Printed my boarding pass.
I, uh, said goodbye to my girls.
And Dipa.
Who kept waving and turning around and looking back.
No blog post today.
See Facebook for photos of Kalighat and more Apne Aap.
I took a bunch of videos.
They'll get posted later.
Love,
Stephanie
Monday, April 6, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Red-light #2 and some lists.
It's hot here.
So this post might be a blob.
What I Will Not Miss:
1. Men trying to talk to me (or just looking at me) while they pee in public
2. Not being able to sleep because of the heat
3. Having to grope-block men with my elbows seventeen thousand times a day
4. Wasting plastic by purchasing bottled water
5. Muttered comments about my appearance as I walk by men
6. "No problem, no problem" no matter how obvious the problem
What I Will Miss:
Everything else.
Really, everything. The beggars, the nauseating smells, the music, the bartering, the clothing, the colours, the dialects, the languages...and Kalighat. And my girls.
Everyone at Apne Aap keeps asking me when I'm coming back. "Amar ke khub bhalo lagbe, kintu kolkhon jani na." I would like it very much, but I don't know when.
Aaah! I'm considering lots and lots of options about returning, but I know that everything will happen according to God's timing. It'll all work out according to His will, thankfully.
Gosh, my brain is going bingbingbing today.
"There are times when love demands that you break the rules." - Father Patrick
This could be stretched to justify all sorts of ridiculousness, but in general...I'm a fan. It's a quote from this amazing priest at Mother's House. Father Patrick, from Tijuana. He plays guitar. And I'm stealing one of his talks as a devo for campers this summer.
Dear brain, please focus. Love, Stephanie.
Sonagachi. The largest red-light district in all of Kolkata. Hundreds of multi-story brothels. I went with Sam, my wonderful Kiwi roommate. Yet again, why do I have so many close friends named Sam?! We went around five pm, before it got dark, via Metro. We asked for directions at the internet place and at Paragon before leaving, and again in the metro station and no the street on the way there. Everyone had the exact same response - wide eyes, nervous smile, and why you want to go there?" or "what you do there?" or, at one point, "you know what happens in that place, yes?" Indeed, we knew. And that's why we were going. The last person we asked for directions was a police officer, leaning against his bike just a block away from Sonagachi. He walked us part of the way there.
SO WHY WASN'T HE DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!
I mean, I know why. Because he's a police officer, which means he gets first pick of the new girls, and in exchange he gets to lean against his bike all day and ignore the twelve-year-olds getting raped and beaten in the buildings next door.
The brothels are huge. The buildings are imposingly tall. And the women are EVERYWHERE. Hundreds, thousands of women, wearing make-up to make their faces lighter, bright red lipstick, dark black eyeliner. And western clothes. Flowy skirts and tight tank tops. Some wear jeans, the same skin-tight type we wear daily in America. And tall shoes. They look disconcertingly like someone in between normal American teenager and little girl playing dress up with mommy's make up. But they're twenty, thirty, forty years old.
And all they do is stand there and pose. Arms crossed, chin raised, waiting. In groups of five, ten, twenty.
And the men! Ugh. Many more men than women. Standing around, joking, trying to appear inconspicuous. Shut up. We all know why you're here. Hsdfjaldsjfkld! I wanted to get them all in a group together and show them videos about the emotional and physical effects of sex trafficking. I wanted to explain to them that women are more than their bodies. I wanted to tell them how their actions affect their wives. I...aaaaah! Sex trafficking will not stop until the buyers receive some sort of consequence for their actions. Apne Aap is working to pass legislation to punish the buyers. Currently, the women get punished for "inappropriate soliciting." How absurd is that? When they've been trafficked at eleven and twelve and forced through "debt" to stay in the brothel. What a ridiculous legal system.
Anyway, Sam wanted to buy sweets ('cause why not stop and buy sweets in the middle of a red-light district?), which ended up being a fantastic idea. It meant that we stood in one place for awhile, which meant that, after walking around a bit, we were called over by some of the women (two wearing saris, one wearing a green flowy tiered skirt and a black tank top and flip-flops - just what I would wear in the summer) the second time we walked by. I had been waiting the entire night to talk with women. Any women. We stood around with them for about fifteen minutes. Don't worry, no one thought we were prostitutes. And we didn't go inside the brothel. And we didn't face the street or pose with them. We talked about how I learned Bangla, our families, marriage, why I'm in Kolkata, their thoughts about America, my nose piercing and why my ears aren't pierced (Indian women love to ask me about my lack of holes in my earlobes) ...we pretty much exhausted my Bangla skills. And omigosh, it was wonderful. We laughed. We joked. They touched my hands and liked my henna. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH so wonderful.
I think two of them might have been pregnant.
And walking back, I realized something. I remember flipping through the YWAM guide post-Mexico, looking at all the ministry options. I remember seeing "prostitute outreach" and thinking "no freaking way." But now...yeah. I would love to do ministry with prostitutes, former prostitutes, children of prostitutes. I don't know if I have the stamina, or if I'm extroverted enough. I know I'm not mature enough, nor do I have the wisdom or the language skills to be effective in India.
But maybe I will eventually?
Okay, that's all.
Time to print photos for my girls.
Oh, also. One more list.
What I didn't expect to bring back from India:
1. An inherent distrust of men who walk by me on the street.
2. A lack of sympathy for many people's problems. After seeing a naked baby covered in flies sleeping on the street, everything else seems so minimal. I'm going to need to pray a lot about this. I know that suffering is relative to the individual. I just need to learn to feel universal empathy. And I'm going to need to ask for patience from my friends and family. Please be gracious to me if I say something like "but it doesn't matter" when you tell me about something that bothers you. I'm sorry in advance.
3. A passion for medical work. Thanks Kalighat.
4. A love of cold showers.
5. Lice. JK, I don't think I have lice.
6. A henna addiction.
Goodnight!
Love and preparation pandas,
Stephanie
So this post might be a blob.
What I Will Not Miss:
1. Men trying to talk to me (or just looking at me) while they pee in public
2. Not being able to sleep because of the heat
3. Having to grope-block men with my elbows seventeen thousand times a day
4. Wasting plastic by purchasing bottled water
5. Muttered comments about my appearance as I walk by men
6. "No problem, no problem" no matter how obvious the problem
What I Will Miss:
Everything else.
Really, everything. The beggars, the nauseating smells, the music, the bartering, the clothing, the colours, the dialects, the languages...and Kalighat. And my girls.
Everyone at Apne Aap keeps asking me when I'm coming back. "Amar ke khub bhalo lagbe, kintu kolkhon jani na." I would like it very much, but I don't know when.
Aaah! I'm considering lots and lots of options about returning, but I know that everything will happen according to God's timing. It'll all work out according to His will, thankfully.
Gosh, my brain is going bingbingbing today.
"There are times when love demands that you break the rules." - Father Patrick
This could be stretched to justify all sorts of ridiculousness, but in general...I'm a fan. It's a quote from this amazing priest at Mother's House. Father Patrick, from Tijuana. He plays guitar. And I'm stealing one of his talks as a devo for campers this summer.
Dear brain, please focus. Love, Stephanie.
Sonagachi. The largest red-light district in all of Kolkata. Hundreds of multi-story brothels. I went with Sam, my wonderful Kiwi roommate. Yet again, why do I have so many close friends named Sam?! We went around five pm, before it got dark, via Metro. We asked for directions at the internet place and at Paragon before leaving, and again in the metro station and no the street on the way there. Everyone had the exact same response - wide eyes, nervous smile, and why you want to go there?" or "what you do there?" or, at one point, "you know what happens in that place, yes?" Indeed, we knew. And that's why we were going. The last person we asked for directions was a police officer, leaning against his bike just a block away from Sonagachi. He walked us part of the way there.
SO WHY WASN'T HE DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!
I mean, I know why. Because he's a police officer, which means he gets first pick of the new girls, and in exchange he gets to lean against his bike all day and ignore the twelve-year-olds getting raped and beaten in the buildings next door.
The brothels are huge. The buildings are imposingly tall. And the women are EVERYWHERE. Hundreds, thousands of women, wearing make-up to make their faces lighter, bright red lipstick, dark black eyeliner. And western clothes. Flowy skirts and tight tank tops. Some wear jeans, the same skin-tight type we wear daily in America. And tall shoes. They look disconcertingly like someone in between normal American teenager and little girl playing dress up with mommy's make up. But they're twenty, thirty, forty years old.
And all they do is stand there and pose. Arms crossed, chin raised, waiting. In groups of five, ten, twenty.
And the men! Ugh. Many more men than women. Standing around, joking, trying to appear inconspicuous. Shut up. We all know why you're here. Hsdfjaldsjfkld! I wanted to get them all in a group together and show them videos about the emotional and physical effects of sex trafficking. I wanted to explain to them that women are more than their bodies. I wanted to tell them how their actions affect their wives. I...aaaaah! Sex trafficking will not stop until the buyers receive some sort of consequence for their actions. Apne Aap is working to pass legislation to punish the buyers. Currently, the women get punished for "inappropriate soliciting." How absurd is that? When they've been trafficked at eleven and twelve and forced through "debt" to stay in the brothel. What a ridiculous legal system.
Anyway, Sam wanted to buy sweets ('cause why not stop and buy sweets in the middle of a red-light district?), which ended up being a fantastic idea. It meant that we stood in one place for awhile, which meant that, after walking around a bit, we were called over by some of the women (two wearing saris, one wearing a green flowy tiered skirt and a black tank top and flip-flops - just what I would wear in the summer) the second time we walked by. I had been waiting the entire night to talk with women. Any women. We stood around with them for about fifteen minutes. Don't worry, no one thought we were prostitutes. And we didn't go inside the brothel. And we didn't face the street or pose with them. We talked about how I learned Bangla, our families, marriage, why I'm in Kolkata, their thoughts about America, my nose piercing and why my ears aren't pierced (Indian women love to ask me about my lack of holes in my earlobes) ...we pretty much exhausted my Bangla skills. And omigosh, it was wonderful. We laughed. We joked. They touched my hands and liked my henna. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH so wonderful.
I think two of them might have been pregnant.
And walking back, I realized something. I remember flipping through the YWAM guide post-Mexico, looking at all the ministry options. I remember seeing "prostitute outreach" and thinking "no freaking way." But now...yeah. I would love to do ministry with prostitutes, former prostitutes, children of prostitutes. I don't know if I have the stamina, or if I'm extroverted enough. I know I'm not mature enough, nor do I have the wisdom or the language skills to be effective in India.
But maybe I will eventually?
Okay, that's all.
Time to print photos for my girls.
Oh, also. One more list.
What I didn't expect to bring back from India:
1. An inherent distrust of men who walk by me on the street.
2. A lack of sympathy for many people's problems. After seeing a naked baby covered in flies sleeping on the street, everything else seems so minimal. I'm going to need to pray a lot about this. I know that suffering is relative to the individual. I just need to learn to feel universal empathy. And I'm going to need to ask for patience from my friends and family. Please be gracious to me if I say something like "but it doesn't matter" when you tell me about something that bothers you. I'm sorry in advance.
3. A passion for medical work. Thanks Kalighat.
4. A love of cold showers.
5. Lice. JK, I don't think I have lice.
6. A henna addiction.
Goodnight!
Love and preparation pandas,
Stephanie
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Problem.
We all knew this would happen.
Today, the mother of my favourite child in all of India (Dipa) told me that she wants me to adopt Dipa and bring her to America.
For serious.
And I can't, 'cause I'm...
a) 19
b) not married
c) not done with college
d) not planning on settling down with a kid any time soon
e) not fluent in Bangla
However, explaining this to Shoma, Dipa's mother, was not fun.
Especially because, approximately two weeks ago, I posted a picture of Dipa on Facebook and captioned it with "Dipa Sardar. I'm bringing her back to the States with me."
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Love and trying-to-not-adopt-a-kid,
Stephanie
(we've been making silly faces at each other since the first day I came to Apne Aap)
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Some numbers.
Hmm. A few days. A week? A little more than a week.
Ten days.
Ten days is a long time, right? A week of camp is only five days, and if done right, it can feel pretty close to eternal. Ten days is darn close to forever.
I have this theory called India Age. Before I explain it, let me promise that it's completely flawed for many, many reasons. But I've been thinking about it, so I've decided to type it up.
Okay, so...I'm nineteen. I've met a few travelers here who are nineteen, three eighteen. And I'm friends with a lot of people who are in their mid-late twenties and early thirties. But what's strange is this: I've found that I never believe the people who tell me they're eighteen, nineteen, twenty. They look and act so much older. I tell them they're lying. They're really twenty-seven. And then when I admit to being nineteen, everyone looks at me funny and says "no you're not. Wait, really? You don't act like you're nineteen." And though they assure me that I don't seem nineteen, they can't tell me what age they thought I was.
A few days ago, I stayed up super-late with a guy from Australia, a girl from Holland, and a few other Americans (there haven't been many Americans in Paragon until recently; I don't know why they all decide to come to Kolkata in time for sweltering heat). After being generally giggly and joking about metaphysics (it was a fantastic group), we got to talking about age. Turns out there were two nineteens, one twenty-four, one twenty-five, one twenty-seven, and one twenty-eight. And the guy that I had clicked best with was, in fact, the oldest, and I was the youngest. And I didn't believe Simone when she said she was nineteen, and no one believed me until I showed them the graduation date on my IWU shirt.
Thus, I'm starting to think that maybe technical age, in terms of time spent on earth, isn't something we think about here.
I think we tend to think about age a lot in the States because it's easy to compare people by age. We're all on vaguely the same path - high school, college, job, family (which is a silly set of restrictions, p.s.), so it's easy to think of someone who's older as having generally more life experience. Here? No. We're all in India. We're all experiencing something completely new, and it's as if the moment our planes land our age hits the reset button. And I've noticed that it seems we all interact as if we're exactly the same age, with one clear exception: those who have been here longer are communicated with as if they're older, and the people who have been here for less time act more like worried children or teenagers concerned about their impression on others. Which creates an odd social conundrum for me, because I'm technically the baby of nearly every group, but I'm treated as one of the oldest because I've been here for four months.
Hm.
Second topic involving numbers: the temperature. It's freaking hot. This hot. But it feels hotter. I've never felt this type of heat. It feels thick, like constant damp heaviness pressing in on all sides. It's hard to breathe. It's near impossible to sleep. I've been waking up with migraines from the pressure. I asked Reshma (at Apne Aap) if it gets hotter, and she said yes. Much hotter. The forecast is 100 for the day I leave.
Third topic, then I'm off to Kalighat.
Money. Gosh, money is weird. For the next two weeks, I'm literally living off of two dollars a day, not counting rent. This is quite easy to do here.
Walk to Motherhouse: free.
Breakfast: free.
Bus to Kalighat: 4 rupees.
Tea at Kalighat: free.
Metro to Park Street: 2 rupees.
Lunch at Apne Aap: free.
Auto to Park Street: 6 rupees.
Dinner at Khalsa, Tirupati, wherever: approximately 25 rupees.
Water during the day: 20 rupees.
Internet: 20 rupees.
Actually, that's 52 rupees. Which is a dollar.
And then there's rent, which is 125 rupees a day.
That's around 180 rupees a day, which is about $3.50.
The exchange rate is so screwy.
I'll write more about this later.
About how McDonald's is one of the most expensive restaurants in Kolkata.
It's Kalighat time.
Love and numbers,
Stephanie
Ten days.
Ten days is a long time, right? A week of camp is only five days, and if done right, it can feel pretty close to eternal. Ten days is darn close to forever.
I have this theory called India Age. Before I explain it, let me promise that it's completely flawed for many, many reasons. But I've been thinking about it, so I've decided to type it up.
Okay, so...I'm nineteen. I've met a few travelers here who are nineteen, three eighteen. And I'm friends with a lot of people who are in their mid-late twenties and early thirties. But what's strange is this: I've found that I never believe the people who tell me they're eighteen, nineteen, twenty. They look and act so much older. I tell them they're lying. They're really twenty-seven. And then when I admit to being nineteen, everyone looks at me funny and says "no you're not. Wait, really? You don't act like you're nineteen." And though they assure me that I don't seem nineteen, they can't tell me what age they thought I was.
A few days ago, I stayed up super-late with a guy from Australia, a girl from Holland, and a few other Americans (there haven't been many Americans in Paragon until recently; I don't know why they all decide to come to Kolkata in time for sweltering heat). After being generally giggly and joking about metaphysics (it was a fantastic group), we got to talking about age. Turns out there were two nineteens, one twenty-four, one twenty-five, one twenty-seven, and one twenty-eight. And the guy that I had clicked best with was, in fact, the oldest, and I was the youngest. And I didn't believe Simone when she said she was nineteen, and no one believed me until I showed them the graduation date on my IWU shirt.
Thus, I'm starting to think that maybe technical age, in terms of time spent on earth, isn't something we think about here.
I think we tend to think about age a lot in the States because it's easy to compare people by age. We're all on vaguely the same path - high school, college, job, family (which is a silly set of restrictions, p.s.), so it's easy to think of someone who's older as having generally more life experience. Here? No. We're all in India. We're all experiencing something completely new, and it's as if the moment our planes land our age hits the reset button. And I've noticed that it seems we all interact as if we're exactly the same age, with one clear exception: those who have been here longer are communicated with as if they're older, and the people who have been here for less time act more like worried children or teenagers concerned about their impression on others. Which creates an odd social conundrum for me, because I'm technically the baby of nearly every group, but I'm treated as one of the oldest because I've been here for four months.
Hm.
Second topic involving numbers: the temperature. It's freaking hot. This hot. But it feels hotter. I've never felt this type of heat. It feels thick, like constant damp heaviness pressing in on all sides. It's hard to breathe. It's near impossible to sleep. I've been waking up with migraines from the pressure. I asked Reshma (at Apne Aap) if it gets hotter, and she said yes. Much hotter. The forecast is 100 for the day I leave.
Third topic, then I'm off to Kalighat.
Money. Gosh, money is weird. For the next two weeks, I'm literally living off of two dollars a day, not counting rent. This is quite easy to do here.
Walk to Motherhouse: free.
Breakfast: free.
Bus to Kalighat: 4 rupees.
Tea at Kalighat: free.
Metro to Park Street: 2 rupees.
Lunch at Apne Aap: free.
Auto to Park Street: 6 rupees.
Dinner at Khalsa, Tirupati, wherever: approximately 25 rupees.
Water during the day: 20 rupees.
Internet: 20 rupees.
Actually, that's 52 rupees. Which is a dollar.
And then there's rent, which is 125 rupees a day.
That's around 180 rupees a day, which is about $3.50.
The exchange rate is so screwy.
I'll write more about this later.
About how McDonald's is one of the most expensive restaurants in Kolkata.
It's Kalighat time.
Love and numbers,
Stephanie
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Red lights and grapefruit concentrate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHUQht1HRmY&feature=PlayList&p=EE44B22B10AF8653&index=0
Best song ever, seriously.
Okay, this entry might be a bit chaotic.
I think I make that disclaimer every time I post.
I leave Kolkata in two weeks, and I'm having difficulty not thinking about returning to the States. Not because I want to leave, but because I'm so conflicted about it. I'm so excited to see my friends and family in America, but really, you all are the only part of America that I miss. If everyone close to me in America were to come to India, I don't think I'd have a reason ever go back to the States.
Tonight, I went out to dinner with a bunch of Americans, and it was weird. They're really sweet people, and I like them a lot. It was just...being around so much AMERICA was overwhelming. And the American accent annoys me. I'm so used to India - I feel home here. America feels disconcertingly foreign.
Okay, enough of that.
I went to the Red Light District on Tuesday.
It was awful.
The street itself looked like any other slightly out-of-the-way Kolkata street. There were children running around everywhere. Streetside restaurants. Little shops selling water and biscuits and chips. The only difference was the women. There were loads of them, maybe fifty. They waited just outside of the buildings - the younger ones (my age and a little younger) wearing spandex-y skirts in day-glo colours and tight tops, the older ones (30, 40) in saris. The older ones sitting on barrels, boxes, the sidewalk itself. The younger ones literally posing in groups together, arms crossed, seductively staring into nothingness.
The younger girls are hidden inside the brothels. The women are only allowed outside when they've been there for awhile, been beaten, raped, broken in. Inside the brothel are the girls, as young as seven, who have been sold, trafficked from Nepal and smaller Indian villages with the promise of work and money.
We got out of the cab and walked through part of the district.
Looked the women straight in the eyes - namaste, di. They smiled.
What to do? I have no idea.
In the cab on the way back, I asked Sraboni what would happen if we just swiped a girl by cab from the street and took her somewhere else. She said the girl would think we were trying to traffic her to be a prostitute in a different city. It takes years to earn trust, which is why Apne Aap's self-help groups are so committed to work with the same women for so long.
I finally found out why I'm teaching English to my specific group of girls. At their age, they're about to get married. Many of them will be tricked into becoming prostitutes in the name of marriage. So instead of being sold (dowry) into an arranged marriage, their families will accidentally pay a pimp and they'll be relocated to the red-light district.
I'm teaching them English because, if they get trapped, girls with job skills are more motivated to break free and find different work.
This is such a mess.
I hate sex trafficking.
While walking through the district, I talked with Mimi, our guide. I met her back in January on my first day at Apne Aap. That was the day I sat in a room full of women who I didn't realize were prostitutes, and didn't understand anything they said 'cause it was all in Bangla. I hadn't seen her since that day. On Tuesday, Mimi and I spoke. In Bangla. About her family, and the area through which we were walking. Yeah, my grammar sucks, but I still understood a little and could speak a little. Enough that when she asked me in Bangla if I had children (tumi chelemeye ache?), I responded quickly with "ami chelemeye bhalo lagke, kintu ekhon na." I would like children, but not now. Wow. I didn't know a word of that the last time I saw her.
I've been having a few full circle moments like that one. Yesterday, I bought a skirt near New Market. There are a bunch of guys who sell skirts on racks outside the market, big flowy skirts, the kind I like. My second day in Kolkata, I was looking through the skirts, and ended up having a skirt shoved at me and I didn't know what to do so I paid 250 rupees and walked away. And at the time, I tried to speak Bangla, but didn't know what I was doing...it was bad. Thus, I promised myself that I would buy a few skirts before I left, but not buy any until the last two weeks.
Yesterday, I looked through every skirt stall. Weirdly, there were only a few skirts that I wanted to buy. I remember looking through the stalls a few months ago and wanting all of them. This means my sense of clothing has completely morphed without me noticing. And the skirt is orange and purple and pink. Hmmm. Anyway, I settled on one skirt. Bartered it down to 75 rupees, in Bangla. I said no in Bangla. I asked for colours and smaller sizes in Bangla. I said "stop, I know what I'm doing" in Bangla. Everything in Bangla.
And it was so much fun.
Amar ke bangla khub bhalo lagge.
I like Bangla a lot.
Awesome moment at Kalighat earlier this week. There's this woman named Chanda who, a few weeks back, another volunteer told me was "dramatic" and "faking for attention." I believe her. Chanda asks for bedpans when she can walk just fine, and then cries the entire time on the way to and in the bathroom. Argh. Thus, I haven't spent much time with her.
A few days ago, there were a ton of volunteers, so I sat down and massaged Chanda's feet for awhile. I didn't know what else to do, so I asked one of the Sisters. She pointed at Chanda and said "this one needs a lot of love." Wow. The one the other volunteers said to avoid, Sister says needs love. So I massaged her hands, back, legs, feet, for...an hour? A long panda time. And we didn't talk. And when it was tea time, Chanda just stared at me. And I touched her forehead to mine, 'cause that's a blessing. And that was all.
Apne Aap. My girls are amazing. I adore them. In an effort to figure out how well they can distinguish English sounds, I gave them a dictation test. "Industrial engineering" and "grapefruit concentrate." Man, that was a mess. I've decided to ditch the white board and teach them everything via speech.
Uh, Kohinoor is adopting a kid. She's 17, Kohinoor. And she mentioned something about her son, and I was like what? And then she told me that he's six years old, and is learning to read, and his mother is very poor, so she's adopting him. And she's SO EXCITED about it. I asked her if she wanted to get married, and she said no. Gosh. Kohinoor's adopting a kid eleven years younger than her.
I saw a naked baby sleeping on a mat on the sidewalk. His mouth was encrusted with dirt, his stomach was super-bloated and he was covered in flies. I didn't know what to do, so I took a photo.
This + red light district = I'm just starting to understand the ridiculous suffering in Kolkata.
I'm going to try to go to Sonagachi tomorrow. Largest red-light district in India. Place Born Into Brothels was filmed. I've heard there are children dressed in make-up and tight clothes everywhere. Please pray for them.
Okay, this was long.
I'm gonna go back to Paragon now.
Love and three-months-late culture shock,
Stephanie
Best song ever, seriously.
Okay, this entry might be a bit chaotic.
I think I make that disclaimer every time I post.
I leave Kolkata in two weeks, and I'm having difficulty not thinking about returning to the States. Not because I want to leave, but because I'm so conflicted about it. I'm so excited to see my friends and family in America, but really, you all are the only part of America that I miss. If everyone close to me in America were to come to India, I don't think I'd have a reason ever go back to the States.
Tonight, I went out to dinner with a bunch of Americans, and it was weird. They're really sweet people, and I like them a lot. It was just...being around so much AMERICA was overwhelming. And the American accent annoys me. I'm so used to India - I feel home here. America feels disconcertingly foreign.
Okay, enough of that.
I went to the Red Light District on Tuesday.
It was awful.
The street itself looked like any other slightly out-of-the-way Kolkata street. There were children running around everywhere. Streetside restaurants. Little shops selling water and biscuits and chips. The only difference was the women. There were loads of them, maybe fifty. They waited just outside of the buildings - the younger ones (my age and a little younger) wearing spandex-y skirts in day-glo colours and tight tops, the older ones (30, 40) in saris. The older ones sitting on barrels, boxes, the sidewalk itself. The younger ones literally posing in groups together, arms crossed, seductively staring into nothingness.
The younger girls are hidden inside the brothels. The women are only allowed outside when they've been there for awhile, been beaten, raped, broken in. Inside the brothel are the girls, as young as seven, who have been sold, trafficked from Nepal and smaller Indian villages with the promise of work and money.
We got out of the cab and walked through part of the district.
Looked the women straight in the eyes - namaste, di. They smiled.
What to do? I have no idea.
In the cab on the way back, I asked Sraboni what would happen if we just swiped a girl by cab from the street and took her somewhere else. She said the girl would think we were trying to traffic her to be a prostitute in a different city. It takes years to earn trust, which is why Apne Aap's self-help groups are so committed to work with the same women for so long.
I finally found out why I'm teaching English to my specific group of girls. At their age, they're about to get married. Many of them will be tricked into becoming prostitutes in the name of marriage. So instead of being sold (dowry) into an arranged marriage, their families will accidentally pay a pimp and they'll be relocated to the red-light district.
I'm teaching them English because, if they get trapped, girls with job skills are more motivated to break free and find different work.
This is such a mess.
I hate sex trafficking.
While walking through the district, I talked with Mimi, our guide. I met her back in January on my first day at Apne Aap. That was the day I sat in a room full of women who I didn't realize were prostitutes, and didn't understand anything they said 'cause it was all in Bangla. I hadn't seen her since that day. On Tuesday, Mimi and I spoke. In Bangla. About her family, and the area through which we were walking. Yeah, my grammar sucks, but I still understood a little and could speak a little. Enough that when she asked me in Bangla if I had children (tumi chelemeye ache?), I responded quickly with "ami chelemeye bhalo lagke, kintu ekhon na." I would like children, but not now. Wow. I didn't know a word of that the last time I saw her.
I've been having a few full circle moments like that one. Yesterday, I bought a skirt near New Market. There are a bunch of guys who sell skirts on racks outside the market, big flowy skirts, the kind I like. My second day in Kolkata, I was looking through the skirts, and ended up having a skirt shoved at me and I didn't know what to do so I paid 250 rupees and walked away. And at the time, I tried to speak Bangla, but didn't know what I was doing...it was bad. Thus, I promised myself that I would buy a few skirts before I left, but not buy any until the last two weeks.
Yesterday, I looked through every skirt stall. Weirdly, there were only a few skirts that I wanted to buy. I remember looking through the stalls a few months ago and wanting all of them. This means my sense of clothing has completely morphed without me noticing. And the skirt is orange and purple and pink. Hmmm. Anyway, I settled on one skirt. Bartered it down to 75 rupees, in Bangla. I said no in Bangla. I asked for colours and smaller sizes in Bangla. I said "stop, I know what I'm doing" in Bangla. Everything in Bangla.
And it was so much fun.
Amar ke bangla khub bhalo lagge.
I like Bangla a lot.
Awesome moment at Kalighat earlier this week. There's this woman named Chanda who, a few weeks back, another volunteer told me was "dramatic" and "faking for attention." I believe her. Chanda asks for bedpans when she can walk just fine, and then cries the entire time on the way to and in the bathroom. Argh. Thus, I haven't spent much time with her.
A few days ago, there were a ton of volunteers, so I sat down and massaged Chanda's feet for awhile. I didn't know what else to do, so I asked one of the Sisters. She pointed at Chanda and said "this one needs a lot of love." Wow. The one the other volunteers said to avoid, Sister says needs love. So I massaged her hands, back, legs, feet, for...an hour? A long panda time. And we didn't talk. And when it was tea time, Chanda just stared at me. And I touched her forehead to mine, 'cause that's a blessing. And that was all.
Apne Aap. My girls are amazing. I adore them. In an effort to figure out how well they can distinguish English sounds, I gave them a dictation test. "Industrial engineering" and "grapefruit concentrate." Man, that was a mess. I've decided to ditch the white board and teach them everything via speech.
Uh, Kohinoor is adopting a kid. She's 17, Kohinoor. And she mentioned something about her son, and I was like what? And then she told me that he's six years old, and is learning to read, and his mother is very poor, so she's adopting him. And she's SO EXCITED about it. I asked her if she wanted to get married, and she said no. Gosh. Kohinoor's adopting a kid eleven years younger than her.
I saw a naked baby sleeping on a mat on the sidewalk. His mouth was encrusted with dirt, his stomach was super-bloated and he was covered in flies. I didn't know what to do, so I took a photo.
This + red light district = I'm just starting to understand the ridiculous suffering in Kolkata.
I'm going to try to go to Sonagachi tomorrow. Largest red-light district in India. Place Born Into Brothels was filmed. I've heard there are children dressed in make-up and tight clothes everywhere. Please pray for them.
Okay, this was long.
I'm gonna go back to Paragon now.
Love and three-months-late culture shock,
Stephanie
Friday, March 20, 2009
Quick moment.
Most of this is paraphrasted (paraphrased + pasted) from a message I sent to Josefin.
God did something super this morning. Actually, He did super stuff all day, but this was something I wrote in my journal. I was sitting in a travellers' cafe eating lunch and reading Luke. And because I'm ADD, I was daydreaming while reading the story about the possessed pigs who run off the cliff, thinking about the moment I'm going to see my family in the airport at five AM, and whining in my head about how, even though I really like my family, I also really want to stay in India. And then, while in the midst of my thought stupor, I read this:
"The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying "return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over the town how much Jesus had done for him." - Luke 8:38-39.
When God rocks our world, He doesn't want us to just follow Him along, kissing His feet. We're supposed to thank God for what He's done, and sing praises and all that good stuff. But there's a difference between sitting around thanking God and being motivated by God's love to go actively love. God wants us to run back to the people who knew us BEFORE He rocked our world, and tell them what He's done. More than that, He wants us to show the people closest to us how He's changed us. The guy in Luke 8 had been chained to a rock, hidden away, because He was possessed and unwanted in society. When he went back to town, it must have been obvious how God had healed him. I've written before about how I still don't know quite how God has changed me in India, and I know it's nowhere close to kicking out a legion of demons. But I'm still excited to run back to the US, to telltelltell about the awesome stuff God has done in India.
Hmmmmmmmm.
Thoughts?
Love and gogogo,
Stephanie
God did something super this morning. Actually, He did super stuff all day, but this was something I wrote in my journal. I was sitting in a travellers' cafe eating lunch and reading Luke. And because I'm ADD, I was daydreaming while reading the story about the possessed pigs who run off the cliff, thinking about the moment I'm going to see my family in the airport at five AM, and whining in my head about how, even though I really like my family, I also really want to stay in India. And then, while in the midst of my thought stupor, I read this:
"The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying "return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over the town how much Jesus had done for him." - Luke 8:38-39.
When God rocks our world, He doesn't want us to just follow Him along, kissing His feet. We're supposed to thank God for what He's done, and sing praises and all that good stuff. But there's a difference between sitting around thanking God and being motivated by God's love to go actively love. God wants us to run back to the people who knew us BEFORE He rocked our world, and tell them what He's done. More than that, He wants us to show the people closest to us how He's changed us. The guy in Luke 8 had been chained to a rock, hidden away, because He was possessed and unwanted in society. When he went back to town, it must have been obvious how God had healed him. I've written before about how I still don't know quite how God has changed me in India, and I know it's nowhere close to kicking out a legion of demons. But I'm still excited to run back to the US, to telltelltell about the awesome stuff God has done in India.
Hmmmmmmmm.
Thoughts?
Love and gogogo,
Stephanie
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Leprosy and Philippians 4:13
Something amazing happened today. I feel so ridiculously blessed, and I don't know how to thank God enough. When I was first at Kalighat, there was this woman named Barka. I'm not sure whether I ever talked about her. She's pretty young, maybe 35, and I didn't really understand why she was in Kalighat for so long. She seemed healthy, except her foot was always bandaged. We got to know each other pretty well because she used to sing, all the time. Like, she would see me and start singing. In Hindi. And she sang beautifully! She'd follow me around the room with her eyes and sing until I sat with her. When she was tired or upset or in pain, I would sing Sufjan to her, and then her mood would lighten, and she'd sing a Hindi gan (song) back to me. She was super. Then I walked into Kalighat one day, and she wasn't there. I assumed she had been released, because really her foot was the only thing medically wrong with her. She never came back. Weird. ...I'll come back to this in a few paragraphs. :-)
Today, I went to the leprosy center about an hour outside of Kolkata! Woohooooo!
Yesterday, I realized that the trips to the center are the third Thursday of the month, and suddenly was like "oh crap this is my last chance!! Aaaah oh no!" So I went to registration at three, and the sister told me that registration for the trip had been in the morning. I asked if she could add one more. She said absolutely not, because only 25 are allowed. More than 25 is just too many people for the leader of the trip to handle, and the trains are really crowded. I pouted, but understood. No trip for me.
...and then I found out that Peter and his parents (P.S., Peter's parents are here, and I adore them) had registered, so I decided to go anyway, prepared to be sent away if anyone found out I hadn't registered.
Peter and I woke up super-early and walked to Motherhouse. We were supposed to get there for a pre-departure meeting at seven, but we got there near the end of the meeting. My friend Jeff (not Jeff who left [but he's back again], a different Jeff) was briefing everyone on info about the center. Two minutes later, Jeff walked over to me and said "hey, you can lead this, right?" I said no, I hadn't been to the center before, but at the same time Jeff quieted the entire room, pointed at me, smiled, and said "this is Stephanie, she'll be your leader! She knows where she's going, so follow her." What? As everyone began to talk again, Jeff turned to me and said "it's okay, no one I appoint as leader has ever been there before. Don't worry about it." Then he gave me the list of people registered to go to the center, and said "you don't really have to check this, but theoretically you should, just to make sure everyone's here." I checked it. Everyone was here...plus me, the only one not on the list.
At that moment, I kind of felt God laughing at me a little. The reason Sister said I couldn't go was because more than 25 was too many for the leader to handle. And I was the leader. So I had to deal with the stress of keeping track of too-many-people. Plus, I was the only one with the list, which meant only I knew I never registered. Whoa.
I head-counted (27, Sister had let two extra people register, and there was only one no show) and we all hopped on the bus to Sealdah station. I head counted again and we all bought tickets. Then to the train. Counted as they went on the train. While on the train, I suddenly realized that I know Bangla. Okay, I really don't, but what little I know is extremely useful. People in the group asked me to talk with men on the train for them, to purchase fruit and figure out the location of our stop. It was craziness. While on the train, I talked with Jon, a guy from DC who is TEFL certified and taught English in Korea for awhile. Cool.
Forty minutes later, we arrived, head-counted, crossed the tracks, and walked to the Brothers' House. Brief intro. The center is a place for people who have had leprosy to live and work. The center seems fully self-run - there's a giant cloth factory, gardens, huge dorms, a school, etc. Even though leprosy is now fully treatable and curable, it's still a disease that, in India, completely outcasts people from society. The lepers / former lepers need a place to live, so Momma T started a center for them to work, make money, eat, sleep, etc.
Tour time. I quickly realized that I strongly dislike guided tours, and lagged way behind everyone the entire time. First tour place was the...gosh, what do you call a place where people make fabric? Loomery? I don't know. We walked in to the sound of "clickclackclickclackclickclack...". Women rolled thread onto spools, men wove thread into fabric on giant looms. I greeted most women - Nammashkar di. I stood in front of one weaving machine mabobber for awhile, trying to figure out how it worked. I asked the woman. She offered me a try. Absolutely. I sat down and spun and MAN it burned my fingers! I had to use my hand as a corner to brace the thread, and the thread spun super-fast, like a rope burn + paper cut. I yelped. The woman laughed. I asked to see her fingers. They were hard-core calloused exactly where mine were red. We Nammashkarred again, I thanked her, walked on. Took a picture of the giant loom, with permission from the men. They wanted to pose with Peter. They did. Hehe.
Walk walk walk...to a zillion other places. Dyeing room (fabric), nursery (babies!), gardens, prosthetics workshop, classroom (kids!), and a bunch of other rooms. I think I ignored every component of every presentation. I decided it would be better to talk with the people who live in the center. Yep. Definitely. During the fabric dyeing talk, there were four women sitting to the side, eating lunch. They greeted me first - Namaste. I said "kaemon achen," and we spoke for a few minutes. Omigosh, I know enough Bangla to have a conversation. Omigosh. I love Bangla.
Then to the kitchen...same deal. Some presentation, I talked with the people hanging around the kitchen. Then the nursery, and I talked with the women. Then the school..."namaste, chelemeye!" They sang a song. Shundor gan. Everyone was so excited that I spoke Bangla. It was amazing. I talked with approximately everyone I saw. Tours are lameskees. Communication is pandatastic. Granted, I know nearly nothing about the center, but that's okay.
At the end of the tour, we walked through the wards. I didn't talk with the men, 'cause they're men and it's weird for a woman to initiate conversation with men. I had been waiting the entire time for the women's ward, so I could talk with the women. I was jumpy. So excited. I walked into the GIANT ward - maybe 200 beds - and had no idea with whom I should sit. Actually, sitting with them wasn't even in the schedule. We were supposed to walk through and leave. The room was a giant dorm stretching to the right, so I looked to the left and gasped. I don't remember the last time I've gasped.
Barka was sitting on the bed two meters away from me.
I may or may not have shrieked "Barka?!" And she freaked out too. Not as much as me; she was tired. But I think we exchanged "Barka?!" "hya" (yes) about ten times. I sat down, asked her how she was, she showed me her scars from the operation. She had been transferred to here from Kalighat to have med work done. We talked for a few minutes, and I couldn't help gushing in English about how much I adore her. She gave me a "you're being a doofus, but it's nice to see you too" look. Llsdfjkaiosdfjalsdfjsdklafjklasdfjaiosjfklsdafjklsdajfl BARKA! ...and I totally broke the rules and took a picture. She said it was okay. She's raising an eyebrow at me in the photo.
And then I had to leave. I walked out completely dazed. Barka. Gosh it was good to see her. And she looked so much happier than in her last few days at Kalighat. The center is much more spacious. At Kalighat, residents have to stay in bed. Here, they're free to walk around the center, which is a bunch of rooms bordering an outdoor garden.
Wrap-up meeting at the Brothers' House, I gave a quick "here's how we're taking the train back and then the Metro blah blah blah" and then back to the train.
I now understand why having more than 25 people on the leprosy center trip is a terrible idea. Public trains in India are "fit as many as you can," standing. And they only stop for about ten seconds. So when the train came, we jammed everyone in the car. Not too crowded, but we left one Japanese girl at the station. Peter jumped off at the next stop and waited. After about twenty minutes on the crowded train, it got really crowded. Like, squished. Not even "I appear to be pressed in on all sides," but more than that. Like, close your eyes and think about what an orange through a juicer must feel like. Unfortunately, the train was mostly big sweaty men, and I am a woman. And yeah, I'm used to getting groped, 'cause it happens about every day, but that's usually little things, like a hand barely on my butt or a man's arm "accidentally" brushing my chest as he walks by. On the train (only once), I got full-on grabbed. If this had been two months ago, I would have felt violated, frozen up, but not done anything. This time, I punched him. ...not hard, because I'm not really capable of punching people. But he grabbed me, so I punched him, because it's MY body, not yours. Not okay. Rar.
For the rest of the train ride, I shielded the two Japanese girls who were next to me, so they wouldn't get groped. They were freaking out. I was fine, just extremely squished. And after grope number one I decided that no one else would grope me, so I elbowed everyone who inched closer to me. And they gave me looks of sheepish "I thought you wouldn't notice because you're a stupid American girl." GAH. And this guy next to me kept saying "next stop DumDum, move!" when it clearly was not possible to move. Jlsdfkja.
When we got to our stop, it was pushpushpush to leave the train. So I pushed. And four volunteers on the train didn't. Thus, we left two Italians and the two Japanese girls on the train. Fortunately, I had said in my briefing that you could either get off the train at DumDum and take the Metro to Sudder, or get off and Sealdah and take the bus to MotherHouse. There really wasn't anyway to follow them, and they were together, so we waited at the station for Peter and the other Japanese girl, who were on the next train. I felt awful. You know that camp counselor (or parent...) feeling when you lose a kid? Yeah. I had 26 kids. I lost four. They were together, and they're adults (I'm always the youngest one in every group - everyone is usually in their late twenties / thirties), so I figured they'd be fine. Sealdah's the last stop, and it's the station at which we started the day. So they knew where they were. But I still feel irresponsible and bad-mommyish for losing them.
Then we Metroed back to Sudder for lunch. And I napped. And now I'm awake and writing a lot.
I've been journalling a lot lately, trying to figure out exactly how I've changed in India. I've written on this blog before about little changes - working at Kalighat, for example. Before I came to India, and even during the first month here, I consistently said that I would never work at Kalighat. Ever. I said I just didn't have the ability to work with sick people, and especially not dying people. My mom's a nurse. I'm not. I can't do blood or wounds or IVs - aah!
But I've been at Kalighat for two months. And I love it. Not only do I love it, but not once have I thought "ew" or "I need to lie down now" or anything like that. And it's not that I haven't seen heavy stuff - my goodness, I have. There's Kamala, who I was with near constantly right before she died. Now I know what the "death wheeze" sounds like. There's Neda, who I saw dissolve in two weeks due to AIDS. There's this other woman, whose name I still don't know, whose husband poured boiling water over her head - so her entire scalp and chest are completely covered in burn wounds. And then there's Shanti, who Peter found on the street and brought in. She's the one who has wounds all over her body, to the bone. Yeah, that bothers me, just like all of this bothers me. But not in a "aslkfjasdoifj icky" way, rather in a "I hate that this is happening, now how can I help?" way.
My conclusion is this: since being here, I think I've started to learn the meaning of Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Strength has always been a sort of vague word in my mind. But after all that I've seen at Kailghat, I think I might get it. A little. I don't understand the strength that the men and women at Kalighat have - the sort of strength that causes a dying man to go "nope, don't feel like it today" and eat a ton, start walking, exercise, and leave healthy (true story). I don't understand that at all. Maybe it's something I would have to experience. I do, however, feel a little more in touch with the strength that God has granted me. In my life, strength is being able to do anything God asks of me, whether it's working at Kalighat, teaching a play in a language I don't know, or leading a group of 26 people who only partially speak English to a place I've never been. In India, I've been doing stuff I never thought I'd be able to do. I can't quite think of the word for what I've developed - resilience? No, I think strength is the right word. Yep. I can (apparently) do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And really it really is only through prayer and Bibling and faith and hope and recognizing God in everyone I see that I've developed the patience and endurance to do all this stuff.
Okay, dinnertime.
Oh, I forgot to mention - I talked with a lot of people at the center, which means I touched a lot of people - handshakes and such. Which means I've kind of achieved my goal upon coming to India, which was to hug lepers. Done. I can leave now.
...jk, I love my girls.
Going to the redlight district tomorrow night.
Faith, hope, and love,
Stephanie
P.S. Do I want this tattooed somewhere: আশা
It says "asha," which means "hope" in Bangla.
Hmmm.
Today, I went to the leprosy center about an hour outside of Kolkata! Woohooooo!
Yesterday, I realized that the trips to the center are the third Thursday of the month, and suddenly was like "oh crap this is my last chance!! Aaaah oh no!" So I went to registration at three, and the sister told me that registration for the trip had been in the morning. I asked if she could add one more. She said absolutely not, because only 25 are allowed. More than 25 is just too many people for the leader of the trip to handle, and the trains are really crowded. I pouted, but understood. No trip for me.
...and then I found out that Peter and his parents (P.S., Peter's parents are here, and I adore them) had registered, so I decided to go anyway, prepared to be sent away if anyone found out I hadn't registered.
Peter and I woke up super-early and walked to Motherhouse. We were supposed to get there for a pre-departure meeting at seven, but we got there near the end of the meeting. My friend Jeff (not Jeff who left [but he's back again], a different Jeff) was briefing everyone on info about the center. Two minutes later, Jeff walked over to me and said "hey, you can lead this, right?" I said no, I hadn't been to the center before, but at the same time Jeff quieted the entire room, pointed at me, smiled, and said "this is Stephanie, she'll be your leader! She knows where she's going, so follow her." What? As everyone began to talk again, Jeff turned to me and said "it's okay, no one I appoint as leader has ever been there before. Don't worry about it." Then he gave me the list of people registered to go to the center, and said "you don't really have to check this, but theoretically you should, just to make sure everyone's here." I checked it. Everyone was here...plus me, the only one not on the list.
At that moment, I kind of felt God laughing at me a little. The reason Sister said I couldn't go was because more than 25 was too many for the leader to handle. And I was the leader. So I had to deal with the stress of keeping track of too-many-people. Plus, I was the only one with the list, which meant only I knew I never registered. Whoa.
I head-counted (27, Sister had let two extra people register, and there was only one no show) and we all hopped on the bus to Sealdah station. I head counted again and we all bought tickets. Then to the train. Counted as they went on the train. While on the train, I suddenly realized that I know Bangla. Okay, I really don't, but what little I know is extremely useful. People in the group asked me to talk with men on the train for them, to purchase fruit and figure out the location of our stop. It was craziness. While on the train, I talked with Jon, a guy from DC who is TEFL certified and taught English in Korea for awhile. Cool.
Forty minutes later, we arrived, head-counted, crossed the tracks, and walked to the Brothers' House. Brief intro. The center is a place for people who have had leprosy to live and work. The center seems fully self-run - there's a giant cloth factory, gardens, huge dorms, a school, etc. Even though leprosy is now fully treatable and curable, it's still a disease that, in India, completely outcasts people from society. The lepers / former lepers need a place to live, so Momma T started a center for them to work, make money, eat, sleep, etc.
Tour time. I quickly realized that I strongly dislike guided tours, and lagged way behind everyone the entire time. First tour place was the...gosh, what do you call a place where people make fabric? Loomery? I don't know. We walked in to the sound of "clickclackclickclackclickclack...". Women rolled thread onto spools, men wove thread into fabric on giant looms. I greeted most women - Nammashkar di. I stood in front of one weaving machine mabobber for awhile, trying to figure out how it worked. I asked the woman. She offered me a try. Absolutely. I sat down and spun and MAN it burned my fingers! I had to use my hand as a corner to brace the thread, and the thread spun super-fast, like a rope burn + paper cut. I yelped. The woman laughed. I asked to see her fingers. They were hard-core calloused exactly where mine were red. We Nammashkarred again, I thanked her, walked on. Took a picture of the giant loom, with permission from the men. They wanted to pose with Peter. They did. Hehe.
Walk walk walk...to a zillion other places. Dyeing room (fabric), nursery (babies!), gardens, prosthetics workshop, classroom (kids!), and a bunch of other rooms. I think I ignored every component of every presentation. I decided it would be better to talk with the people who live in the center. Yep. Definitely. During the fabric dyeing talk, there were four women sitting to the side, eating lunch. They greeted me first - Namaste. I said "kaemon achen," and we spoke for a few minutes. Omigosh, I know enough Bangla to have a conversation. Omigosh. I love Bangla.
Then to the kitchen...same deal. Some presentation, I talked with the people hanging around the kitchen. Then the nursery, and I talked with the women. Then the school..."namaste, chelemeye!" They sang a song. Shundor gan. Everyone was so excited that I spoke Bangla. It was amazing. I talked with approximately everyone I saw. Tours are lameskees. Communication is pandatastic. Granted, I know nearly nothing about the center, but that's okay.
At the end of the tour, we walked through the wards. I didn't talk with the men, 'cause they're men and it's weird for a woman to initiate conversation with men. I had been waiting the entire time for the women's ward, so I could talk with the women. I was jumpy. So excited. I walked into the GIANT ward - maybe 200 beds - and had no idea with whom I should sit. Actually, sitting with them wasn't even in the schedule. We were supposed to walk through and leave. The room was a giant dorm stretching to the right, so I looked to the left and gasped. I don't remember the last time I've gasped.
Barka was sitting on the bed two meters away from me.
I may or may not have shrieked "Barka?!" And she freaked out too. Not as much as me; she was tired. But I think we exchanged "Barka?!" "hya" (yes) about ten times. I sat down, asked her how she was, she showed me her scars from the operation. She had been transferred to here from Kalighat to have med work done. We talked for a few minutes, and I couldn't help gushing in English about how much I adore her. She gave me a "you're being a doofus, but it's nice to see you too" look. Llsdfjkaiosdfjalsdfjsdklafjklasdfjaiosjfklsdafjklsdajfl BARKA! ...and I totally broke the rules and took a picture. She said it was okay. She's raising an eyebrow at me in the photo.
And then I had to leave. I walked out completely dazed. Barka. Gosh it was good to see her. And she looked so much happier than in her last few days at Kalighat. The center is much more spacious. At Kalighat, residents have to stay in bed. Here, they're free to walk around the center, which is a bunch of rooms bordering an outdoor garden.
Wrap-up meeting at the Brothers' House, I gave a quick "here's how we're taking the train back and then the Metro blah blah blah" and then back to the train.
I now understand why having more than 25 people on the leprosy center trip is a terrible idea. Public trains in India are "fit as many as you can," standing. And they only stop for about ten seconds. So when the train came, we jammed everyone in the car. Not too crowded, but we left one Japanese girl at the station. Peter jumped off at the next stop and waited. After about twenty minutes on the crowded train, it got really crowded. Like, squished. Not even "I appear to be pressed in on all sides," but more than that. Like, close your eyes and think about what an orange through a juicer must feel like. Unfortunately, the train was mostly big sweaty men, and I am a woman. And yeah, I'm used to getting groped, 'cause it happens about every day, but that's usually little things, like a hand barely on my butt or a man's arm "accidentally" brushing my chest as he walks by. On the train (only once), I got full-on grabbed. If this had been two months ago, I would have felt violated, frozen up, but not done anything. This time, I punched him. ...not hard, because I'm not really capable of punching people. But he grabbed me, so I punched him, because it's MY body, not yours. Not okay. Rar.
For the rest of the train ride, I shielded the two Japanese girls who were next to me, so they wouldn't get groped. They were freaking out. I was fine, just extremely squished. And after grope number one I decided that no one else would grope me, so I elbowed everyone who inched closer to me. And they gave me looks of sheepish "I thought you wouldn't notice because you're a stupid American girl." GAH. And this guy next to me kept saying "next stop DumDum, move!" when it clearly was not possible to move. Jlsdfkja.
When we got to our stop, it was pushpushpush to leave the train. So I pushed. And four volunteers on the train didn't. Thus, we left two Italians and the two Japanese girls on the train. Fortunately, I had said in my briefing that you could either get off the train at DumDum and take the Metro to Sudder, or get off and Sealdah and take the bus to MotherHouse. There really wasn't anyway to follow them, and they were together, so we waited at the station for Peter and the other Japanese girl, who were on the next train. I felt awful. You know that camp counselor (or parent...) feeling when you lose a kid? Yeah. I had 26 kids. I lost four. They were together, and they're adults (I'm always the youngest one in every group - everyone is usually in their late twenties / thirties), so I figured they'd be fine. Sealdah's the last stop, and it's the station at which we started the day. So they knew where they were. But I still feel irresponsible and bad-mommyish for losing them.
Then we Metroed back to Sudder for lunch. And I napped. And now I'm awake and writing a lot.
I've been journalling a lot lately, trying to figure out exactly how I've changed in India. I've written on this blog before about little changes - working at Kalighat, for example. Before I came to India, and even during the first month here, I consistently said that I would never work at Kalighat. Ever. I said I just didn't have the ability to work with sick people, and especially not dying people. My mom's a nurse. I'm not. I can't do blood or wounds or IVs - aah!
But I've been at Kalighat for two months. And I love it. Not only do I love it, but not once have I thought "ew" or "I need to lie down now" or anything like that. And it's not that I haven't seen heavy stuff - my goodness, I have. There's Kamala, who I was with near constantly right before she died. Now I know what the "death wheeze" sounds like. There's Neda, who I saw dissolve in two weeks due to AIDS. There's this other woman, whose name I still don't know, whose husband poured boiling water over her head - so her entire scalp and chest are completely covered in burn wounds. And then there's Shanti, who Peter found on the street and brought in. She's the one who has wounds all over her body, to the bone. Yeah, that bothers me, just like all of this bothers me. But not in a "aslkfjasdoifj icky" way, rather in a "I hate that this is happening, now how can I help?" way.
My conclusion is this: since being here, I think I've started to learn the meaning of Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Strength has always been a sort of vague word in my mind. But after all that I've seen at Kailghat, I think I might get it. A little. I don't understand the strength that the men and women at Kalighat have - the sort of strength that causes a dying man to go "nope, don't feel like it today" and eat a ton, start walking, exercise, and leave healthy (true story). I don't understand that at all. Maybe it's something I would have to experience. I do, however, feel a little more in touch with the strength that God has granted me. In my life, strength is being able to do anything God asks of me, whether it's working at Kalighat, teaching a play in a language I don't know, or leading a group of 26 people who only partially speak English to a place I've never been. In India, I've been doing stuff I never thought I'd be able to do. I can't quite think of the word for what I've developed - resilience? No, I think strength is the right word. Yep. I can (apparently) do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And really it really is only through prayer and Bibling and faith and hope and recognizing God in everyone I see that I've developed the patience and endurance to do all this stuff.
Okay, dinnertime.
Oh, I forgot to mention - I talked with a lot of people at the center, which means I touched a lot of people - handshakes and such. Which means I've kind of achieved my goal upon coming to India, which was to hug lepers. Done. I can leave now.
...jk, I love my girls.
Going to the redlight district tomorrow night.
Faith, hope, and love,
Stephanie
P.S. Do I want this tattooed somewhere: আশা
It says "asha," which means "hope" in Bangla.
Hmmm.
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