.
Again, I'm not trying to tell anyone to think like me, I don't think I have it figured out. Today I was again surprised at how much I changed from the time I woke up to the time I'm writing this. I don't want to offend, convert, upset, or brainwash anyone who reads this. I just want to let you know about the amazing day I had and hopefully get your brain ticking a little bit. About what? I don't even know. Please please please if you read this and want to ask me anything about it or correct me or tell me off do it. I want to learn from whoever is reading this as much as I learned from the people I met today. These are only my thoughts and impressions and I'm not trying to claim any sort of truth. I'm just trying to find it.
I love you.
-Heath
Well look at your eyes, they're small in size, but they see enormous things...
...But I'm so afraid and I'm set in my ways,
Well He'll make the rabbits and rocks sing His praise...
...But I'm so tired, I won't last long,
Well He'll use the weak to overcome the strong...
...Though all that we eat brings us little relief,
we don't know quite what else to do, we have all our beliefs,
but we don't want our beliefs,
G-d of peace, we want You.
-mewithoutyYou
I've been having a quite a strange string of coincidences all relating directly to St. John of the Cross. Not like reading his name a couple of times coincidences but having multiple extremely difficult/deep/spiritual/whatever-you-want-to-call-it discussions that all end in talking about him then pulling his name out of a hat containing over 200 saints names. There's no doubt in my mind that God is trying to tell me something, the only hard part is figuring out exactly what it is. I can't find any of his books here and all I've really been able to find out about him is what I've found on Wikipedia. If anyone who reads this happens to be an expert on The Dark Night of the Soul, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel or knows anything about St. John of the cross it would be greatly greatly appreciated.
Today was quite an eventful day, to start it off our dear friend from Seattle, Lizzy, left today. She was the one who surprised Michelle, Emily, and I by sitting in our hotel lobby the day we got here without us even knowing that she was in India. We all grew very close to Lizzy while she was here and it was very hard to choke back the tears as we were walking back to our hotel from motherhouse this morning after mass. She is an incredible girl with a heart made of pure gold and with enough laughter to drown a clown. She is simple, easy, lucky, free, and beautiful and I am so so so thankful that I got to spend so much time with her the past two months.
After the tears I went and met with Adrianna to go take photos for a different organization called Calcutta Rescue. This is another amazing opportunity that I think only Kolkata could possibly offer. Calcutta Rescue is a non-profit NGO that was started more than 20 years ago by a doctor, Dr. Jack, traveling through Kolkata. While he was here he started giving free treatments to people living in the slums and on the streets out of the back of an old jeep, he loved it so much that he decided to keep doing it permanently, and now it has grown to have about five medical clinics, a certified fair-trade handicraft workshop, a leprosy clinic, and two schools. A few weeks ago I met Charlotte, the administrator for CR and asked if they needed any photography work done and that I would be here for another month or so and her response was, "Of course! We always need photographers!"
Exciting to say the least.
So Adrianna, the education director of CR, and I headed to School 1 to take photos of their children participating in a drawing/painting contest that is going to be displayed in galleries in England, New York, Switzerland, and even in many European Hard Rock Cafes. We got to the school and for the most part it was all smooth sailing. Very strange for Kolkata. We took photos of about 75 children with their artwork and I took some photos of the classrooms so they can update their website and then we went to the boarding schools where they sponsor tuition for another 40 or so children and did similar.
After we wrapped up at the schools we went to go "take snaps" (as Adrianna likes to say) of the students homes in three different slums. Each of them were just as awful of living conditions as the last. The first row of slums that we went to were alongside the river where extremely steep cement slopes caught me off balance on a number of times and almost sent me and my camera gear tumbling into the Hooghly. There is literally nothing to stop you from falling in the water if you misplace a step walking out of your front door, say you step eight inches instead of the six inches that make up the flat cement walkway you would soon be taking a bath in the muck and myre at the bottom of the thirty foot embankment. The students homes along the embankment can't really be referred to as houses. Homes? Yes. Houses? No. When we arrived it we saw a line of black tarps, clear sheets of plastic, and old vinyl signs seemingly hanging with no support about a mile long. No bricks. No wood. No cement. Thick bamboo poles, ropes, and twine were the only thing holding the plastic tents up and together. People were everywhere and we couldn't make out where one structure ended and the next began. Small holes served as doors and cardboard or rice straw served as carpet over bare ground, although some were lucky enough to have cement poured half-hazardly on the floor of their shack, none of which were larger than 7 feet long or wide. We talked to the parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles of the students who welcomed us into their homes which were shared by the entire family with open arms. I was lucky enough for them to let me take pictures with them and their patience and excitement was almost as overwhelming as the sight of eight people crammed under a four foot tall tarp.
The second slum we visited was near by, where the railway into Kolkata runs alongside the river separated by a road and a row of shops selling everything from snacks to flowers to Hindu prayer beads. We made our way through a small pathway between two shops and found ourselves in a different world. Along both sides of the railway track were the familiar structures found in the last slum. A mix of tarps and vinyl signs suspended by bamboo poles and tied together with small bits of string and rope. Some families had split bamboo roofs or bits of wood planks for walls and even more some had small brick "fences", about two or three high to keep out the water during monsoon season. Another warm welcome and exchange of smiles, bows, and the Hindu tradition of respect of touching ones feet then your own head and I felt like I was at home the people of the slum laughed and joked with us while our translators helped us from feeling like we were invading too much personal space, although to be honest I still can't help but feel more than a little invasive about the whole ordeal even though we were assured we weren't. The homes at the second slum bordered the railroad tracks by about three feet on either side. And I thought out-loud, "Surely trains don't still run on these tracks do they?"
"Of course they do! Why wouldn't they?"
It wasn't really the response I was expecting, in fact my question had been quite hypothetical before the answer. Children as young as two or three were walking, running, playing, shouting, and dancing on the tracks and men were pushing old rusty bicycles right down the center of the track to avoid running over a neighbors rope holding their roof in place.
Then the unimaginable happened. First a low rumble, then the ground shook, everyone, even the children, calmly stepped off the tracks and between huts to let the passing steed of steel and grinding gears pass. As it did it blew the tarps and rope with hurricane strength gusts which I could have sworn would have ripped the roofs right off the old huts. But they held up and as the train went past people went back to doing what they had been as if nothing happened. Girls strung flowers together in garlands and boys threw rocks down the track. Men tended to the stove or mixed cement with straw to patch a part of their fence while women carried water or hemmed the ends of their sari's. We chatted a little longer with the women of the tracks then made our way to the days last destination.
The third and final slum that we went to was near the Howrah Bridge and just down the road from the world famous Kolkata flower market, which Emily and I visited in the beginning of October. We walked past this vast stretch of tarps and twine and I had absolutely no idea it could serve as a home, let alone to so many people. These structures again were similar to the last ones with the exception that they were built along a tall cement wall on a sidewalk and spilled out into the tiny street, which for Kolkata had a surprisingly small amount of traffic. Goods carriages, three-wheeled delivery vans, rickshaws, and bicycle carts packed the side of the road and the spaces where you could see in between vehicles men and women stood or sat and mingled while naked children, wearing nothing but a chord and stone around their tiny waist, clung tightly to the edge of their longhi or sari. Another warm welcome and we walked from home to home and where we were greeted similarly with handshakes, hugs, smiles, and "Namaste"s. Two women invited me into their home to have a look and as I ducked through the door and turned to the right I couldn't see anything but their beaming eyes so proud of their home, not only because I couldn't take my eyes off of them but because the three of us took up the entire room. I couldn't see around them to make out what the back wall looked like but I knew the second woman had her back to it the same way I had mine against the wall facing hers, both of our shoulders touched the two side walls and I had to hunch over in fear of doing irreversible damage to their roof. I looked around and saw two pots, a serving spoon, a calendar, some scrap wood, and a doll with half a head of hair and made the assumption (again just an assumption but I'd say it's pretty accurate) that these were their family's only possessions.
As I walked out a little boy grabbed my hand and led me to an upturned cart with an axle once holding two bicycle wheels that at one point had been attached to the back of a bicycle cart known as a van. He showed me his "room" with pride. He pointed to the bits of scrap paper adorning the walls and my heart couldn't help but break a little more than it's stretching point. He was beautiful with dirty black hair, a light Indian complexion, dark brown eyes, and a smile that wouldn't stop.
Another couple that we met here were the grandparents of one of the students CR sponsors who is living and studying in a boarding school about a forty-minute walk from the slum. Both were very old and very sick but still made it out of their home to greet us and welcome us with pride. The boy was orphaned when he was very young and the grandparents, who are both too old to work (but still manage to make it, God knows how), raise him and love him as their own. They didn't have any pictures of him but I had met him earlier in the day and he was a quiet little ball of joy that was as anxious to have his picture taken as any child would be standing in line at Disneyland.
There's a saying that's been pounding in my head all day, "Let's make this house a home." or something along those lines. In an area where houses are all but non-existent I found the true definition of home, about a thousand of them. It's hard to explain but I feel as though these people have such a richer, truer sense of community and family than I would ever be able to experience anywhere else and I was only with them for a few hours. These people need each other and rely on their neighbors and the other people who no one else will care about to care for each other and that is a beautiful thing. If there is only one, then that is the only beautiful thing.
I would think that seeing these slums would make me miserably depressed, disgusted, sad, angry, or at least give me some sort of negative feeling, but in fact it's done the opposite. I had one of the best days of my entire life because I swear to you I saw Jesus today. I saw God in every one of those people that I met and in the communities that I so briefly visited. I'm not naive enough to think I know or could even imagine how these people live their day to day lives or that I know the true struggles that they go through but I do know from what I saw that it's a completely different level of poverty and suffering than I have ever seen in any magazine or news story but each blow is seemingly met with a smile even as every day must be a struggle to survive (again an assumption, but how could it not be?). I don't know if any of them were "christians" or not, I don't think many of them were being that this is primarily a Hindu city, but I do know that these people know God. The one true God of love and peace, the one that resides in everything in all of creation, from the yellow leaves falling in Autumn on the west coast to the pink clouds that come with the setting sun to the lines in the Indian dirt. I felt him stronger in the handshakes that I received today than I ever have and I know that he lives inside these people.
Again, I'm not trying to tell anyone to think like me, I don't think I have it figured out. Today I was again surprised at how much I changed from the time I woke up to the time I'm writing this. I don't want to offend, convert, upset, or brainwash anyone who reads this. I just want to let you know about the amazing day I had and hopefully get your brain ticking a little bit. About what? I don't even know. Please please please if you read this and want to ask me anything about it or correct me or tell me off do it. I want to learn from whoever is reading this as much as I learned from the people I met today. These are only my thoughts and impressions and I'm not trying to claim any sort of truth. I'm just trying to find it.
I love you.
-Heath
Sunday, November 1, 2009
In your hurt, you heal others.
When you're in need you give.
Because of you, I am living.
The most that I can live.
Remember me, don't forget me.
I have something true.
My path is dark, my steps uncertain.
Unless I walk with you.
-Ben Kweller
Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen to everyone in the country that knows how to scare the crap out of little children! I had another one of those, "Oh My GOOOOD! Best Day Ever!!!!!"'s yesterday.
In a country that knows how to throw a celebration, (I.E. Diwali constant puja's and everything else that the 'poorest of the poor' are constantly celebrating) we figured we'd have no problem finding a suitable, atleast mediocre, Halloween Party, the first real American holiday to pass since we've been in India. Who would have known how wrong we were? We stumbled upon/ were invited to the most amazing Halloween Party that Kolkata has ever seen, probably not that hard of a statistic to prove but I'll save that for another time.
One of the people that I have grown very close to since being in India is my fellow volunteer Ashley. Ashley's been here a little bit longer than the girls and I have and works at Kalighat with me in the mornings. Every day me and Ashley are on the roof of Nirmal Hriday laying out soaked pairs of green cotton pants, mismatched dresses, faded red shirts, and an assortment of blankets, towels, and rags (all made from fabric made at Titigahr, Momma T's home for the lepers of Kolkata). Ashley is here as part of a service learning program at school where she does service work in the morning and Bengali language classes in the afternoon. About the second or third day of October I was approached by Ashley and asked if I would come to a Halloween Party if she were to set one up with her host family. I said I would be much obliged and would then proceed to invite every volunteer that I could get my grubby little party hands on. Now keep in mind this was about a week and a half after we arrived in Kolkata and Halloween seemed like ages away, still the prospect of something truly American like Halloween was more than appealing.
The days past and ideas for venues came and went until earlier this week when Ashley announced that she had found the perfect venue for our shindig at a family friend of her host family. She went to check out their house and said that the roof would be perfect and that they had a pretty big house so we could crash over in case the buses and metros were closed by the time the party was dying down, which they were.
Finally like a brush of cool autumn air (Which I miss eternally) All Hollow's eve was upon us and it started better than most days because when I got to breakfast at Mother house there was a nice little box waiting for me with United States Postal Service stickers pasted all over. I've been patiently waiting in anticipation for this box of goodies since my mom told me she sent it way back in September. Filled with candy, chips, CANDY CORN (to the amazement of our French Amis they do not contain any corn besides of course high fructose corn syrup), and the new Dan Brown book that my mom had recently told me had come out (Sorry mom, but I already read it a few weeks ago and probably paid a lot less for it, but it shows that you know me so well!).
We ventured off to the party at about 8 o'clock and when we got there we really couldn't believe what we were seeing. We walked in the front gate, gaurded by an elderly security gaurd who didn't seem to be as surprised at our outfits as everyone on the subway had (I mean, what on earth are a bunch of white kids doing dressed up as a cat, an indian man, a soccer ball, and an array of brightly colored 10 cent masks?). We made our way up the wide marble staircase that greeted us in the entry of the house and were all convinced that no amount of decoration could have made this giant labyrinth of a house any creepier. Sure that we had walked into the wrong house we finally found a trail of orange and black streamers leading us up a second, even more frightening staircase where we finally found our way to the roof.
The roof was three times the size of the roof of our hotel, where we are used to having these sorts of get-togethers and decorated with at least three dozen hand-painted skeletons, pumpkins, and numerous other Halloween themed paraphernalia that had been meticulously painted by an artist hired by our party hosts all day and during the evening to paint on Halloween themed temporary tattoos. The regular party shindigs applied with the exception of the generosity of this family constantly bringing Mishtis (Bengali sweets that are world famous and sweeter than sugar) and refreshments around via the hired help for the night. What a strange way to usher in one of our favorite holidays! Being waited on hand and foot for an evening in Kolkata! I do have to say that the contrast between doing laundry on the roof of Kalighat that morning and being served sweets on the roof of a mansion the very same evening was quite stark to say the least, but we made the most of it because who knows when something like this will happen again? Oh yeah I do know, NEVER! We let the party dwindle into the wee hours of the morning, again strange in a city where a late night for me is 10:30, and were told that if we found an open bed in the house to take it, and let me say there was no shortage of open beds in the house every door that was opened seemed to lead to another hallway stretching in an opposite direction.
I decided to take this morning off of work to do something that I've been wanting to do for the past couple of weeks, walk from where we were (very close to Kalighat) back to where we stay on Sudder St., mostly to get a different perspective than the one of the back of the bus driver's head that I am so used to by now. I don't really know how far the walk was in km (and definitely not in miles!) but it took be about two hours of walking at a brisk pace. I got to see the city of joy in a new light. Removed from the tourist section of town, and the rickshaw wallah's, hash dealers, taxi drivers, and vendors selling every useless thing under the sun, it was a beautiful walk. I heard constant, "Good Mornings", "Hellos", and salutations of all sorts. I stopped briefly and talked to every cheery shopkeeper, chai slinger, and child of the street that would have a short conversation and it opened my eyes even wider than they have been. I was amazed that this city could still throw me some wicked curveballs in the form of some of the friendliest people I had ever met. All pleased with giving this passerby a simple head-nod or whisper of "Namaste" instead of trying to take my soul out via my cotton wallet, which was empty at this point anyways. Leading me to another interesting tid-bit about my morning, forgetting to buy a bottle of mineral water before leaving on a two-hour walk was one of the dumbest brainfarts that I've had recently.
Deciding between Dehydration and an afternoon spent getting rid of traveller's diarrhea is one of the toughest decisions that I've made since being in Kolkata. I made my way to the line for the handpump well and pumped while two women dressed in colorful sari's filled water bottles for their journey. When it came my turn a little boy without shoes or a shirt ran over and started pumping with all his might while I splashed water on my face and cupped my hands for my first sip of water from the Hooghly. Refreshing, but doubtful that it carries the mystic and holy powers that the people of this city believe it has, mostly because I've spent the rest of my afternoon alternating between laying in bed and making trips to the bathroom. Oh well, I have nothing that could possibly cause me to complain at this current moment, because frankly, I'm living the good life. I have friends and a family (consisting of roughly 250 sisters and one father) in this 'wretched' city and am making more and more everyday.
I'm sorry for the novel that I just posted but I hope that if you've made it all the way through it that you have at least let a smile slide across your lips.
I love you all.
Because of you, I am living.
The most that I can live.
Remember me, don't forget me.
I have something true.
My path is dark, my steps uncertain.
Unless I walk with you.
-Ben Kweller
Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen to everyone in the country that knows how to scare the crap out of little children! I had another one of those, "Oh My GOOOOD! Best Day Ever!!!!!"'s yesterday.
In a country that knows how to throw a celebration, (I.E. Diwali constant puja's and everything else that the 'poorest of the poor' are constantly celebrating) we figured we'd have no problem finding a suitable, atleast mediocre, Halloween Party, the first real American holiday to pass since we've been in India. Who would have known how wrong we were? We stumbled upon/ were invited to the most amazing Halloween Party that Kolkata has ever seen, probably not that hard of a statistic to prove but I'll save that for another time.
One of the people that I have grown very close to since being in India is my fellow volunteer Ashley. Ashley's been here a little bit longer than the girls and I have and works at Kalighat with me in the mornings. Every day me and Ashley are on the roof of Nirmal Hriday laying out soaked pairs of green cotton pants, mismatched dresses, faded red shirts, and an assortment of blankets, towels, and rags (all made from fabric made at Titigahr, Momma T's home for the lepers of Kolkata). Ashley is here as part of a service learning program at school where she does service work in the morning and Bengali language classes in the afternoon. About the second or third day of October I was approached by Ashley and asked if I would come to a Halloween Party if she were to set one up with her host family. I said I would be much obliged and would then proceed to invite every volunteer that I could get my grubby little party hands on. Now keep in mind this was about a week and a half after we arrived in Kolkata and Halloween seemed like ages away, still the prospect of something truly American like Halloween was more than appealing.
The days past and ideas for venues came and went until earlier this week when Ashley announced that she had found the perfect venue for our shindig at a family friend of her host family. She went to check out their house and said that the roof would be perfect and that they had a pretty big house so we could crash over in case the buses and metros were closed by the time the party was dying down, which they were.
Finally like a brush of cool autumn air (Which I miss eternally) All Hollow's eve was upon us and it started better than most days because when I got to breakfast at Mother house there was a nice little box waiting for me with United States Postal Service stickers pasted all over. I've been patiently waiting in anticipation for this box of goodies since my mom told me she sent it way back in September. Filled with candy, chips, CANDY CORN (to the amazement of our French Amis they do not contain any corn besides of course high fructose corn syrup), and the new Dan Brown book that my mom had recently told me had come out (Sorry mom, but I already read it a few weeks ago and probably paid a lot less for it, but it shows that you know me so well!).
We ventured off to the party at about 8 o'clock and when we got there we really couldn't believe what we were seeing. We walked in the front gate, gaurded by an elderly security gaurd who didn't seem to be as surprised at our outfits as everyone on the subway had (I mean, what on earth are a bunch of white kids doing dressed up as a cat, an indian man, a soccer ball, and an array of brightly colored 10 cent masks?). We made our way up the wide marble staircase that greeted us in the entry of the house and were all convinced that no amount of decoration could have made this giant labyrinth of a house any creepier. Sure that we had walked into the wrong house we finally found a trail of orange and black streamers leading us up a second, even more frightening staircase where we finally found our way to the roof.
The roof was three times the size of the roof of our hotel, where we are used to having these sorts of get-togethers and decorated with at least three dozen hand-painted skeletons, pumpkins, and numerous other Halloween themed paraphernalia that had been meticulously painted by an artist hired by our party hosts all day and during the evening to paint on Halloween themed temporary tattoos. The regular party shindigs applied with the exception of the generosity of this family constantly bringing Mishtis (Bengali sweets that are world famous and sweeter than sugar) and refreshments around via the hired help for the night. What a strange way to usher in one of our favorite holidays! Being waited on hand and foot for an evening in Kolkata! I do have to say that the contrast between doing laundry on the roof of Kalighat that morning and being served sweets on the roof of a mansion the very same evening was quite stark to say the least, but we made the most of it because who knows when something like this will happen again? Oh yeah I do know, NEVER! We let the party dwindle into the wee hours of the morning, again strange in a city where a late night for me is 10:30, and were told that if we found an open bed in the house to take it, and let me say there was no shortage of open beds in the house every door that was opened seemed to lead to another hallway stretching in an opposite direction.
I decided to take this morning off of work to do something that I've been wanting to do for the past couple of weeks, walk from where we were (very close to Kalighat) back to where we stay on Sudder St., mostly to get a different perspective than the one of the back of the bus driver's head that I am so used to by now. I don't really know how far the walk was in km (and definitely not in miles!) but it took be about two hours of walking at a brisk pace. I got to see the city of joy in a new light. Removed from the tourist section of town, and the rickshaw wallah's, hash dealers, taxi drivers, and vendors selling every useless thing under the sun, it was a beautiful walk. I heard constant, "Good Mornings", "Hellos", and salutations of all sorts. I stopped briefly and talked to every cheery shopkeeper, chai slinger, and child of the street that would have a short conversation and it opened my eyes even wider than they have been. I was amazed that this city could still throw me some wicked curveballs in the form of some of the friendliest people I had ever met. All pleased with giving this passerby a simple head-nod or whisper of "Namaste" instead of trying to take my soul out via my cotton wallet, which was empty at this point anyways. Leading me to another interesting tid-bit about my morning, forgetting to buy a bottle of mineral water before leaving on a two-hour walk was one of the dumbest brainfarts that I've had recently.
Deciding between Dehydration and an afternoon spent getting rid of traveller's diarrhea is one of the toughest decisions that I've made since being in Kolkata. I made my way to the line for the handpump well and pumped while two women dressed in colorful sari's filled water bottles for their journey. When it came my turn a little boy without shoes or a shirt ran over and started pumping with all his might while I splashed water on my face and cupped my hands for my first sip of water from the Hooghly. Refreshing, but doubtful that it carries the mystic and holy powers that the people of this city believe it has, mostly because I've spent the rest of my afternoon alternating between laying in bed and making trips to the bathroom. Oh well, I have nothing that could possibly cause me to complain at this current moment, because frankly, I'm living the good life. I have friends and a family (consisting of roughly 250 sisters and one father) in this 'wretched' city and am making more and more everyday.
I'm sorry for the novel that I just posted but I hope that if you've made it all the way through it that you have at least let a smile slide across your lips.
I love you all.
Monday, October 26, 2009
If they ask me what i need,
I'll say a capo, some lemonade, and a dollar-fifty.
If they ask me what I want, I'll be left speachless because I'm still unsure.
It seems like Diwali was a million years ago and so much has happened since then. Last thursday, on our day off, a group of about nine of us took a taxi out to Dhapa a part of Kolkata on the fringes of the city. We went looking for something that the locals could not understand why we would possibly want to see; The trash dumps.
The trash dumps of Kolkata were something like I've never seen before. Literally the only hills around the relatively flat city, compared to Yakima or Seattle, are man-made mountains of trash that stretch for miles and miles. We got to the entrance and were stopped by the manager of the mountains saying that we needed to obtain permission from their offices in Kolkata before we could enter.
Now many people might ask, "You saw it didn't you? Why on earth would you want to go in?"
Answer: To visit and meet with the thousands of people who live there.
We had a discussion with this man that included calling the main office about four times and getting permission and then handing the phone over and him telling us we still couldn't go in. Frustrating to say the least but we did get the chance to get stared at by many of the people who work at the dump and to have our taxi drivers laugh at us the entire way there.
So we didn't get to go in but we decided to take a walk around the fields surrounding the dump where people were harvesting and growing all kinds of different vegetables that I can't pronounce. We walked around getting lost on some backroads for a couple hours talking with a few of the workers, but mostly just enjoying getting out of the city for the first time in a month and a half (WOW A MONTH AND A HALF CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!?!). It wasn't too hard to find our way back because all we had to do was follow our noses, and look for the biggest man-made structure in Kolkata, but we ended up walking a little further than any of us were bargaining for and took the first ride offered to us by a flat-bed truck.
These trucks, known as goods carriages, are a very normal site and we see many of them every day hauling everything from trash to bamboo poles to corpses to people and statues of Hindu gods. Secretly I think we have all always been envious of the people who get to ride in the back of these trucks and we finally got our chance that day! Our driver was a middle aged Indian man with three other people in the cab of the truck and three more in the back. They pulled up next to us and asked if we wanted a ride back to the main road and the nine of us piled into the spacious bed lined with trash and spare tires. We sped off down the dirt roads going ungodly speeds of speed bumps and being chased by children. It felt like the equivalent of being in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (which sadly I will be missing this year).
We hopped off the truck back at the main road, a little closer to the city, thanked our new friends and decided it was time for another adventure. We had heard that Salt Lake had an area where you can rent paddle-boats and knew that it was fairly close by so all nine of us piled into one cab and made our way to Nicco Park.
Nicco Park is a small theme park straight from the bowels of hell. It is every child's nightmare complete with creepy clowns in glass cages and eery voices flooding the park from loud speakers saying things along the lines of, "Weeeelcome to Niiico Paaaaaark. I aaaam your beeeeeest friiiiiend."
Us being the mature group of young adults that we are decided to brave the apparent danger in search of these elusive paddle-boats. The park was almost empty seeing as it was just about to get dark and we had a run of the rides to ourselves, save the families being dragged around by their children for just one more ride. We found the paddle-boats and to our disappointment they were not on Salt Lake but rather on a tiny man-made lake in the center of the small park. We got in and paddled around the water for about an hour or so talking to other Yachtsmen and getting the usual questions of "What country?", "How long India?", and of course "Why big hole in ears?" We had a lot of fun and decided it was getting to dark to try and brave the rest of the park but made for one more ride, a tiny rollercoaster that drops into an even smaller pool of water. Imagine Disneyland's splash mountain for ants. It was still fun and now we can all say that we've been to the creepiest theme park in the world. We caught a cab to Sudder St. and grabbed some dinner before calling it a night.
On a different note, yesterday was a very sad day as Emily, Michelle, Lizzy, and I had to say goodbye to one of our best friends that we've made in Kolkata. Matt worked at Kalighat with Michelle and I and we all clicked instantly. Our senses of humor were right on par and whenever we would lay out laundry to dry on the roof me and Matt would sing awful mainstream rap songs to pass the time and the heat. I can easily say that he has become one of my best friends and there is an even bigger hole in my heart without him here. His personality and light-heartedness was the perfect contrast to the heavy-hearted work that we do daily. A big group of us got together for dinner on Saturday night to see him off then we all headed to the roof of the Hotel Maria for a little goodbye party. It started out with about 10 of us hanging out eating cake and exchanging memories and turned into about 35 people playing guitar, singing songs, laughing, and crying. It's amazing how fast joy is contagious in this city. People from all over the world, France, U.S., Portugal, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Scotland, and other countries just enjoying each other's company. Some people knew Matt, some didn't. Some were volunteers, some were just travelling. Some were here for six months, some just for the night. But it was truly spectacular to see everyone together like that. I really can't do it justice with words.
Okay, enough of this, I'm going to go grab some lunch then go play with the rugrats at Daya Dan.
Namaste,
Heath
If they ask me what I want, I'll be left speachless because I'm still unsure.
It seems like Diwali was a million years ago and so much has happened since then. Last thursday, on our day off, a group of about nine of us took a taxi out to Dhapa a part of Kolkata on the fringes of the city. We went looking for something that the locals could not understand why we would possibly want to see; The trash dumps.
The trash dumps of Kolkata were something like I've never seen before. Literally the only hills around the relatively flat city, compared to Yakima or Seattle, are man-made mountains of trash that stretch for miles and miles. We got to the entrance and were stopped by the manager of the mountains saying that we needed to obtain permission from their offices in Kolkata before we could enter.
Now many people might ask, "You saw it didn't you? Why on earth would you want to go in?"
Answer: To visit and meet with the thousands of people who live there.
We had a discussion with this man that included calling the main office about four times and getting permission and then handing the phone over and him telling us we still couldn't go in. Frustrating to say the least but we did get the chance to get stared at by many of the people who work at the dump and to have our taxi drivers laugh at us the entire way there.
So we didn't get to go in but we decided to take a walk around the fields surrounding the dump where people were harvesting and growing all kinds of different vegetables that I can't pronounce. We walked around getting lost on some backroads for a couple hours talking with a few of the workers, but mostly just enjoying getting out of the city for the first time in a month and a half (WOW A MONTH AND A HALF CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!?!). It wasn't too hard to find our way back because all we had to do was follow our noses, and look for the biggest man-made structure in Kolkata, but we ended up walking a little further than any of us were bargaining for and took the first ride offered to us by a flat-bed truck.
These trucks, known as goods carriages, are a very normal site and we see many of them every day hauling everything from trash to bamboo poles to corpses to people and statues of Hindu gods. Secretly I think we have all always been envious of the people who get to ride in the back of these trucks and we finally got our chance that day! Our driver was a middle aged Indian man with three other people in the cab of the truck and three more in the back. They pulled up next to us and asked if we wanted a ride back to the main road and the nine of us piled into the spacious bed lined with trash and spare tires. We sped off down the dirt roads going ungodly speeds of speed bumps and being chased by children. It felt like the equivalent of being in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (which sadly I will be missing this year).
We hopped off the truck back at the main road, a little closer to the city, thanked our new friends and decided it was time for another adventure. We had heard that Salt Lake had an area where you can rent paddle-boats and knew that it was fairly close by so all nine of us piled into one cab and made our way to Nicco Park.
Nicco Park is a small theme park straight from the bowels of hell. It is every child's nightmare complete with creepy clowns in glass cages and eery voices flooding the park from loud speakers saying things along the lines of, "Weeeelcome to Niiico Paaaaaark. I aaaam your beeeeeest friiiiiend."
Us being the mature group of young adults that we are decided to brave the apparent danger in search of these elusive paddle-boats. The park was almost empty seeing as it was just about to get dark and we had a run of the rides to ourselves, save the families being dragged around by their children for just one more ride. We found the paddle-boats and to our disappointment they were not on Salt Lake but rather on a tiny man-made lake in the center of the small park. We got in and paddled around the water for about an hour or so talking to other Yachtsmen and getting the usual questions of "What country?", "How long India?", and of course "Why big hole in ears?" We had a lot of fun and decided it was getting to dark to try and brave the rest of the park but made for one more ride, a tiny rollercoaster that drops into an even smaller pool of water. Imagine Disneyland's splash mountain for ants. It was still fun and now we can all say that we've been to the creepiest theme park in the world. We caught a cab to Sudder St. and grabbed some dinner before calling it a night.
On a different note, yesterday was a very sad day as Emily, Michelle, Lizzy, and I had to say goodbye to one of our best friends that we've made in Kolkata. Matt worked at Kalighat with Michelle and I and we all clicked instantly. Our senses of humor were right on par and whenever we would lay out laundry to dry on the roof me and Matt would sing awful mainstream rap songs to pass the time and the heat. I can easily say that he has become one of my best friends and there is an even bigger hole in my heart without him here. His personality and light-heartedness was the perfect contrast to the heavy-hearted work that we do daily. A big group of us got together for dinner on Saturday night to see him off then we all headed to the roof of the Hotel Maria for a little goodbye party. It started out with about 10 of us hanging out eating cake and exchanging memories and turned into about 35 people playing guitar, singing songs, laughing, and crying. It's amazing how fast joy is contagious in this city. People from all over the world, France, U.S., Portugal, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Scotland, and other countries just enjoying each other's company. Some people knew Matt, some didn't. Some were volunteers, some were just travelling. Some were here for six months, some just for the night. But it was truly spectacular to see everyone together like that. I really can't do it justice with words.
Okay, enough of this, I'm going to go grab some lunch then go play with the rugrats at Daya Dan.
Namaste,
Heath
Monday, October 19, 2009
G.W.C. Pt. Deux
Well we ended up shooting off fireworks for a couple hours with the rugrats then made our way home to the good ol' Hotel Maria. Where as luck would have it, there was another celebration happening across the street. The speakers were blaring Bollywood music and everyone, and I do mean everyone, was in good spirits. More fireworks were lit and there was much dancing and merriment to be had. If merriment were food we could have fed nations.
The two things I don't think I can overstate enough are the amount of people celebrating and the noise level. Literally you couldn't walk more than thirty feet without running into a pandal (A temporary shrine to Kali, some of which were 4 ft. tall with one statue, some of which were 60 ft. tall with up to twelve statues) where speakers were set up playing as loud as they possibly could. And each pandal that you came to was playing a different song. It was irresistable at times to break into dance as we were walking home. The only thing was, we had to switch the dance every thirty feet or so. So we danced until about 11 o'clock or until I thought I was going to pass out right where I stood from pure exhaustion from the days festivities and made our way back up to our room. I hadn't been laying in bed for more than 5 seconds when a wall shaking, "BOOOOOM!" was heard seemingly directly outside our window. Ah, more fireworks. It actually sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone with nothing to do but wait out the falling bombs. Accompanying the fireworks in a similar fashion that a cow with a bell tied around it's neck accompanies a concert violinist was the drone of atleast 8 different pandal's music. We hit the lights off but for some reason our room remained illuminated like it was the middle of the day. I toggled the switch back and forth trying to make sense of this conundrum when it hit me like a ton of bricks, this is the Celebration of Lights. It seemed as though every light in the city was on except for ours. Imagine a "Home Improvement" christmas special and Tim Allan's lights on every building. There were quite a few people actually wearing sunglasses outside, and for good reason.
The blasts continued for a while and I was able to turn them into some sort of African drumming in my head but every once in a while I'd be interupted by a giant explosion directly outside our window. It got to the point where it was truly comical how ridiculous it seemed. I'd be teetering on the edge of being asleep when "BOOOOM!" I'd be dead awake again. The girls and I could do nothing but laugh about our sleepless situation and ended up staying awake until about 5:30 in the morning when the festivities finally died down.
The next day marked the end of Kali Puja, when devout Hindu people break down the shrines and march their statues to the Ganges river to send them to the bottom of the holy water. It's a beautiful sight to see. Marching drum lines and children's classes, truckloads of people, and vendors selling balloons and high pitched whistles. All to ceremoniously throw thousands of statues, some over ten feet tall, into the river. These statues, much like the pandals that they sit in, take weeks, sometimes months to make and as a sign that their work is not their own the people get rid of them and start all over for the next puja, usually only a few weeks away. People were painted in purple and red dust and joy resounded through the streets. Emily and I made the short walk from Daya Dan to the local Ghat and found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful celebration. It was really an incredible thing to see with truck after truck backing up to the edge of the street, unloading a giant statue into groups of mens arms, shouting praises, then walking it to the water and tossing it in, never to be seen again.
Ah Kolkata, you never cease to amaze.
Namaste,
Heath
The two things I don't think I can overstate enough are the amount of people celebrating and the noise level. Literally you couldn't walk more than thirty feet without running into a pandal (A temporary shrine to Kali, some of which were 4 ft. tall with one statue, some of which were 60 ft. tall with up to twelve statues) where speakers were set up playing as loud as they possibly could. And each pandal that you came to was playing a different song. It was irresistable at times to break into dance as we were walking home. The only thing was, we had to switch the dance every thirty feet or so. So we danced until about 11 o'clock or until I thought I was going to pass out right where I stood from pure exhaustion from the days festivities and made our way back up to our room. I hadn't been laying in bed for more than 5 seconds when a wall shaking, "BOOOOOM!" was heard seemingly directly outside our window. Ah, more fireworks. It actually sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone with nothing to do but wait out the falling bombs. Accompanying the fireworks in a similar fashion that a cow with a bell tied around it's neck accompanies a concert violinist was the drone of atleast 8 different pandal's music. We hit the lights off but for some reason our room remained illuminated like it was the middle of the day. I toggled the switch back and forth trying to make sense of this conundrum when it hit me like a ton of bricks, this is the Celebration of Lights. It seemed as though every light in the city was on except for ours. Imagine a "Home Improvement" christmas special and Tim Allan's lights on every building. There were quite a few people actually wearing sunglasses outside, and for good reason.
The blasts continued for a while and I was able to turn them into some sort of African drumming in my head but every once in a while I'd be interupted by a giant explosion directly outside our window. It got to the point where it was truly comical how ridiculous it seemed. I'd be teetering on the edge of being asleep when "BOOOOM!" I'd be dead awake again. The girls and I could do nothing but laugh about our sleepless situation and ended up staying awake until about 5:30 in the morning when the festivities finally died down.
The next day marked the end of Kali Puja, when devout Hindu people break down the shrines and march their statues to the Ganges river to send them to the bottom of the holy water. It's a beautiful sight to see. Marching drum lines and children's classes, truckloads of people, and vendors selling balloons and high pitched whistles. All to ceremoniously throw thousands of statues, some over ten feet tall, into the river. These statues, much like the pandals that they sit in, take weeks, sometimes months to make and as a sign that their work is not their own the people get rid of them and start all over for the next puja, usually only a few weeks away. People were painted in purple and red dust and joy resounded through the streets. Emily and I made the short walk from Daya Dan to the local Ghat and found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful celebration. It was really an incredible thing to see with truck after truck backing up to the edge of the street, unloading a giant statue into groups of mens arms, shouting praises, then walking it to the water and tossing it in, never to be seen again.
Ah Kolkata, you never cease to amaze.
Namaste,
Heath
George Washington called,
He wants his revolutionary war back.
So are the days of Diwali, the three day Bengali festival of lights which just so happens to coincide with Kali Puja, the Hindu festival celebrating the god Kali.
This blog will have to be short and sweet seeing as the internet shop closes in 15 minutes but I'll definitely write more about these celebrations in the next few days.
To kick off Diwali, Emily and I celebrated with the children at Daya Dan, Mother Theresa's home for mentally and physically handicapped children, where we work in the afternoon. We brought all of the boys that we work with on the first floor up to the roof to join children from the other two floors to watch the fireworks that would inevitably be going off all over the city, or so we thought. Once all the children were on the roof and running around like crazy the sisters brought out three giant bags of fire works and told us rather plainly to, "Help the children light them."
Astonished and quite sure we had misunderstood Sister Johnava's directions we asked, in unison, "Uh, excuse me?"
"Yes, yes help them"
"Okay?"
We gave each other a look that said, "Has this woman gone mad?" and proceeded to pull out all types of janky indian fireworks. Some sparklers, some rockets, some firecrackers, and best of all lots of danger. I myself having almost been Sudder Streets first eyeless tourist of the festival the night before from a faulty firework exploding in my face (Thank the good lord I wear enormous glasses) I was of course hesitant to hand over these little burning objects to children who can't fully control their body parts. I don't mean that in any offensive way at all but from an American perspective I hope you all can understand my hesitations here.
While I was reluctantly handing tiny sparklers to the older kids the sisters and the masi's were busy lighting fireworks that spin on the ground and shoot out sparks in a 6 foot radius and watching the kids run and shout like crazy. Eventually my hesitation gave way to the looks of pure joy on these kids' faces who spend most days in a monotonous routine of wake up, school, nap, eat, bed, all under the same roof and rarely even step outside. We shot off fireworks for about three hours and ended up staying about two hours later than normal. I can still picture the look on little Pooja's face when one of the whirling, ground-spinning, sparks-flying fire crackers made its way under her wheel chair. Her little legs dangling over the edge of the seat screaming in pure ecstatic joy.
well i'm getting kicked off the computer... More to follow. promise.
So are the days of Diwali, the three day Bengali festival of lights which just so happens to coincide with Kali Puja, the Hindu festival celebrating the god Kali.
This blog will have to be short and sweet seeing as the internet shop closes in 15 minutes but I'll definitely write more about these celebrations in the next few days.
To kick off Diwali, Emily and I celebrated with the children at Daya Dan, Mother Theresa's home for mentally and physically handicapped children, where we work in the afternoon. We brought all of the boys that we work with on the first floor up to the roof to join children from the other two floors to watch the fireworks that would inevitably be going off all over the city, or so we thought. Once all the children were on the roof and running around like crazy the sisters brought out three giant bags of fire works and told us rather plainly to, "Help the children light them."
Astonished and quite sure we had misunderstood Sister Johnava's directions we asked, in unison, "Uh, excuse me?"
"Yes, yes help them"
"Okay?"
We gave each other a look that said, "Has this woman gone mad?" and proceeded to pull out all types of janky indian fireworks. Some sparklers, some rockets, some firecrackers, and best of all lots of danger. I myself having almost been Sudder Streets first eyeless tourist of the festival the night before from a faulty firework exploding in my face (Thank the good lord I wear enormous glasses) I was of course hesitant to hand over these little burning objects to children who can't fully control their body parts. I don't mean that in any offensive way at all but from an American perspective I hope you all can understand my hesitations here.
While I was reluctantly handing tiny sparklers to the older kids the sisters and the masi's were busy lighting fireworks that spin on the ground and shoot out sparks in a 6 foot radius and watching the kids run and shout like crazy. Eventually my hesitation gave way to the looks of pure joy on these kids' faces who spend most days in a monotonous routine of wake up, school, nap, eat, bed, all under the same roof and rarely even step outside. We shot off fireworks for about three hours and ended up staying about two hours later than normal. I can still picture the look on little Pooja's face when one of the whirling, ground-spinning, sparks-flying fire crackers made its way under her wheel chair. Her little legs dangling over the edge of the seat screaming in pure ecstatic joy.
well i'm getting kicked off the computer... More to follow. promise.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Johnny Cash and close to a month
spent in Kolkata
It's been too long without updates, my apologies to those who read this. Almost a week has gone by with no writing on this ol' blog of mine.
But not a whole lot has been going on here. Hard to believe, yeah? I know. It's strange to think that I could possibly be in any sort of routine in Calcutta, India but it seems pretty regular right about now. I had a conversation with Ty on the phone the other day, we were talking and he asked me what it was like here. I paused for a second and looked around. I gave him a fairly detailed description of what I was seeing in that exact moment and here's a little bit of that conversation, cleaned up of course:
"I'm sitting outside of the internet shop, probably the nicest, cleanest store that I am in regular attendance at. I'm sitting on a patio of sorts, outside with my back to the iron-barred windows with no glass in them, painted blue and purple. The patio is cracked red cement with two steps leading down to the little lot that is shared with a small spanish cafe, a t-shirt shop, the taj-continental restaurant's back door, and about fifty stray kittens. The lot is full of trash and in fact one spot where a little shop used to sit is literally now just a trash pile that rises from the dirt and brick ground to be about shoulder height. There are six motorcycles and two cars in the lot, one a newer silver car with a brand name that I can't pronounce and one a blue van, probably from the early nineties, with another brand name that I can't pronounce.
"There are about 30 people in this lot, milling around having conversations or just walking through, most are the regular people. Gopaul is wandering around aimlessly touching the feet of foreigners out of respect and mumbling hindi slurs silently to himself. He is a beautiful man of about 45 with grey hair and salt & pepper whiskers sprouting from his dark face. He sleeps in the lot near the entrance to the spanish cafe every night. Gopaul has some sort of mental illness that keeps conversation to a minimum but his smile speaks more than words ever could. I have lunch with Gopaul a few times a week usually when I ask him if he's hungry and he nods and laughs.
"The Varanasi shop guys are sitting outside smoking cigarettes and laughing with a few french girls. They are all very fashionable, charasmatic, charming young guys, about 20-25, that all work/hangout at a small t-shirt shop right off of sudder street. Every volunteer stops in here and Melissa told me that I needed to say hi to them for her as soon as I got to Calcutta. I drank chai with them earlier this afternoon and we sat around and strummed the guitar with them for about half an hour or so.
"Abdul and Kurtik are silently arguing across the street from the gateway to the lot at Tirupati and Keeshore is simply cooking and taking orders as usual. Tirupati is a little street restaurant/cart right outside the gate of Hotel Maria that is frequented by volunteers and tourists. Abdul and Kurtik are two people that are very near and dear to my heart. Both were born deaf and mute and without a form of sign language to learn in their respective villages they made it up as they went, so naturally they "speak" a little differently than each other but with effort they make it very easy to understand them and I'm proud to say that I hardly ever have trouble understanding them. They both like to make fun of my glasses and beard and I simply take it because I'm just happy that I can understand it when they do make fun of me.
"To my right is a very small shop that is indecipherable as to what they sell, I believe that it's a restaurant (or it may be someone's home) because there are a few men cooking but there are no indications that they sell any sort of food. No signs, no menus, no chairs. But who really knows? One of the men cooking just threw three severed chicken feet about a yard in front of me, two crows swooped down and grabbed a foot each while a hungry street dog stumbled up and grabbed the third with it's weak jaw. I look down and see my bare feet against the red-painted cement and I can see a perfect line across the top of my feet, crossing through each of the tattoos is a half-tan, half-dirt line about as perfect as looking at the top of a freshly opened container of neapolitan ice cream where the chocolate and vanilla meet. There are three bugs crawling on my left foot but my right foot is pest free, for now."
With all of this, I have managed to find routine and normalcy. Less than a month ago I couldn't pick up my jaw with all my might as I took in first impressions of this strange land that seemed, and still seems, like a place lost in time. A place that seemingly is stuck in the 1920's, as one odd-minded volunteer put it, god bless her soul.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Today was Emily's birthday so we decided to party like it was 2012. Last night we wandered to New Market, a shopping complex that resembles a giant horse stable, and is about as clean. She decided that instead of receiving gifts she would rather give gifts to the children she works with at Shishu Bavahn, an orphanage run by the missionaries of charity. We went out and bought twenty small chalkboards, one for each student in her class and decided we'd get a cake as well to celebrate with these children. This morning, I stayed home from work and went on a small reconnaissance mission, to find decorations to decorate our tiny room with. I started with streamers and a cake then bought a confetti cannon and a singing birthday cake knife. All for around 6 dollars. I proceeded to decorate the room all morning and when the girls returned we had a wonderful little surprise party and handed out cake to all our new friends and strangers on sudder street. All in all it was a wonderful day and Emily is no longer a teenager, the big 20 is here... woohoo!
Enough of this, I need some sleep. Goodnight friends
It's been too long without updates, my apologies to those who read this. Almost a week has gone by with no writing on this ol' blog of mine.
But not a whole lot has been going on here. Hard to believe, yeah? I know. It's strange to think that I could possibly be in any sort of routine in Calcutta, India but it seems pretty regular right about now. I had a conversation with Ty on the phone the other day, we were talking and he asked me what it was like here. I paused for a second and looked around. I gave him a fairly detailed description of what I was seeing in that exact moment and here's a little bit of that conversation, cleaned up of course:
"I'm sitting outside of the internet shop, probably the nicest, cleanest store that I am in regular attendance at. I'm sitting on a patio of sorts, outside with my back to the iron-barred windows with no glass in them, painted blue and purple. The patio is cracked red cement with two steps leading down to the little lot that is shared with a small spanish cafe, a t-shirt shop, the taj-continental restaurant's back door, and about fifty stray kittens. The lot is full of trash and in fact one spot where a little shop used to sit is literally now just a trash pile that rises from the dirt and brick ground to be about shoulder height. There are six motorcycles and two cars in the lot, one a newer silver car with a brand name that I can't pronounce and one a blue van, probably from the early nineties, with another brand name that I can't pronounce.
"There are about 30 people in this lot, milling around having conversations or just walking through, most are the regular people. Gopaul is wandering around aimlessly touching the feet of foreigners out of respect and mumbling hindi slurs silently to himself. He is a beautiful man of about 45 with grey hair and salt & pepper whiskers sprouting from his dark face. He sleeps in the lot near the entrance to the spanish cafe every night. Gopaul has some sort of mental illness that keeps conversation to a minimum but his smile speaks more than words ever could. I have lunch with Gopaul a few times a week usually when I ask him if he's hungry and he nods and laughs.
"The Varanasi shop guys are sitting outside smoking cigarettes and laughing with a few french girls. They are all very fashionable, charasmatic, charming young guys, about 20-25, that all work/hangout at a small t-shirt shop right off of sudder street. Every volunteer stops in here and Melissa told me that I needed to say hi to them for her as soon as I got to Calcutta. I drank chai with them earlier this afternoon and we sat around and strummed the guitar with them for about half an hour or so.
"Abdul and Kurtik are silently arguing across the street from the gateway to the lot at Tirupati and Keeshore is simply cooking and taking orders as usual. Tirupati is a little street restaurant/cart right outside the gate of Hotel Maria that is frequented by volunteers and tourists. Abdul and Kurtik are two people that are very near and dear to my heart. Both were born deaf and mute and without a form of sign language to learn in their respective villages they made it up as they went, so naturally they "speak" a little differently than each other but with effort they make it very easy to understand them and I'm proud to say that I hardly ever have trouble understanding them. They both like to make fun of my glasses and beard and I simply take it because I'm just happy that I can understand it when they do make fun of me.
"To my right is a very small shop that is indecipherable as to what they sell, I believe that it's a restaurant (or it may be someone's home) because there are a few men cooking but there are no indications that they sell any sort of food. No signs, no menus, no chairs. But who really knows? One of the men cooking just threw three severed chicken feet about a yard in front of me, two crows swooped down and grabbed a foot each while a hungry street dog stumbled up and grabbed the third with it's weak jaw. I look down and see my bare feet against the red-painted cement and I can see a perfect line across the top of my feet, crossing through each of the tattoos is a half-tan, half-dirt line about as perfect as looking at the top of a freshly opened container of neapolitan ice cream where the chocolate and vanilla meet. There are three bugs crawling on my left foot but my right foot is pest free, for now."
With all of this, I have managed to find routine and normalcy. Less than a month ago I couldn't pick up my jaw with all my might as I took in first impressions of this strange land that seemed, and still seems, like a place lost in time. A place that seemingly is stuck in the 1920's, as one odd-minded volunteer put it, god bless her soul.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Today was Emily's birthday so we decided to party like it was 2012. Last night we wandered to New Market, a shopping complex that resembles a giant horse stable, and is about as clean. She decided that instead of receiving gifts she would rather give gifts to the children she works with at Shishu Bavahn, an orphanage run by the missionaries of charity. We went out and bought twenty small chalkboards, one for each student in her class and decided we'd get a cake as well to celebrate with these children. This morning, I stayed home from work and went on a small reconnaissance mission, to find decorations to decorate our tiny room with. I started with streamers and a cake then bought a confetti cannon and a singing birthday cake knife. All for around 6 dollars. I proceeded to decorate the room all morning and when the girls returned we had a wonderful little surprise party and handed out cake to all our new friends and strangers on sudder street. All in all it was a wonderful day and Emily is no longer a teenager, the big 20 is here... woohoo!
Enough of this, I need some sleep. Goodnight friends
Monday, October 5, 2009
Titigraph
Last Thursday a group of about 35 volunteers took our day off to visit a place on the fringes of Kolkata, Titigraph, a leper colony that was started by Mother Teresa over 50 years ago that is now run by the Missionaries of Charity Brothers (I use the term "run" very loosely.) We didn't do any volunteering rather we just took a tour and talked with some of the patients and I can tell you right now that it was one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.
Before I talk too much about the colony we should get a few things straight; Leprosy is a disease that affects the body in strange ways, it causes sores on the skin and untreated it can slowly eat away at a persons appendages, many times people lose noses, fingers, toes, legs, hands, and arms, it attacks the bodies nervous system and without treatment can eventually kill. It does not make body parts fall off of their own accord, rather it disfigures and amputations occur regularly because of the disease. The way that leprosy spreads is not known for sure but prolonged immediate contact and transmission by nasal droplet have both been proposed but not proven. An estimated 5% of the world's population are susceptible to leprosy, meaning that 95% CANNOT get the disease. Oh and the last thing, leprosy can be cured.
This is the part that makes Titigraph a very sad place. There are over 150 permanent residents, 300 temporary residents, and many more that receive regular treatment but do not reside at the colony. These people can be extremely disfigured and are shunned from regular society as they have been for thousands of years. A person missing a hand from leprosy is almost guaranteed to have a much more difficult time finding a job in India (or anywhere in the world) than someone who doesn't have the disease. Many of these people have lost their friends and families and have nothing else because of the disease.
But here is the beautiful part. A new world is possible for these people, and they have found it. They have been marginalized for years and have formed a new way of life, with a little help from Mama T. of course. Titigraph is a fully self-sustainable miniature society. They grow their own food, make all of their clothes, provide their own day care, make everything from crutches and beds to prosthetic legs, hands, and thumbs, and most of the people giving treatment at Titigraph are former patients! How beautiful of a thing it is when a society can say, "You don't belong here. We don't want you!" and these people can say, "Have it your way." and leave to a new world with a smile and friends. Another thing that the residents of Titigraph do is make all of the clothes for the Missionaries of Charity Sisters all over the world. And when I say they make the clothes, I mean there are about 50 lumes where men and women sit and make the fabrics used in the sisters robes as well as the sheets and pillowcases that are used in Khalighat and other houses operated by the MC's. This gives people who have been so dehumanized by this disease and peoples reaction (strictly out of ignorance) to be able to have a job, live in community, and even serve those around them. If that's not beauty than I don't know what is.
You carved your name into the sky, and now it's the only one that I can say.
aste aste.
Before I talk too much about the colony we should get a few things straight; Leprosy is a disease that affects the body in strange ways, it causes sores on the skin and untreated it can slowly eat away at a persons appendages, many times people lose noses, fingers, toes, legs, hands, and arms, it attacks the bodies nervous system and without treatment can eventually kill. It does not make body parts fall off of their own accord, rather it disfigures and amputations occur regularly because of the disease. The way that leprosy spreads is not known for sure but prolonged immediate contact and transmission by nasal droplet have both been proposed but not proven. An estimated 5% of the world's population are susceptible to leprosy, meaning that 95% CANNOT get the disease. Oh and the last thing, leprosy can be cured.
This is the part that makes Titigraph a very sad place. There are over 150 permanent residents, 300 temporary residents, and many more that receive regular treatment but do not reside at the colony. These people can be extremely disfigured and are shunned from regular society as they have been for thousands of years. A person missing a hand from leprosy is almost guaranteed to have a much more difficult time finding a job in India (or anywhere in the world) than someone who doesn't have the disease. Many of these people have lost their friends and families and have nothing else because of the disease.
But here is the beautiful part. A new world is possible for these people, and they have found it. They have been marginalized for years and have formed a new way of life, with a little help from Mama T. of course. Titigraph is a fully self-sustainable miniature society. They grow their own food, make all of their clothes, provide their own day care, make everything from crutches and beds to prosthetic legs, hands, and thumbs, and most of the people giving treatment at Titigraph are former patients! How beautiful of a thing it is when a society can say, "You don't belong here. We don't want you!" and these people can say, "Have it your way." and leave to a new world with a smile and friends. Another thing that the residents of Titigraph do is make all of the clothes for the Missionaries of Charity Sisters all over the world. And when I say they make the clothes, I mean there are about 50 lumes where men and women sit and make the fabrics used in the sisters robes as well as the sheets and pillowcases that are used in Khalighat and other houses operated by the MC's. This gives people who have been so dehumanized by this disease and peoples reaction (strictly out of ignorance) to be able to have a job, live in community, and even serve those around them. If that's not beauty than I don't know what is.
You carved your name into the sky, and now it's the only one that I can say.
aste aste.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
I say, you were born in the sky.
Only in the sense that you are so beautiful that there was no way you were born of the dirt and ashes. Yes. You. All of you.
"India is great" It's written on the side of every work truck, bus, auto-rickshaw, and most taxi's. A constant reminder for those who may have forgotten. All in all, so far, I'd say that that statement is more than true. In it's own way.
Here are a few of the reasons:
Last night I had dinner with people from 7 different countries.
I heard the words "I've never been more happy that a person died" and almost cried with joy.
I've thought more thoughts here than I have in the past year and a half.
Veg Pakora, Japanese Om Rice & Tirupati
Kurtik and Abdul
Ronnie
Hotel Maria's rooftop.
Today was a good day. This week has been a good week. This trip has been a good trip. And I am happy. I know why they call Kolkata the city of joy. I don't think everyone here knows, but I know and that's enough for me. Of course I miss my friends and family and "normal" way of life but that will always be there to come back to. Run back to with open arms. Fall back on. That leads me to something I haven't been able to get out of my head for the past couple of weeks. I have something to fall back on. I have friends and I have family that will always be there for me, and at the end of these three months I have money and a school and an apartment and a car that I will be able to go back to. But I'm serving people with nothing to fall back on. Ever. And that will probably not ever have anything to fall back on. Why should I have that and they not? How can I justify seeing, helping, and then going back to any sort of "normal" life where that doesn't affect me? Not that I don't think that this experience will affect me for the rest of my life but didn't Jesus say to the rich ruler, "Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, then you will have treasure in heaven, then come and follow me." (Matt. 19:21) How has this lost it's meaning for us? In Acts 2:45 it says that the early church "Began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need." Why is the church not still doing this?!? If we as believers are the church, which we are, then shouldn't we be doing what the believers in Acts were doing? Surely there is still need among us! I am seeing it everyday here! And not just here, not just in the congregation that you call your home. But in our neighborhoods and in our streets. If Jesus really meant, "Don't become a slave to your money, don't let it become your master, and don't let it come between you and G-d." then why wouldn't he just say that? I don't think that everyone that reads this reads/interprets it the same, nor do I think they need to. Obviously everyone has a different calling. But the fact is that I am thinking about it so much and that there is some obvious tick going off in my brain. The tricky part is deciphering what it means, or where this idea is coming from. What if it's God and I choose to ignore it? Any ideas would be appreciated. I've had many beautiful conversations, where I have found God on dirt floors and unpainted walls, with the wonderful, gorgeous people I've met in Kolkata about this and I feel like I'm either extremely close to an answer or further away than ever.
The other thing is:
When was the last time I personally fed a hungry person?
When was the last time I clothed someone?
Visited someone in Jail?
Invited someone in off the streets?
"India is great" It's written on the side of every work truck, bus, auto-rickshaw, and most taxi's. A constant reminder for those who may have forgotten. All in all, so far, I'd say that that statement is more than true. In it's own way.
Here are a few of the reasons:
Last night I had dinner with people from 7 different countries.
I heard the words "I've never been more happy that a person died" and almost cried with joy.
I've thought more thoughts here than I have in the past year and a half.
Veg Pakora, Japanese Om Rice & Tirupati
Kurtik and Abdul
Ronnie
Hotel Maria's rooftop.
Today was a good day. This week has been a good week. This trip has been a good trip. And I am happy. I know why they call Kolkata the city of joy. I don't think everyone here knows, but I know and that's enough for me. Of course I miss my friends and family and "normal" way of life but that will always be there to come back to. Run back to with open arms. Fall back on. That leads me to something I haven't been able to get out of my head for the past couple of weeks. I have something to fall back on. I have friends and I have family that will always be there for me, and at the end of these three months I have money and a school and an apartment and a car that I will be able to go back to. But I'm serving people with nothing to fall back on. Ever. And that will probably not ever have anything to fall back on. Why should I have that and they not? How can I justify seeing, helping, and then going back to any sort of "normal" life where that doesn't affect me? Not that I don't think that this experience will affect me for the rest of my life but didn't Jesus say to the rich ruler, "Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, then you will have treasure in heaven, then come and follow me." (Matt. 19:21) How has this lost it's meaning for us? In Acts 2:45 it says that the early church "Began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need." Why is the church not still doing this?!? If we as believers are the church, which we are, then shouldn't we be doing what the believers in Acts were doing? Surely there is still need among us! I am seeing it everyday here! And not just here, not just in the congregation that you call your home. But in our neighborhoods and in our streets. If Jesus really meant, "Don't become a slave to your money, don't let it become your master, and don't let it come between you and G-d." then why wouldn't he just say that? I don't think that everyone that reads this reads/interprets it the same, nor do I think they need to. Obviously everyone has a different calling. But the fact is that I am thinking about it so much and that there is some obvious tick going off in my brain. The tricky part is deciphering what it means, or where this idea is coming from. What if it's God and I choose to ignore it? Any ideas would be appreciated. I've had many beautiful conversations, where I have found God on dirt floors and unpainted walls, with the wonderful, gorgeous people I've met in Kolkata about this and I feel like I'm either extremely close to an answer or further away than ever.
The other thing is:
When was the last time I personally fed a hungry person?
When was the last time I clothed someone?
Visited someone in Jail?
Invited someone in off the streets?
34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:34-40 says that that is my personal responsibility. I don't think it's enough to throw money to organizations that visit people in jail or that feed children. I think it's good, but it makes these people nameless and faceless when they really bear the name and face of Jesus himself. I've always thought, "I don't have time, I can't just take the day off work or school." But am I saying "I don't have time for Jesus"?
These are genuine questions pointed towards people who know more than me, or less (either way ideas are greatly appreciated), or to provoke thought or atleast conversation throughout the day. I'm sorry if I stepped on any toes while writing this, it really was not my intention at all. I'm simply looking for answers.
Aste Aste,
One day at a time,
Heath
Sunday, September 27, 2009
I never thought this would be easy
But I never thought it would be this hard.
Here are two stories that happened today. And it's only 2:30...
There are two men in Khalighat that share beds next to one another. For the past three days I have sat in between them on the floor, rubbed their backs, held their hands, listened to them, sang to them, and cried when they cried. I don't know either of their names and I don't specifically know why either of them are there but the man on the left has difficulty breathing and when he talks it is only a whisper in Bengali. The man on the right has sores all over his arms and legs and face and hasn't said a word since I've sat with him. I don't know why I've been sitting there specifically but it's peaceful there, on the quieter side of the room where some men sit and play cards and others simply sleep. Today I was sitting with the man on the left and he was having more difficulty then normal breathing so I held his hand for about an hour and rubbed his chest and sang him a few songs while he layed on his back with his eyes closed. His breathing kept getting harder and harder and there was nothing I could do for him except stay there and hold him. After about 15 minutes of heavy weezing and both of us in tears his eyes shot open wider than anyone's I have ever seen and he stared at me for 10 seconds as his chest stopped moving. I ran and got the first person who looked like a nurse at all and told her that this man had stopped breathing and she told me to pray. To pray for a man who had probably had nothing his entire life and died with nothing but the clothes on his back. To pray for a man who in his last days couldn't chew his food or swallow water or take medicine or roll over on his side or open his eyes.
This is the first time I've seen someone die. It won't be the last but that's not making anything easier for me. I helped wrap his body then went to the roof of the building to be alone for a minute, atleast as alone as you can be in Kolkatta (I don't think anyone has ever truly been alone in this city for atleast 150 years). I couldn't stop thinking and I couldn't collect my thoughts. It was like my brain took pictures of thoughts and scattered the polaroids on the ground and I couldn't get a good look at any of them. That is, until Martha sat me down and talked to me. Martha is a beautiful girl from France with a heart of gold. I told her that I was really shooken up by what happened and she said some of the most wonderful things I'd ever heard. I'll paraphrase here.
There are two truly beautiful and meaningful things that happen in a persons life: birth and death. The only two gaurantees that we have as humans. Before and after life we are with God and both must be equally as painful and scary for each of us, because we can't know exactly what comes next. We can imagine but we can't know. This man returned to God today in a place where thousands upon thousands of others have died. And God put me in that position. I didn't choose who I sat beside, if I did it was completely random. And no matter how much I pray that I hadn't seen what I did, I had to. Otherwise he would have looked up and seen an empty ceiling instead of another person. He didn't know who I was, nor did he probably care, but he had a hand to hold instead of a bedframe and that's what matters.
And maybe that's the only reason I came to India was to be with that man today. If that's the case then I am satisfied.
Namaste my beautiful.
Here are two stories that happened today. And it's only 2:30...
There are two men in Khalighat that share beds next to one another. For the past three days I have sat in between them on the floor, rubbed their backs, held their hands, listened to them, sang to them, and cried when they cried. I don't know either of their names and I don't specifically know why either of them are there but the man on the left has difficulty breathing and when he talks it is only a whisper in Bengali. The man on the right has sores all over his arms and legs and face and hasn't said a word since I've sat with him. I don't know why I've been sitting there specifically but it's peaceful there, on the quieter side of the room where some men sit and play cards and others simply sleep. Today I was sitting with the man on the left and he was having more difficulty then normal breathing so I held his hand for about an hour and rubbed his chest and sang him a few songs while he layed on his back with his eyes closed. His breathing kept getting harder and harder and there was nothing I could do for him except stay there and hold him. After about 15 minutes of heavy weezing and both of us in tears his eyes shot open wider than anyone's I have ever seen and he stared at me for 10 seconds as his chest stopped moving. I ran and got the first person who looked like a nurse at all and told her that this man had stopped breathing and she told me to pray. To pray for a man who had probably had nothing his entire life and died with nothing but the clothes on his back. To pray for a man who in his last days couldn't chew his food or swallow water or take medicine or roll over on his side or open his eyes.
This is the first time I've seen someone die. It won't be the last but that's not making anything easier for me. I helped wrap his body then went to the roof of the building to be alone for a minute, atleast as alone as you can be in Kolkatta (I don't think anyone has ever truly been alone in this city for atleast 150 years). I couldn't stop thinking and I couldn't collect my thoughts. It was like my brain took pictures of thoughts and scattered the polaroids on the ground and I couldn't get a good look at any of them. That is, until Martha sat me down and talked to me. Martha is a beautiful girl from France with a heart of gold. I told her that I was really shooken up by what happened and she said some of the most wonderful things I'd ever heard. I'll paraphrase here.
There are two truly beautiful and meaningful things that happen in a persons life: birth and death. The only two gaurantees that we have as humans. Before and after life we are with God and both must be equally as painful and scary for each of us, because we can't know exactly what comes next. We can imagine but we can't know. This man returned to God today in a place where thousands upon thousands of others have died. And God put me in that position. I didn't choose who I sat beside, if I did it was completely random. And no matter how much I pray that I hadn't seen what I did, I had to. Otherwise he would have looked up and seen an empty ceiling instead of another person. He didn't know who I was, nor did he probably care, but he had a hand to hold instead of a bedframe and that's what matters.
And that makes this easier.
And maybe that's the only reason I came to India was to be with that man today. If that's the case then I am satisfied.
Namaste my beautiful.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Let's get one thing straight,
India is dirty.
India is hot.
India is uncomfortable.
India is Beautiful.
Last night I slept on the roof of my hotel and watched an orange sky pass over me until five o'clock in the morning. This morning I woke up to a purple sunrise and a terra cotta pot of warm chai.
The last week has been exhausting and full of wonderful people and new relationships. Let me give you a small rundown of what I'm doing on a "regular" (if there is such a thing) day to day basis:
At 7'oclock every morning the volunteers all meet at the mother house for breakfast and to hear any announcements that the sisters might need to give us. We pray and sing a couple of songs and eat bananas, white bread, and chai then everyone heads out in their different directions to go to work. I normally arrive at Khalighat, the home that I am working at in the mornings, at about 8 o'clock and work until about noon. Khalighat is the first home that Mother Theresa set up in Calcutta in the 1940's, it's called the home for the destitute and dying and about 50 men and 50 women are being treated here. They are brought off of the streets for many many reasons but for a good majority they come here to have a few meals and a bed to leave this earth in. First thing in the morning I help with laundry wringing out clothes and laying laundry on the roof to dry, a daunting task on somedays to try and wash clothes and bedding for a hundred people by hand. After laundry we'll go onto the male's side, a large room with about fifty-sixty beds about a foot apart, and help distribute medication and water and basically hang out with the men while some of the more trained volunteers with a background in nursing change bandages and clean wounds. Some of which are just awfully infected and many of the patients are missing appendages. We give massages and listen, even if we can't understand, to what the men have to say and sometimes just sit beside them and hold their hands. Not everyone who is here is here to die however, many people are seen for about a week or so, given a round of antibiotics, had their wounds cleaned and the bandages cleaned, and sent back on their way purely out of a lack of resources to keep them with us longer. Our time with the men lasts about two hours and then we bring them lunch, do dishes, and head home.
In the afternoon I work at a children's home called Dayadan. A place for orphaned children with mental and physical disabilities. I work on the first floor from 3-5:30 with about 4 other volunteers playing with about 12-15 boys with an array of different disabilities. Many can't speak or walk but they are all some of the most wonderfully happy children I've ever met. We play with them for about an hour then we help feed them and then break them up into smaller groups to help teach them songs for this years christmas pageant. I'd love to tell more about the boys but the truth is, I've only been here for about a week and I'm still getting used to this routine and I'm still getting to know the boys, so there will be plenty of stories in the next few weeks I promise.
Namaste
India is hot.
India is uncomfortable.
India is Beautiful.
Last night I slept on the roof of my hotel and watched an orange sky pass over me until five o'clock in the morning. This morning I woke up to a purple sunrise and a terra cotta pot of warm chai.
The last week has been exhausting and full of wonderful people and new relationships. Let me give you a small rundown of what I'm doing on a "regular" (if there is such a thing) day to day basis:
At 7'oclock every morning the volunteers all meet at the mother house for breakfast and to hear any announcements that the sisters might need to give us. We pray and sing a couple of songs and eat bananas, white bread, and chai then everyone heads out in their different directions to go to work. I normally arrive at Khalighat, the home that I am working at in the mornings, at about 8 o'clock and work until about noon. Khalighat is the first home that Mother Theresa set up in Calcutta in the 1940's, it's called the home for the destitute and dying and about 50 men and 50 women are being treated here. They are brought off of the streets for many many reasons but for a good majority they come here to have a few meals and a bed to leave this earth in. First thing in the morning I help with laundry wringing out clothes and laying laundry on the roof to dry, a daunting task on somedays to try and wash clothes and bedding for a hundred people by hand. After laundry we'll go onto the male's side, a large room with about fifty-sixty beds about a foot apart, and help distribute medication and water and basically hang out with the men while some of the more trained volunteers with a background in nursing change bandages and clean wounds. Some of which are just awfully infected and many of the patients are missing appendages. We give massages and listen, even if we can't understand, to what the men have to say and sometimes just sit beside them and hold their hands. Not everyone who is here is here to die however, many people are seen for about a week or so, given a round of antibiotics, had their wounds cleaned and the bandages cleaned, and sent back on their way purely out of a lack of resources to keep them with us longer. Our time with the men lasts about two hours and then we bring them lunch, do dishes, and head home.
In the afternoon I work at a children's home called Dayadan. A place for orphaned children with mental and physical disabilities. I work on the first floor from 3-5:30 with about 4 other volunteers playing with about 12-15 boys with an array of different disabilities. Many can't speak or walk but they are all some of the most wonderfully happy children I've ever met. We play with them for about an hour then we help feed them and then break them up into smaller groups to help teach them songs for this years christmas pageant. I'd love to tell more about the boys but the truth is, I've only been here for about a week and I'm still getting used to this routine and I'm still getting to know the boys, so there will be plenty of stories in the next few weeks I promise.
Namaste
Friday, September 18, 2009
Well, here we are (with a few surprises)
KOLKATA!
You greeted us with cows, english taxis, dirt roads, car horns, piles of trash, millions of crows, kites, barbed wire, broken teeth and old friends. What do I have to offer you? Whatever it is, take it. Breathe it. Feel it. Hold it. Love it.
We landed yesterday at about 4 o'clock and hopped in an old yellow taxi, constant reminders of Englands colonization of India, and headed towards Sudder Street, our new home for the next three months (That is still quite strange to say). The first thing we saw in the taxi was a group of about 12-15 cows standing off to the side of the road, next were about 30 women and children pulling plastic bottles out of a massive pile of trash, next was an array of things so grand and so heartbreaking that words could never do them justice. Huge billboards advertising everything from giant t.v.'s to beauty supplies to luxurious homes with plastic tarps and bamboo poles coming attached to the sides making makeshift homes. We kept driving for about 45 minutes or so weaving to every side of the road with our drivers thumb constantly hovering over the horn and frequently pressing it, letting everyone know that he was coming and not planning on slowing down. Needless to say, Kolkata is much different than Bangkok.
We got to the Hotel Maria and got "settled in" without talking much at all, trying to take in this city in a single large gulp doesn't allow much space for words to come out. We went to the roof and the view was mostly just higher buildings in every pale shade of green, yellow, and pink with the most gorgeous orange sunset i have ever seen casting the buildings' shadows down on us and sillhouetting the apartments. After a quick stint on the roof we made our way down to the lobby and who should happen to walk up to us? None other than our dear friend Lizzy, a member of calcutta club who just graduated but helped us prepare for this trip like no one else could. A shouting match of disbelief followed and I don't think any of us said anything except,
"WHAT?!?"
"HOW?"
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!"
"WHAT?!?!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Streams of tears just poured out of our tired eyes and we stood in the lobby of Hotel Maria crying and laughing and yelling for about 30 minutes until we were kindly asked to leave. I'm still a little bit in shock that she's here. During the school year when we were having regular meetings the girls and I would constantly bug her that she had nothing better to do than to come back to Kolkata with us and apparently enough persuasion turned into Christmas in September for all of us. She's only here for another week and a half or so (she's already been here about two weeks) and then she'll be travelling to some smaller villages doing some work with people she met last time she was in Kolkata. It's truly amazing that in a city of over 100 million people she was able to find us within two hours of getting off the plane. Can anyone else see God at work here?
Lizzy took us around Sutter St. and introduced us to some of her amazing friends that I'm proud to say have already become some of my amazing friends. We parted ways and tried going to bed early last night, about 9 or so, but to no avail. The air is so hot and so thick that as you lay in bed you can literally feel the sweat drip (or run for dear life) out of your body. Not to mention the noise level that never seems to get lower. So we all laid in bed listening to music out of my tiny ipod speakers for about 3 or 4 hours praying for sleep to come, and eventually it did, as it always does. This is gonna take some getting used to. We woke up at about 5:15 to meet Lizzy and walk to the Mother House for Mass at 6:00. Mass was beautiful and we got to talk to some of the sisters and some of the other volunteers over a communion breakfast of hot chai and white bread, such a wonderful (and EARLY) morning. We're going to Shishu Bavaan, one of the childrens homes run by the missionaries of charity and where Emily is going to spend her days volunteering, at 3 o'clock to get registered and attend a new volunteer orientation. That's in about an hour.
I haven't taken many pictures yet as I want to get to know the people around me and to get my bearings a little more (we haven't even been here a whole day yet!). Also the internet speeds are quite slow so i don't know if i'll even be able to upload many photos but we will see. I think that's all i can manage to type at this point so until I have more meaningful things to say, NAMASTE NAMASTE NAMASTE.
You greeted us with cows, english taxis, dirt roads, car horns, piles of trash, millions of crows, kites, barbed wire, broken teeth and old friends. What do I have to offer you? Whatever it is, take it. Breathe it. Feel it. Hold it. Love it.
We landed yesterday at about 4 o'clock and hopped in an old yellow taxi, constant reminders of Englands colonization of India, and headed towards Sudder Street, our new home for the next three months (That is still quite strange to say). The first thing we saw in the taxi was a group of about 12-15 cows standing off to the side of the road, next were about 30 women and children pulling plastic bottles out of a massive pile of trash, next was an array of things so grand and so heartbreaking that words could never do them justice. Huge billboards advertising everything from giant t.v.'s to beauty supplies to luxurious homes with plastic tarps and bamboo poles coming attached to the sides making makeshift homes. We kept driving for about 45 minutes or so weaving to every side of the road with our drivers thumb constantly hovering over the horn and frequently pressing it, letting everyone know that he was coming and not planning on slowing down. Needless to say, Kolkata is much different than Bangkok.
We got to the Hotel Maria and got "settled in" without talking much at all, trying to take in this city in a single large gulp doesn't allow much space for words to come out. We went to the roof and the view was mostly just higher buildings in every pale shade of green, yellow, and pink with the most gorgeous orange sunset i have ever seen casting the buildings' shadows down on us and sillhouetting the apartments. After a quick stint on the roof we made our way down to the lobby and who should happen to walk up to us? None other than our dear friend Lizzy, a member of calcutta club who just graduated but helped us prepare for this trip like no one else could. A shouting match of disbelief followed and I don't think any of us said anything except,
"WHAT?!?"
"HOW?"
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!"
"WHAT?!?!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Streams of tears just poured out of our tired eyes and we stood in the lobby of Hotel Maria crying and laughing and yelling for about 30 minutes until we were kindly asked to leave. I'm still a little bit in shock that she's here. During the school year when we were having regular meetings the girls and I would constantly bug her that she had nothing better to do than to come back to Kolkata with us and apparently enough persuasion turned into Christmas in September for all of us. She's only here for another week and a half or so (she's already been here about two weeks) and then she'll be travelling to some smaller villages doing some work with people she met last time she was in Kolkata. It's truly amazing that in a city of over 100 million people she was able to find us within two hours of getting off the plane. Can anyone else see God at work here?
Lizzy took us around Sutter St. and introduced us to some of her amazing friends that I'm proud to say have already become some of my amazing friends. We parted ways and tried going to bed early last night, about 9 or so, but to no avail. The air is so hot and so thick that as you lay in bed you can literally feel the sweat drip (or run for dear life) out of your body. Not to mention the noise level that never seems to get lower. So we all laid in bed listening to music out of my tiny ipod speakers for about 3 or 4 hours praying for sleep to come, and eventually it did, as it always does. This is gonna take some getting used to. We woke up at about 5:15 to meet Lizzy and walk to the Mother House for Mass at 6:00. Mass was beautiful and we got to talk to some of the sisters and some of the other volunteers over a communion breakfast of hot chai and white bread, such a wonderful (and EARLY) morning. We're going to Shishu Bavaan, one of the childrens homes run by the missionaries of charity and where Emily is going to spend her days volunteering, at 3 o'clock to get registered and attend a new volunteer orientation. That's in about an hour.
I haven't taken many pictures yet as I want to get to know the people around me and to get my bearings a little more (we haven't even been here a whole day yet!). Also the internet speeds are quite slow so i don't know if i'll even be able to upload many photos but we will see. I think that's all i can manage to type at this point so until I have more meaningful things to say, NAMASTE NAMASTE NAMASTE.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
2 days in bangkok
Spent curled up on a plastic mattress watching Arnold Schwartzenegger movies and reading books is how I like to picture heaven. Air-conditioning blasting my face until I've come down with a slight cold and I pull the blankets up over my face.
That's how the past two days have been and I still couldn't be happier, to be honest I feel slightly guilty that I haven't been exploring more but I think we're doing fine.
Yesterday, we realized that michelle had misplaced her debit card, a scary thing to do in Bangkok, so we ran around wildly trying to find banks and calling people but to no avail, she got it cancelled and we're still trying to figure out how to get a replacement sent to us while in India, so please pray that that will get figured out. Luckily she had some back-up cash on her for emergencies so everything is fine there. We leave Bangkok tomorrow at noon and I don't think any of us could be more excited. Not that Bangkok isn't beautiful and amazing in it's own right, but I think we're all ready to be done being tourists and to get to the point of this trip, trust me, it hasn't been lost, that is if any of us really know what it was to begin with.
That's how the past two days have been and I still couldn't be happier, to be honest I feel slightly guilty that I haven't been exploring more but I think we're doing fine.
Yesterday, we realized that michelle had misplaced her debit card, a scary thing to do in Bangkok, so we ran around wildly trying to find banks and calling people but to no avail, she got it cancelled and we're still trying to figure out how to get a replacement sent to us while in India, so please pray that that will get figured out. Luckily she had some back-up cash on her for emergencies so everything is fine there. We leave Bangkok tomorrow at noon and I don't think any of us could be more excited. Not that Bangkok isn't beautiful and amazing in it's own right, but I think we're all ready to be done being tourists and to get to the point of this trip, trust me, it hasn't been lost, that is if any of us really know what it was to begin with.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
How to get your watch stolen in bangkok:
Ride a tuk-tuk to the zoo.
Well you probably don't even have to do that but thats how I did it.
Yesterday was one of the best days I've ever had. The girls and I made our way to the Dusit Zoo and pretended we were on a third grade field trip for about 6 hours. It was wonderful. I didn't get to ride an elephant but I did get to feed, kiss, and be hugged (and slightly violated, much to the amusement of the elephant trainers) by the massive creatures. I'm convinced that elephants are smarter than most people. We faced our fears and took a tuk-tuk to the zoo, the driver was pretty honest with us the entire time about our fare which was really nice. However he did like my watch enough to ask if he could try it on (just to see if it fit, of course) then he offered to buy it from me and somehow I don't think I got reimbursed for it fully. Oh well, I bought a new one on Khaosan road for about three bucks. Zoos are strange places, it seems to me that I shouldn't be satisfied (And I don't think I am) with seeing a solitary animal in a cage rather than seeing how it actually interacts in it's natural environment. I'm convinced that my interest in how people interact with each other is directly tied to my interest in animals and that when I see an animal in a cage at the zoo it's very similar to watching a person in jail, it's just not the way it's supposed to be. We are just "smart" animals right?
After the zoo we went out and explored the nightlife around Khaosan road. It's entirely different than anything you can see in the States (not that much is that similar, but this is just another STRIKING difference). At about 7 o'clock trucks pull up to every bare stretch of sidewalk and start unloading chairs, tables, coolers, blenders, and people to set up miniature bars right next to all of the street vendors that seem to be the only constant on the streets of Bangkok. Taxis, tuk-tuks, and people from every corner of the world flood the streets and hop from bar to bar and makeshift shop to makeshift shop buying everything from knockoff designer clothes to light up alarm clocks and wind-up dancing robots. If there ever was a place to just sit and watch people this is it. Everyone seems to be selling something and I will admit that most of the t-shirts are very very cool and very very funny it's quite overwhelming to not be able to walk more than five feet without being stopped by a "MISTER MISTER!" or a "Come look, you like." But maybe that's part of the appeal right? I mean I am looking for a new experience, and this is certainly new.
Today was spent at the Grand Palace which was built in the 1700's and is home to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, a 60cm tall statue of the Buddha carved from pure jade. It in itself isn't the most impressive thing in the entire world, however the devotion that people have to it certainly is. The temple is massive and the buddha sits on a shrine about 40 feet off of the ground, everything in the room is either gold or a very dark red and the walls are painted in a single magnificent painting depicting different stories from Buddhist manuscripts. Outside of the temple itself are hundreds of huge pillars, statues, and other buildings that are simply made for decoration and presented as offerings and respects to the teachings of Buddha. The Grand palace also holds several government buildings (I'm not sure exactly which ones but I believe parliament is somewhere in there). Simply amazing, that's all I can really say. After the palace we ate a late lunch at a janky little market and walked back to our neighborhood. We found a travel agency, one of about thirty on our block, and booked our tickets to Kolkata! It's nice to finally have the tickets in our hands after a couple of fiascos trying to get tickets previously. We tried booking them in the airport and almost got ripped off royally, we tried booking them online and our reservations kept getting cancelled, we emailed a couple of travel agencies and never seemed to hear back. But all of that is over with and Kolkata HERE WE COME! It's about 10:30 on sunday the 13th as I write this, and we're going to fly out on thursday at 3:00. I'm so excited to be done with being a tourist and get started with what I set out to do. Serve, live, and love with people. That's what I think this trip is going to come down to and I am extremely excited. I'm going to stop typing now and head to bed. Michelle's got the right idea, she was in bed about an hour and a half ago.
Goodnight and sweet dreams Bangkok.
Namaste Friend.
oh and if you'd care to see some of my pictures so far they're on my flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27395614@N03/sets/72157622219004137/
they're not all there because uploading times have been kicking my butt but there are definitely some keepers in there.
Friday, September 11, 2009
buddha buddha buddha RAMA EVERYWHERE!
If you didn't get that joke you're either too old or you've forgotten your roots.
Yesterday was another amazing thai day. The girls and I walked all over from ten in the morning until about 6 or 7 at night. We saw the Reclining Buddha and visited an amazing Wat (Monastery). We tried really hard to make it to the Grand Palace but it closed at three and we got there at 3:05. Another day I suppose. Overall it wasn't the most eventful day ever but i know that none of us ever took our goofy smiles off of our faces.
My mom emailed me yesterday and something she said has been stuck in my mind since yesterday morning, "It is weird to think that you are on an opposite schedule than us. I'm headed to bed on this Wednesday evening and you are already past lunch on Thursday. Are you realizing how many people are on this earth that we have no idea exist? Weird to think about that, but God knows them all and loves them all"
The question that I have is one of interconnectivity, I've never been closer (and I'm still not close at all) to realizing the actual size of the world than I am now, surrounded by 65 million people. I only know 2 out of those 65 million and will probably only meet about a hundred of them. Each one of these people have had a childhood, and each one of them has memories, a mother, a father, maybe a dog, maybe a home, maybe not. Seemingly randomly we were born where we were, with the advantages and disadvantages that come with who our family is, how much money they have, what they believe in, and all the other endlessly complicated factors that play into our own individuality and who we are as people. Every single person in this gigantic city has the same set of factors that are infinitely important and complicated to them. How is this possible? How have I become so ingrained with an inflated sense of self-purpose and worth that I forget that I am no different then the woman selling fruit on the streets of Bangkok or the leper in the camps of Kolkata? Does this apply to everyone or is it just me that thinks this way? Are we all really connected to each other or are we randomly placed where we are with our desires and passions and hopes and dreams? My heart leans towards the former.
This isn't really the place for philosophical discussion but it's something that my mind won't let me stop thinking about. And this is MY blog so I figure I can try and get some of the people who are reading this thinking the same things I am. :D
Back to Bangkok: Today the plans are to hit up the zoo and try our hardest to pet some tigers and ride some elephants. We might try to be brave and take a tuk-tuk ride to the zoo but we're a little afraid of getting ripped off. A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle contraption with three wheels and a three-seat bench on the back with a little covering that goes over where the passengers sit, think of it as a motorcycle taxi. Tuk-tuk drivers are the most insanely persistent people in the entire world. You can't walk more than 15 feet on the street without someone saying, "HELLO! Welcome to Bangkok! Where you from? Where going? Faster! Here tuk-tuk faster than walking. Get in, Get in, 10 baht each! Cheapest tuk-tuk." And from everything we read if a driver tells you 10 baht each you'll either end up paying 50-100 baht each or taken on a mini tour of Bangkok, visiting every tailor shop and massage parlor in between and you're not able to leave until you buy something. So Emily, Michelle, and I have come up with a few ways of getting them to leave us alone:
A. Act like you're not from the U.S., the little bit of french that I retained from school this year has been extremely helpful in these situations although a few of the drivers are tri-lingual and my French really isn't that good.
B. Just ignore them. This is the least effective of our tactics because they will walk in front of you or just keep following you until you say something back then it's impossible to get out of the conversation.
C. (My personal favorite) Start screaming in jibberish until they're scared enough or say, "I don't understand?!?" Then you are automatically the least important person on the street to them because they know they aren't getting money out of you. My favorite conversation so far was "TUK-TUK! here look here!"
"AY papi! I left my calzones in france, no pui poo paaaa! Do you have an olive and tiger sandwich?"
"Wha?" (very confused look on the driver's face)
Then we turned, laughed, and skipped away back to our hostel.
I put some pictures up on flickr, enjoy:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27395614@N03/sets/72157622219004137/
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