O...saya.

Note: my email account is temporarily disabled. MyIWU wouldn't let me log in. Interestingly, this happened a few days after I prayed about how I've been spending too much mental time in the USA.

I'm listening to the Slumdog soundtrack as I write, starting with O Saya - feel free to listen as you read. :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHUQht1HRmY&fmt=18

Me in Darjeeling was not what I expected.
I learned that I don't like small, clean, relaxed towns.
I am, however, still completely in love with giant, dirty, busy Kolkata.

Those of you who have known me for awhile know that I usually fail at functioning in cities. I get lost, overwhelmed, disoriented - I have difficulty figuring out the flow of a city. ...not so in Kolkata. I mean, I trusted that God would take care of me wherever He sent me. But I love and feel like I fit with every aspect of this place. The dirt, the traffic, the language barrier, the lack of toilet paper, the absurd exchange rate, the music, the colours. I know I've talked about this before. But...I adore this city more every day.

I used to say I couldn't function in cities.
I used to say I wouldn't consider going to IWU.
I used to say I couldn't learn another language.
I used to refuse to let anyone see me in the morning until I've showered, never let anyone see me brush my teeth, and never wear anything more than once in a row.
I used to not be able to stand going to hospitals, freak out when I saw anything dead (animal, human...), and need to instantly call a friend whenever I encountered anything mentally or emotionally difficult.
I used to say I'd never be a Christian.

My friends here speak often about how Kolkata is changing them. That it's healing old wounds, making them new, opening their eyes to God's presence in their daily lives. It seems as if they spend their days in constant amazement. I've seen them grow a TON since I met them.

I don't feel that way. I know I've grown. I know little things have changed, but it's difficult for me to identify any major differences. I'm at a strange point where, after two months here, I can't remember who I was before Kolkata. I'm not sure that person was any different than the person I am now. I'm still immature, late for everything (expected and encouraged in India...hehehe), prideful, extremely stubborn.

Sidenote.

You know how our parents used to say "finish your food, there are starving kids in India"? Here, it's "don't finish your food, there are starving kids in India". A few hours ago, I walked out of breakfast with one cookie left, and definitely didn't need to eat that cookie. I walked down Sudder street looking for a kid to whom I could give my cookie. Sure enough, right outside Hotel Maria, a beggar woman holding a crying, dirty baby grabbed my wrist and said "Auntie, Auntie," asking me for whatever she could get. This woman is on Sudder street nearly every day, often with a different baby. When I was first here, she followed me for a long time, sticking her hands into my taxi window, crying, pinching her baby-that-isn't-hers to make him cry. Today, she was with a young girl, maybe eight years old. Cute. Dirty. Clearly learning to beg from the woman, mimicking her facial expressions. I gave the cookie to the girl, who looked at it for a moment, put it in her bag, looked at the woman, and asked me for money.

She put the cookie in her bag because everything goes back to the boss of the begging Mafia. Even one chocolate cookie. And today, I decided that wasn't okay, because darnit, that girl should eat a cookie.

So I said "no, tomar canna," which doesn't actually make any sense, because "tomar" is Bangla and "canna" is Hindi. In a round-a-bout way, it means "no, your food." She gave me a slightly quizzical look, and I pointed to her bag, and she took out the cookie. I mimed eating the cookie, the same movement beggars use to ask for food. One hand, thumb to fingers, to my mouth. The girl broke the cookie in half and ate part of it, in front of the woman and the baby. She kept her sad-kid facial expression.

I walked into Hotel Maria. Stood for a few seconds. And walked back out. The woman and baby had started to walk away, and the girl was trailing behind them. I caught her eye and waved. She beamed at me and held up the other half of the cookie. I have a cookie. See it. It's chocolate. It's mine. I've never seen a beggar kid smile triumphantly before. It was beautiful.

End sidenote.

Yesterday, during tea at Kalighat (p.s., they let me sew!!), I was reading a list of ways we should live our lives. From the back of a magazine. I kept feeling like I was missing something, that I wasn't registering what I was supposed to learn. Then I came across "give without expecting anything in return." It felt like a puzzle piece clicking. I left Kalighat with that echoing in my head.

At Adoration, I read Luke 6, which contains a bunch of great stuff.
"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." - Luke 6:27-31

Give. Give. Give.

Bless those who curse you. Man, that's something I should have remembered for the past two months. I get cursed all the time, literally. In a taxi to Apne Aap, beggar woman, no I won't get you food, she curses me. Why don't I pray for her? I need to remember to do that.

In a place in which people beg on the streets and then have to give what they've received to their boss, giving is a little more complex. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I just need to find ways to give more creatively. Hmm...

Josefin thought of buying footballs, going into the slums, and playing with the kids for awhile. Why not?

Last night, I talked with Josefin about how I'm not feeling the massive self-change everyone else is noticing in themselves. She said that maybe I'm here to serve on a greater level than just in Kalighat and Apne Aap. She said the way God works in me inspires people to joyously live with greater faith, aware of the constant presence of God. Even though I struggle with pride and all sorts of other icky stuff and still feel pretty lost in this whole living-like-Jesus-thing, maybe I'm still supposed to give without expecting anything in return. Maybe I'm supposed to learn to serve through service, and let myself learn as I live. Jesus wanted the sick to follow Him, not the healthy. The disciples messed up and argued all the time. Isn't the point of being a disciple to learn?

Maybe I'm supposed to be learning that all my fulfillment is to come from God.
Momma T was here for a long time without feeling God's Spirit.
She felt the call, answered, felt God go *poof*, and served until she died anyway.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:3-10

Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Give without expecting anything in return.

Wow, this post is ginormous and tangenty. Sorry about that.
...thanks for reading.

:-)

Love and learning,
Stephanie

P.S. I learned today that "educate" comes from a Latin word that means "to bring out." Hooray! It's human rights-y and motivation-y and yay!

A monkey...

...crawled up my leg today.

Mountains.

Darjeeling is cold.
A good cold.

One of those colds that sinks in, permeates every aspect of existence - in an October-chill type of way. I feel as if I should be costumed and trick-or-treating given this weather.

The tea here is exceptional.
I'm on a mountain.

There's no schedule here. There's no rushing-to-get-to-Topsia-for-class. There's just air, and tea, and five incredible friends.

I love Josefin.
She's Swedish.

I feel so blessed to be here.
Also, I'm wearing eyeliner.

I'm sorry this is a slight mess of a post.

This morning, Josefin said something about "it's amazing how much language affects identity," and I felt the smile forming on my face before the joy registered in my brain. I don't know what it is about language, but I love it more than I can explain. Most of the locals here are speaking something I cannot understand.

My photo has almost finished loading.

This is the view outside my window:


I can breathe here.

Love and rejuvenation,
Stephanie

Tired pandas --> Darjeeling.

"While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him. Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." - Luke 5:12-16

In the midst of service, even Jesus (often!) takes time to be alone and pray. I'm starting to think that a life of love requires constant recharging. I love it here, but I'm sick. All of us are sick. Thus, we're going to Darjeeling tomorrow. Tony, Jake, Jill, Josefin, Jeff and me. There's too much Kolkata in our lungs, so we're going to get some mountain air. I'm fairly certain that Jesus liked mountains a lot. And we'll take photos. And read our bibles. And pray. And drink tea. And inhale. And exhale.

:-)

Summary of the past few days:

Largest book fair in all of Asia.

Anoushka and Ravi Shankar concert.

Apne Aap - First drama rehearsal. Ten 40-ish-year old Bengali women, no English. Few can read and write a little Bangla and / or Hindi. I've been assigned to create a street drama with them by the middle of March. We have two hour rehearsals every Saturday. Rehearsal was good - played Pass the Clap and Boom Swish in order to get comfortable with working as a group and being loud. 'Twas good.

Kalighat is difficult, but wonderful.

Bedtime.

Love and sleeppanda,
Stephanie

[edit] I just realized that I'm currently at the EXACT halfway point of my time in Kolkata. Literally. Day 59. 58 days left. And today, I leave for Darjeeling for a week. Weird. Good timing. :-)

Drumroll....

Stephanie Nudelman - Volunteer
Mother House - Missionaries of Charity
54A AJC Bose Rd.,
Kolkata 700016 India

Please don't send any food, money, live animals, dead animals, people, or things that take up a lot of space.

I like letters much more than I like things.
And I'm in the process of getting rid of everything I brought with me.
So please don't send me stuff unless it's a really, really, really good idea.

Thank you. :-)

Love and stamps,
Stephanie

Posting.

Today is a strange day.

Lately, I've felt like life is moving much faster than I am. I only have 60-some more days here. My time in India is nearly halfway through. It's odd.

Apne Aap is amazing. My girls are fantastic. They're learning, like, actually learning. As I wrote previously, I haven't had a translator for about two weeks, and it's actually easier to teach without one. We're easily, definitely communicating - one third English, one third Bangla, one third gestures, expressions and intuition. When I come back to Sudder and speak English with my American friends, I feel lazy.

Recently, I taught my girls up, down, right left, go, stop, fast, slow, turn, backwards, forwards, which way, this way, that way. We played a game that involved walking in a circle and me giving directions. If they messed up, they crashed into each other. We laughed through the whole thing, but by the end, they definitely knew all of the words.

After class last Wednesday, my girls insisted on Henna-ing me. It took about two hours. While it dried, we sang and danced and talked as much as we could. One of my girls said "no teacher, no students. We are friends." And that's what it feels like. We're all the same age. It's more like a bunch of friends hanging out every day, and one of us happens to know English, so I teach them English.

Also, I found out that my girls aren't prostitutes. Praise God. They do, however, live in the worst slum of all of Kolkata. Under tarps and such. When one of them wrote "I live in a hut" for her homework, she wasn't mistranslating. I want to go visit their homes, but I'm not sure if that's crossing any student-teacher line, or if it would be disrespectful. I won't ask, obviously. But I kind of hope they invite me. I want to help them financially, but I know that I can't. Teaching them English is, in a roundabout way, financially helpful.

Kalighat is difficult. I'm finally realizing that people die there, all the time. Last week, during tea, I suddenly felt an extreme imbalance in the world. My breath went short, it felt like someone had mentally shoved me off a chair, and I had a sudden awareness that someone had died. I stopped mid-sentence in a conversation, walked downstairs, and the Sisters were covering a man (well, his body) with a sheet.

What does it mean to die? Why does it inherently bother us so much? My current thoughts are these: God's Spirit dwells in us. When someone dies, God's Spirit leaves the body, and that feels AWFUL to anyone who sees or senses it. You could take the standpoint that it's really just life leaving the body that's so terribly disconcerting. But what's "life" anyway, but a verbal placeholder for "God"?

My new friends are amazing. Seriously. There's nearly nothing else to say. I've been praying about God granting me the ability to exist nearly completely here, and I can see Him providing me all I need again and again. I feel so ridiculously blessed.

I know this is a short post, but I honestly don't know what to write.

I'm here.
I love it.

And I'm listening to Mother India for the first time in a long time.

Love and henna,
Stephanie

Slumdog Millionaire

Last night, my friend Jeff and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire at the local theatre.

Before I discuss the film, I think it's important to describe the context in which I watched it.

Jeff and I walked from the Metro to the theatre, around 8:30 at night. Past the vendors lining the streets, the men muttering "looks nice" and "hello" in my general direction, around the garbage and human waste cluttering the gutters, past the barter-at-will market that inevitably swallows me up and tosses me into some sort of directionless, infinite sensory overload every time I enter, and into the strangely air-conditioned building that houses a Domino's, KFC, Barista, and movie theatre. The seats are assigned, like an actual theatre, and there are four prices - 40, 60, 80, and 120 rupees, based on balcony location (there are two levels and the floor) and proximity to the screen. You can openly bring food into the theatre, rather than smuggle it under your coat like my mom taught me. You can talk throughout the movie. It's normal to clap and yell things at the screen. There's a seemingly randomly-placed intermission, during which men walk through the aisles, over feet and knees, selling plastic-packaged popcorn and styrofoam-cupped coffee. And, just like everywhere else in Kolkata, the women are mostly wearing sarees. Which, in juxtaposition with the Western-influenced movie theatre and GIANT screen, causes the idea that we're really just a bunch of Indians in America to somehow creep into my mind. We brought vegetable rolls (not like spring rolls - like the Indian version of a burrito) and garlic bread from Domino's (a splurge) into the movie. We got there two minutes late (...still early for me...), but still in time for the previews, which were for Western movies that are long gone to DVD in the States.

...and then Slumdog Millionaire began.

OH. MY. GOSH.

First of all, if you haven't seen this movie, go see it. Now. Ignore your schedule and take a trip to Blockbuster. Also, don't finish reading this post until you see the movie. Sorry. It's necessary.

If you have seen it, and have had any questions about what living in Kolkata looks like - it looks like that. Just like that. No changes. None. Yes, Kolkata is a different city than Mumbai, but seriously, this movie, especially the first scene, looked just as if I stepped out of Apne Aap or Kalighat or, uh, the back of my hostel. And what really blew my mind within the first ten minutes is this: two months ago, the setting of this movie would have looked like...a movie. I would have admired the cinematography and said "oooooh that looks fun." Probably would have laughed at the dogs, and seen the movie as a nicely-imagined not-reality. And now...it's just plain accurate. Interesting, but in a "oh hey, I live there" way. Not in a "wow, what's that?" way.

I'm living in a place that I would have seen as fictional two months ago.

But there really is that much garbage. There really are dogs everywhere. There really are adorable, dirty kids holding screaming babies who appear out of nowhere at your car windows and ask for money whenever traffic stops. Remember the scenes with the overhead shots of the traffic? With the funny little golf-cart looking things? Those are auto-rickshaws. And that's exactly what the traffic looks like. Always. And that little head-tilt that Jamal did throughout the movie, to mean yes and no and maybe? HEAD WOBBLE. And remember the garlands of yellow flowers on the photos in the police station? Those garlands hang on photos everywhere here. Same with the random slabs of meat hanging in shops. There's a street on the way to the Motherhouse that has approximately twenty butcher shops, all containing numerous huge slabs of dead animal hanging in the open, and occasionally a full skinned pig.

The only components that are inaccurate are the women's clothing (there is not even close to that much Western influence in Kolkata - but I haven't been to Mumbai), the accents (not prominent enough, but I'm sure that was a Western-film choice), the copious amounts of spoken English (most of the movie should have been in Hindi), the PDA (kissing at a train station = not okay) and the depiction of the kid as the god Rama, who was definitely dressed as Shiva. That was weird.

So...there's one part of the movie that...hm. Kept me awake all night. There's this one flashback where this guy swipes a bunch of kids and teaches them how to sing. At this point, I looked at Jeff wide-eyed and mouthed "no. no. no. no. no." There's an old, blind man who lives and begs on Sudder street. He has the most beautiful voice I've heard in a long time. He walks around with a younger man who guides him, and all the blind man does is walk and sing. And that's how he begs. And he's one of the only beggars to whom I'll give money, because he sings, rather than just asking for money and holding a crying baby. And honestly, every time I see him I realize that there are some beggars here who actually aren't lying, and somehow, in some strange way, that makes me feel awkwardly hopeful. But Jeff noticed a few weeks ago that he cries when he sings. He's not the only crying, blind, singing beggar. They're all over Kolkata. And it's odd, as Jeff recently noted, that there are so many blind people in Kolkata who are so good at singing. ...then we saw Slumdog Millionaire.

And now I can't help but picture all of these old, singing, blind men as kids, getting their eyes burned out with acid and being sent into the streets to beg for money.

I've tried to find out whether that really is exactly how these men all became blind and learned to sing, but Google searching has proven inconclusive. As awful as it is...the rest of the movie was so accurate, that I find it difficult to believe this part was manufactured. Especially when it's such a probable explanation for an over-abundance of blind, singing men.

And then...I wonder about the blind orphans at Daya Dan, and my stomach turns.

...

Okay, that's all.

Except...the random dancing and singing at the end of the movie? Pure Bollywood. Hooray!

Love,
Stephanie

P.S. I'm hennaed. I'll post pictures when I can.
P.P.S. I adore Apne Aap. Teaching is difficult, but coming up with creative ways to get my girls to learn is a lot of fun. My translators have been gone for about two weeks. I'm on my own, teaching for two and a half hours Monday through Friday. Prayer would be very much appreciated. Also, I still haven't figured out whether my gorgeous, 17-to-22-year-old friends/students are prostitutes. I might ask one of the directors soon.
P.P.P.S. There are five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten-year-old kids at Apne Aap who ask me for paper and pens the exact same way kids on the street ask for money - with a head wobble and a smile and an "Auntie, please, Auntie, please." I worry about what they do after school.
P.P.P.P.S. Despite the sadness in this place, I'm completely in love with India.