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