I just found a picture of Kalighat online!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nirmal_Hriday.JPG
No way! That's the men's side. The women's side looks...mostly similar.
Super!
Love and jpegs,
Stephanie
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Quick update.
Life is busy. I'm nearly done translating the Apne Aap show into Hindi. For the next few weeks, I'll be orally teaching it to the women, because they cannot read. This means that I need to learn to pronounce all the Hindi near-correctly. It's interesting - I purposefully chose to learn Bangla rather than Hindi because Bangla is much easier for me to speak. And now I need to speak a ton of Hindi. I'm excited.
Josefin leaves tonight.
I've seen a lot of bone this week at Kalighat. It looks like models of the earth's layers + meat hanging in the market. I don't do the medical stuff - I just massage squirming feet.
If you want anything specific from India, please let me know.
Thanks!
Have a super week!
Love and Hindi,
Stephanie
Josefin leaves tonight.
I've seen a lot of bone this week at Kalighat. It looks like models of the earth's layers + meat hanging in the market. I don't do the medical stuff - I just massage squirming feet.
If you want anything specific from India, please let me know.
Thanks!
Have a super week!
Love and Hindi,
Stephanie
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Phonemes, three-day weddings, and Stephanie Hates AIDS.
So...that last post was quite long. Sorry about that. I've decided to post on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, in an effort to prevent super-long and super-often posts.
I know that Paul says to do everything without complaining or arguing, but I feel the need to rant about a few things that currently bother me. Ready? Go.
Air conditioning. Don't get me wrong, I like air conditioning. It's freaking hot here. At the Apne Aap conference last week, a little air conditioning was nice...kind of. Nice in comparison to the 95 degrees outside. But there's this air conditioning smell...the one that says "don't believe me, it's actually quite hot outside." It's a little bitter. Metallic, maybe. Anyway, air conditioning bothers me because it makes me feel like I'm breathing fake air.
Toilet paper. Two quick points about toilet paper. Number one: is there any other kind of mess that we clean with dry paper? Oh look, I broke a flower pot on the floor, let's clean it with thin, dry, paper! No. That'd be dumb. You dump some water on it, then wipe it up. Or let's say, if I had a bunch of dirt on my hands. Would I clean them with paper? NO! I'd clean them with WATER! AAAAAAAAH! Number two: how many trees do we kill by using toilet paper? No really, think about it. We put so much effort into recycling paper and conserving paper and yada yada yada. Do we ever think about the amount of paper we use every year to wipe our butts? No! Actually, I'm going to Google search this...
There you go. Stop killing trees.
And lastly...
AIDS. Okay, yeah, this one's a little heavier. Remember Neda, the young woman at Kalighat? On Wednesday, I sat with her for a while. Her eyes were rolled up in her head, her jaw was locked, she was shaking violently about every three minutes. Her skin was clammy. Her face was gaunt. I tried to feed her, but I couldn't get her mouth to open. I put on some gloves and held her hand and stroked her hair and sang to her for awhile. She squeezed my hand. She knows me. I prayed for her while I sang, because I didn't know what else to do to take care of her. For something like AIDS, are you supposed to pray that they get better, or die quickly? I don't know. She looks awful. I hate AIDS. A week ago, she was gorgeous. Wednesday, she was dissolving. I hate AIDS. I hate AIDS. I hate AIDS. Aaslkdjfaioejsldkafjlakgjkasdfuyoiewjfldksf.
Okee, complaints done.
Moving along...
A few friends and I went to an Indian wedding. Well, the last day of the wedding. Indian weddings are three days long and utter ridiculousness. Ceremony after ceremony. Party party party. During the second-to-final ceremony, in the temple, the groom was text messaging and the bride was absent-mindedly playing with the material in her saree. She was covered in gold, henna, a giant headress. Both of them looked exhausted and bored. It was Day Three.
After the ceremony, there was a giant dancing-in-the-streets party with drums and a guy playing keyboard while sitting on a bicycle rickshaw. It was LOUD. And there were fireworks. For like, two hours. The party kept moving through the alleyways to the reception area. We got there around midnight, had dinner, and went back to Paragon to bed. Bhalo.
Teaching difficulties. I wrote on the white board "Secretly choose one person in the class. Write a description of them. Colours. Body. Clothes. Location (here there left right). Five sentences." This was because they know colours, body parts, clothing, and how to describe how to get places. And they know third person possessive grammar (Neesha's pants are blue, etc.). So I figured we could combine them all, right? No. The girls stared at the board and did nothing. So we read it out loud. Blank stares. Then we broke the directions into individuals words, and I re-explained what every word on the board meant. Nope. They didn't do anything. I asked them why they weren't writing, and they said they didn't understand what I was asking them to do. I don't know why. This hasn't happened before. I'll talk with them about it again tomorrow.
Also, I realized last week why one of my students is having so much difficulty reading. Shagufta has had trouble sounding out words since I started teaching her. She knows the alphabet. She can name all the letters. But she can't combine them into words. I've been writing the transliterated Bengali under the English words for her, but it hasn't helped. Then I figured it out - she can't read Bengali. Or Hindi. She's never learned a written language. She speaks Bengali fluently, but cannot read or write. English is the first language she's ever learned to read or write. I think I'm going to ask Sraboni to give me more time with her. And I might teach her Bengali, which is strange, because I don't speak Bengali. But she speaks it, and I can write and read it...so maybe that would be helpful. I think so. Yep, I'll do that. Thought it's entirely disconcerting that she lives in India, and the first written language she's tried to learn is English. Odd.
Apne Aap conference. Last Thursday and Friday, Apne Aap held a film festival in celebration of Women's Day. It was a giant educational mabobber, with films about trafficking and women's rights. Super. As part of the festival, my girls performed a skit. It was a short play about a king, some priests, and a kingdom in which everything costs one rupee. In Hindi. I thought it was strange that it wasn't about trafficking or something relavant...until I realized that the girls didn't know what the conference was about. They just knew they were representing Apne Aap. In addition...*drumroll*...I'm nearly certain that they don't know anything about sex trafficking. Nothing. They live in the slum, which means that they're at high risk of being trafficked and taken into the red-light district, but they haven't been swiped, so they don't know that it's a possibility. What the monkey. I'm going to talk with Sraboni about this tomorrow.
While my girls were getting ready for the show, we all started singing the Ring Ring Ringa song. A girl who isn't in my class asked how I knew it, I said that my class had taught me, and that it was in Slumdog Millionaire. Pammi said "no, Smalldog Millionaire," and I said "nope, it's Slumdog." And she said "what's a slum?"
How do you explain to a girl who lives in a slum what a slum is? And it wasn't a language barrier thing. My friend Rhiddi, who speaks Bangla, Hindi, and English, had been translating between us all. Rhiddi, a little shaken, said "they're huts," and Pammi seemed fine with that. Somehow, my 16-year-old girls who go to school at an anti-sex-trafficking agency don't know that they live in a slum, and don't know about sex trafficking. Weird.
Before my girls went on stage, the emcee read a sort of introduction about the girls. She said that they were the "children of Apne Aap," and that they "have lived in the Park Circus slum all of their lives." She said that they "nearly never leave the slum, so this outing is very exciting for them." ...and she spoke briefly about how Apne Aap educates the girls to prevent them from sex trafficking. But she said this all in ENGLISH. Because the entire audience was India's ELITE who spoke ENGLISH the entire conference. So my girls HAD NO IDEA WHAT SHE WAS SAYING. So my girls went onstage, nervous nervous, performed their Hindi play fantastically, and then lined up and introduced themselves at the end: "my name is Neesha Khatoon, etc." Mumtaz doesn't know her last name, so she just said Mumtaz. Then they went offstage, excited about their speedy, but near-flawless performance. Because they don't speak English, they had no chance of understanding anything else in the conference. They weren't invited to attend - only to perform and leave.
Why is it that a conference put on the educate the public is only presented in ENGLISH? Why was everyone who attended dressed so richly, speaking English with each other, eating expensive food at the cafe...what's the point of an awareness campaign if the only people who can understand any of it are too rich to associate with the girls who live in the slum or the women who sell their bodies in Khidderpur? I know I'm being cynical. I know that these people can vote, and pass legislation, and that by knowing these things, they'll be able to battle sex trafficking because they have money and thus political power. It was just...frustrating to see my girls up there like dancing monkeys, while the audience of English-speaking-well-dressed-Indians watched in pity, faces to their images of the slum - and my girls had no idea.
Later, at the after-conference dinner, a man said to me: "those were the girls from the slum? Wow. I expected them to be sad." What?! You expected them to be sad? I explained to him that they were girls like any other girls in India, and that they happened to live in a big cement building all together. They're wonderful girls. We henna each other, we have dance parties, we freak out about Nashima telling Mr. Computer Sir about Pammi's boyfriend (he might tell her mother) - and that's why I'm going to work my butt off teaching them as much English as they can possibly learn in the next month. Because I adore them, and I refuse to allow them to not understand.
This week, I'm going to Khipperpur (the red-light district) at night. With Sraboni, Josefin, and Daniel. Good good. I realized the other day that the first meeting I sat in on, the one with 40 women speaking Bengali...was a self-help meeting for prostitutes. So I've already met a bunch of the prostitutes in Khidderpur. Hmm.
One more thing, and then I'm done. Promise.
At dinner tonight, Peter goes "oh, the woman with AIDS died today." Oh. I wasn't at Kalighat today because I need to reregister - one of the sisters found out that I'm actually registered for Daya Dan. Hm. So, um, Neda died today. Her body is currently wrapped up in a bright blue sheet. Peter is often on morgue duty in the morning, so I'm going to try to go with him. If the sisters say no, I'll cry.
I hate AIDS.
Bedtime. Up early to go cremate Neda's 25-year-old AIDS-destroyed body.
I'm sorry. I just really hate AIDS. Stupid AIDS. She was fine a week ago. I hate gang-rape. I hate FGM. I hate AIDS. Lldsuf098aweurmwieurdowru9dwriasjradshf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay. Goodnight.
Love,
Stephanie
I know that Paul says to do everything without complaining or arguing, but I feel the need to rant about a few things that currently bother me. Ready? Go.
Air conditioning. Don't get me wrong, I like air conditioning. It's freaking hot here. At the Apne Aap conference last week, a little air conditioning was nice...kind of. Nice in comparison to the 95 degrees outside. But there's this air conditioning smell...the one that says "don't believe me, it's actually quite hot outside." It's a little bitter. Metallic, maybe. Anyway, air conditioning bothers me because it makes me feel like I'm breathing fake air.
Toilet paper. Two quick points about toilet paper. Number one: is there any other kind of mess that we clean with dry paper? Oh look, I broke a flower pot on the floor, let's clean it with thin, dry, paper! No. That'd be dumb. You dump some water on it, then wipe it up. Or let's say, if I had a bunch of dirt on my hands. Would I clean them with paper? NO! I'd clean them with WATER! AAAAAAAAH! Number two: how many trees do we kill by using toilet paper? No really, think about it. We put so much effort into recycling paper and conserving paper and yada yada yada. Do we ever think about the amount of paper we use every year to wipe our butts? No! Actually, I'm going to Google search this...
"It takes 48 full grown trees to make roughly 500 rolls of toilet paper. So using that number it takes about 1/10th of an adult grown paper tree to produce 10 rolls of toilet paper. Every American in the United States, roughly 300+ million, uses at the very least 49 rolls of toilet paper a year. That is 5 trees a person."
There you go. Stop killing trees.
And lastly...
AIDS. Okay, yeah, this one's a little heavier. Remember Neda, the young woman at Kalighat? On Wednesday, I sat with her for a while. Her eyes were rolled up in her head, her jaw was locked, she was shaking violently about every three minutes. Her skin was clammy. Her face was gaunt. I tried to feed her, but I couldn't get her mouth to open. I put on some gloves and held her hand and stroked her hair and sang to her for awhile. She squeezed my hand. She knows me. I prayed for her while I sang, because I didn't know what else to do to take care of her. For something like AIDS, are you supposed to pray that they get better, or die quickly? I don't know. She looks awful. I hate AIDS. A week ago, she was gorgeous. Wednesday, she was dissolving. I hate AIDS. I hate AIDS. I hate AIDS. Aaslkdjfaioejsldkafjlakgjkasdfuyoiewjfldksf.
Okee, complaints done.
Moving along...
A few friends and I went to an Indian wedding. Well, the last day of the wedding. Indian weddings are three days long and utter ridiculousness. Ceremony after ceremony. Party party party. During the second-to-final ceremony, in the temple, the groom was text messaging and the bride was absent-mindedly playing with the material in her saree. She was covered in gold, henna, a giant headress. Both of them looked exhausted and bored. It was Day Three.
After the ceremony, there was a giant dancing-in-the-streets party with drums and a guy playing keyboard while sitting on a bicycle rickshaw. It was LOUD. And there were fireworks. For like, two hours. The party kept moving through the alleyways to the reception area. We got there around midnight, had dinner, and went back to Paragon to bed. Bhalo.
Teaching difficulties. I wrote on the white board "Secretly choose one person in the class. Write a description of them. Colours. Body. Clothes. Location (here there left right). Five sentences." This was because they know colours, body parts, clothing, and how to describe how to get places. And they know third person possessive grammar (Neesha's pants are blue, etc.). So I figured we could combine them all, right? No. The girls stared at the board and did nothing. So we read it out loud. Blank stares. Then we broke the directions into individuals words, and I re-explained what every word on the board meant. Nope. They didn't do anything. I asked them why they weren't writing, and they said they didn't understand what I was asking them to do. I don't know why. This hasn't happened before. I'll talk with them about it again tomorrow.
Also, I realized last week why one of my students is having so much difficulty reading. Shagufta has had trouble sounding out words since I started teaching her. She knows the alphabet. She can name all the letters. But she can't combine them into words. I've been writing the transliterated Bengali under the English words for her, but it hasn't helped. Then I figured it out - she can't read Bengali. Or Hindi. She's never learned a written language. She speaks Bengali fluently, but cannot read or write. English is the first language she's ever learned to read or write. I think I'm going to ask Sraboni to give me more time with her. And I might teach her Bengali, which is strange, because I don't speak Bengali. But she speaks it, and I can write and read it...so maybe that would be helpful. I think so. Yep, I'll do that. Thought it's entirely disconcerting that she lives in India, and the first written language she's tried to learn is English. Odd.
Apne Aap conference. Last Thursday and Friday, Apne Aap held a film festival in celebration of Women's Day. It was a giant educational mabobber, with films about trafficking and women's rights. Super. As part of the festival, my girls performed a skit. It was a short play about a king, some priests, and a kingdom in which everything costs one rupee. In Hindi. I thought it was strange that it wasn't about trafficking or something relavant...until I realized that the girls didn't know what the conference was about. They just knew they were representing Apne Aap. In addition...*drumroll*...I'm nearly certain that they don't know anything about sex trafficking. Nothing. They live in the slum, which means that they're at high risk of being trafficked and taken into the red-light district, but they haven't been swiped, so they don't know that it's a possibility. What the monkey. I'm going to talk with Sraboni about this tomorrow.
While my girls were getting ready for the show, we all started singing the Ring Ring Ringa song. A girl who isn't in my class asked how I knew it, I said that my class had taught me, and that it was in Slumdog Millionaire. Pammi said "no, Smalldog Millionaire," and I said "nope, it's Slumdog." And she said "what's a slum?"
How do you explain to a girl who lives in a slum what a slum is? And it wasn't a language barrier thing. My friend Rhiddi, who speaks Bangla, Hindi, and English, had been translating between us all. Rhiddi, a little shaken, said "they're huts," and Pammi seemed fine with that. Somehow, my 16-year-old girls who go to school at an anti-sex-trafficking agency don't know that they live in a slum, and don't know about sex trafficking. Weird.
Before my girls went on stage, the emcee read a sort of introduction about the girls. She said that they were the "children of Apne Aap," and that they "have lived in the Park Circus slum all of their lives." She said that they "nearly never leave the slum, so this outing is very exciting for them." ...and she spoke briefly about how Apne Aap educates the girls to prevent them from sex trafficking. But she said this all in ENGLISH. Because the entire audience was India's ELITE who spoke ENGLISH the entire conference. So my girls HAD NO IDEA WHAT SHE WAS SAYING. So my girls went onstage, nervous nervous, performed their Hindi play fantastically, and then lined up and introduced themselves at the end: "my name is Neesha Khatoon, etc." Mumtaz doesn't know her last name, so she just said Mumtaz. Then they went offstage, excited about their speedy, but near-flawless performance. Because they don't speak English, they had no chance of understanding anything else in the conference. They weren't invited to attend - only to perform and leave.
Why is it that a conference put on the educate the public is only presented in ENGLISH? Why was everyone who attended dressed so richly, speaking English with each other, eating expensive food at the cafe...what's the point of an awareness campaign if the only people who can understand any of it are too rich to associate with the girls who live in the slum or the women who sell their bodies in Khidderpur? I know I'm being cynical. I know that these people can vote, and pass legislation, and that by knowing these things, they'll be able to battle sex trafficking because they have money and thus political power. It was just...frustrating to see my girls up there like dancing monkeys, while the audience of English-speaking-well-dressed-Indians watched in pity, faces to their images of the slum - and my girls had no idea.
Later, at the after-conference dinner, a man said to me: "those were the girls from the slum? Wow. I expected them to be sad." What?! You expected them to be sad? I explained to him that they were girls like any other girls in India, and that they happened to live in a big cement building all together. They're wonderful girls. We henna each other, we have dance parties, we freak out about Nashima telling Mr. Computer Sir about Pammi's boyfriend (he might tell her mother) - and that's why I'm going to work my butt off teaching them as much English as they can possibly learn in the next month. Because I adore them, and I refuse to allow them to not understand.
This week, I'm going to Khipperpur (the red-light district) at night. With Sraboni, Josefin, and Daniel. Good good. I realized the other day that the first meeting I sat in on, the one with 40 women speaking Bengali...was a self-help meeting for prostitutes. So I've already met a bunch of the prostitutes in Khidderpur. Hmm.
One more thing, and then I'm done. Promise.
At dinner tonight, Peter goes "oh, the woman with AIDS died today." Oh. I wasn't at Kalighat today because I need to reregister - one of the sisters found out that I'm actually registered for Daya Dan. Hm. So, um, Neda died today. Her body is currently wrapped up in a bright blue sheet. Peter is often on morgue duty in the morning, so I'm going to try to go with him. If the sisters say no, I'll cry.
I hate AIDS.
Bedtime. Up early to go cremate Neda's 25-year-old AIDS-destroyed body.
I'm sorry. I just really hate AIDS. Stupid AIDS. She was fine a week ago. I hate gang-rape. I hate FGM. I hate AIDS. Lldsuf098aweurmwieurdowru9dwriasjradshf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay. Goodnight.
Love,
Stephanie
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Tiger kothay?, slum visit, street drama.
Okay.
So.
Gosh, this will take a long time and be super-sporadic.
Here goes!
In chronological order, from two weeks ago...
A day before I left for Sunderbans, at Apne Aap, my girls and I were like "psssshhhh we don't feel like learning anything today." So we ran upstairs to the little kids' classroom on the roof, turned on the radio, and had a dance party. It was fantastic. They were all "dance, di, dance!". For a brief moment, the thought "wait, I can't dance, I don't know how to dance" crossed my mind. And then I realized that my body has been crafted to dance to Indian music. Everything in Indian dance makes so much more sense to my muscles. The arm movements (kinda like you're spinning a balloon), the hips, the smoothness of it all - gosh. As opposed to the overt sexuality in Western dance, Indian dance is more subtle sensuality. It's beautiful rather than awkward and provocative. And all my girls were so excited about dancing with me, and we all sang, and then the Ring Ring Ringa song came on - the one they taught me a month ago, when I traded them for Sufjan Stevens. I firmly believe that part of my soul resides in the Ring Ring Ringa song. We danced in a circle, each girl had her chance to start a foot / arm pattern that we all copied, they stopped to teach me when I had difficulty picking something up. And though my mind was like "what?" my body was like "shut up mind, I know how to do this." ...then I French braided my hair to keep it back and my girls freaked out. Hair thrown at me from everywhere. I don't remember the Hindi word for "braid," but I heard it about a zillion times. So then our dance party turned into a hair braiding party. It was like a fifth grade sleepover.
New topic. Sorry for the jumpjumpjump, but there's a lot I want to write.
I prayed and thought a lot last week about this passage:
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Luke 6:41-42
First off, the image of a plank in my eye is funny. What would I look like walking around with a plank in my eye? And how ridiculous would it look if I tried to get a speck out of Josefin's eye with a plank in my eye? I'd probably jab her in the face. And there's no way I'd be able to see clearly.
I've been thinking about this from the perspective of giving advice. If you know me, you know that I don't really hesitate in advice-giving. I completely ignore the whole "don't give advice until you're asked" idea. But then again, I often am in no place to give advice. There are planks in my eyes. Last week, I made a list of my major planks, and I'm trying to figure out how to get them out of my eyes. To extend the ridiculously easy-to-extend metaphor, I've learned that removing planks involves a good mirror. Thankfully, going to Adoration as often as possible is helpful.
I should explain Adoration. Literally, it's a bunch of volunteers and sisters sitting in a room praying, with a consecrated wafer in a little golden stand on a table at the front of the room. If you walk in and don't know what's going on, it looks like a lot of people staring at a cookie. I purposefully started going to Adoration because it didn't make any sense to me. Cookie. Gold stand. Saying the Rosary, plus silent prayer halfway through the hour. What?
And when I got there, I realized why Adoration is super. This might sound strange, but the spiritual density in that room is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's overwhelming. It felt like walking into a room in which you know God is sitting. I almost fell over. Praying in that environment is mind-blowing. I don't know why. I can't explain it. And I really don't understand the whole God-in-a-wafer thing. But I do know that Adoration, for me, has become a for-sure way to make sure I'm in focused prayer for at least an hour a day. I've started going to Adoration at Kalighat, which is even more amazing. Five sisters, five/six volunteers...oh man. It's wonderful. I don't think I've ever had more focused prayer (scheduled prayer time? whoa.) in my life.
In response to questions, yeah, I pierced my nose. Safely. I sterilized the needle. It's completely healed. My girls think it's great. I like it. Mmmkay, that's all about that.
At Kalighat two weeks ago, there was a 20/30 maybe year old woman. Newly arrived. Stunningly beautiful. Big brown eyes. Could be a model. She doesn't speak. I spoke with her, but she didn't respond verbally. Every time I walked near her, she caught my gaze and followed me with her eyes. So I bent down, placed my hand in hers and asked "gan?" (song). She barely squeezed my hand. I sang Come Thou Fount. She looked a little happier, not that she ever seems to have any facial expression besides entranced. She's gorgeous. I asked another woman there what was wrong with her, and she shrugged. She said that the woman had just arrived a few days before, so the only thing they knew was that she had terrible FGM, enough that she needed a catheter. I don't want to talk about it. Look it up.
Sunderbans. Wow. Gorgeous. Jungle. We were only there for two days - we all took the weekend off from our Momma T assignments, which was good because I didn't have to miss Apne Aap at all. Our group was Matias (Chile), Jed (Colorado OMG he went to Brown and knows Talia Stein!), Josefin (Sweden), and Daniel (Cuba / Miami / Seattle). We woke up super-early, and took a train / auto / boat / auto / boat combination to get there.
I had a slightly heartbreaking experience at the train station. There were beggar kids all over the place, because there are a ton of beggars at train stations in India. This one girl, holding a baby, started "auntie, auntie, canna"ing me. Which means "auntie, auntie, food." There were two pieces of bread in my bag, so I shrugged and figured sure, why not? I didn't need those two pieces of bread. So I dug through my bag, found the bread, and handed one piece to her and one to the baby, who looked old enough to chew. And...the girl looked at the bread, looked up at me, looked down at the bread, looked up at me, and said "canna, canna?" And I said, "hai, eta tomar canna" - "yes, it's your food." And she just kept asking. All the while, the baby tore the bread into little pieces and dropped it on the floor. We walked away. A few minutes later, the girl found me again, and still asked me for food - still holding a torn up piece of bread, which crumbled on the floor as she asked for food.
I don't understand.
Anyway, train to Canning. Auto to shore. Giant ferry canoe to somewhere. Auto to somewhere. The auto had two rows of seats, facing each other - one backwards, one forwards. I was sitting in the seat facing forwards, on the right side. So, when we almost got hit by a giant bus, I was the one who saw it coming. By almost, I mean the auto driver nearly hit it head on, and then swerved to the left at the last moment. We two-wheeled it on the left side for about five seconds, all threw ourselves to the right, and then stopped to get Daniel's bag, which had fallen out. Daniel probably should have gotten badly injured - it would have made sense for him to get a foot caught up and tangled in the wheels. But nope. We were all shaken (not stirred) but fine. Super.
Then another boat, and we were in Gosaba, where we found a pink guest house with bucket showers and giant beds with mosquito nets, bartered the rooms down to 200 each, and set out adventuring. I. Adore. Gosaba. Nearly no one there speaks English. Fortunately, Jed speaks a lot of Bangla, so we were able to communicate. We drank sugarcane juice and ate street fruit. Jed and I walked over to the shore, where we discovered the grossest, most absolutely superb mud I've ever seen. Our feet sunk nearly to our knees every time we stepped. Naturally, I decided that meant we should roll up our pants and walk the thirty meters or so to shore. GROSS. But fantastic. And three kids joined us, and we all went "ew ew ew" and it was great. I have videos.
Then Jed and I walked to the village-y section of Gosaba. Where everyone on the tiny island lives. We wandered at random, walked past goats, chickens, cows, and green green green. Eventually, kids started following us, so we spoke Bangla with them. After some time, a woman stepped out of her house and called to us. We followed. She invited us in for chai, and pulled chairs out so we could sit on her porch. There ended up being about ten women, three men, and a half dozen children - and us. Speaking. In Bangla. We talked about everything we could communicate, joked about how Jed knew onek Bangla and I knew khub choto. Very little. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah wonderful.
In the morning - BOAT. Gorgeous. We went on a 500-rupee-a-person boat cruise around Sunderbans. We didn't see any tigers. But we saw monkeys and birds and a crocodile and deer and a funny-looking pig. Our tour guide was awesome. He didn't speak English, but that didn't matter 'cause we had Jed. He let me drive the boat. Jed had made aloo mattar and roti and brought it with him to Gosaba, so we had a picnic on the boat. Oh gosh it was wonderful.
Then four-hour bus ride back to Kolkata. Smelled like eggs.
On the way back down Sudder Street, I suddenly felt like saying hello to one of the beggar women - usually I don't greet them, because they'll follow me asking for money. I started to speak at the exact same time she did, and we simultaneously said "namaste, di" (me) and "how are you, sister" (her). For the record, "di" means "older sister." It was beautiful.
Fast forward. Kalighat the next day. The woman I mentioned earlier had been moved to a bed waaay at the end of the room, and had a namecard (Neda) and a sign posted next to her bed that said "please do not touch without gloves." And had what looked like sudden, massive scabies. Again, I asked another volunteer what was wrong with her. And she said, "oh, she just has HIV." Oooookay then. So I grabbed some gloves and sang to her for a long, long time. At one point, a sister walked past me, stopped, and I showed her my hands. She nodded and kept walking. Bhalo. Good.
Wow, this is taking a long panda time. And I'm not even close to caught up.
Last Wednesday, I left Apne Aap early (Muslim holiday, no girls) and went in search for my girls' slum. After an hour of wandering around Park Circus, I found it. Turns out 39 Tiljala road is nowhere near 36 or 41. Tik ache (it's okay). It was fun to find. I got to speak a LOT of Bangla. Their slum isn't a tarp-city like the one next to it - rather, it's a giant cement building in which they all live together. I didn't walk in, but it was nice to know where it is and what it looks like.
Thursday, Josefin and I went to the tarp-slum next to the Park Circus bridge. I could write for pages about this, and will, but not right now. We brought cookies, paper, crayons, a ball, and sweets, all hidden in Josefin's backpack, with the intent to find some kids (chelemeye kothay?) and play with them. We found a bunch of kids among the tarps, gathered them together, and I handed out cookies - ekta tumi, ekta biscuit (one you, one cookie). The kids were ecstatic. They started running away, bringing back other kids and pushing hands toward me. Only a few kids asked for more than one cookie. Maybe it was because I started saying "ekta tumi, ekta biscuit" early on. There was one kid who kept pushing his friends hands toward me, asking for cookies, and then only after all the other kids had cookies did he extend his own. And he was a little kid, not an older one who might feel obliged to take care of everyone else. Some mothers asked for biscuits for their children who were at school, so I said "ekhane ney, biscuit ney." Not here, no biscuit.
After hanging out with the kids for awhile, we moved on. Left the tarp slum, and wandered into the area of garbage-pickers next to the train tracks. There are hundreds of tarps set up next to the tracks, just like next to the bridge. I assumed it would be the same situation - nice kids, who just want to be kid-like. ...nope. Within minutes, kids latched on to me, a little too close to be comfortable. It was hot out. So I figured that ten kids or so was a good group to colour, and reached into Josefin's bag (which I was carrying) for paper. Within seconds, I was completely swarmed. Imagine a mosh pit of dirty children (and women) with me at the center. And this was before I even removed the paper and crayons. And it didn't matter how much I yelled "thamo (stop)" or "shanti (settle / peace)" or even "bas (enough)". They kept pushing in on me. Thank God I'm not claustrophobic. This went on for about twenty minutes. Nonstop. I couldn't get them off of me. And they were laughing, screaming, reaching, tearing the whole time - the children and the women. There was one man who tried to order everyone, but it didn't work. I thought maybe if I started passing out paper, they'd go away, so I pulled out one sheet - which got torn from my hands instantly. Twenty hands all grabbing at the same paper at the same time means no one gets it, not even counting the thirty or so who were too far back to reach. Another sheet. Same result. Another. Another. Finally, I gave up and tried to push them away. Fail. The kids / women ripped the entire pack from my hands. Oh well. We had more paper in the bag. The kids were all screaming for pens. I was still being pressed in on, squished, sugarcane through a juicer. I pulled out a few crayons. Hands. All crayons smashed. This would not work. I started pushing through, trying to get away. Thamo, thamo, thamo, and the kids yelled ney, ney, ney. Stop. No. There was one girl who kept grabbing my shoulders to pull me back. The others just ripped at my clothes. For once, I'm glad I bought such high-quality Indian clothing. It wouldn't tear. Pull pull pull pull...and I eventually broke free, only to be chased and resurrounded a few moments later. I yelled "just go" to Josefin over the crowd. She started walking away. If this sounds overly dramatic or chaotic - it was. If it doesn't, then I haven't described it well enough. We eventually ran back to the tarp-slum. The whole process took about a half hour. Josefin hadn't been as swarmed, thank God. I'm glad I had the bag.
We went back to the first group, regathered the kids, and gave them white paper and crayons. One each. They drew and were happy. I taught some older kids to write their names in Bangla and English. Happy happy. One woman yelled at us for not bringing them more food. The other women shrugged and smiled at us. The kids were gleeful.
Why the stark contrast? They're both groups of kids. Living in the same condition, in two slightly different places. Why does one group have kids who bring their friends over for one cookie each, and the other have kids who rip paper and form mosh pits? What's the difference between these two groups of children?
Also, I don't understand why I wasn't bothered by this experience. Josefin was deeply affected, and I...well, it didn't surprise me. The kids at Apne Aap mosh pit me all the time. Somehow, events like this don't bother me, but the girl in the train station who doesn't eat the bread I give her - that bothers me. The man on the street with the infected leg wound, who refuses treatment because the wound means he's a more effective beggar - that bothers me. Thirty kids flash mobbing me for coloured paper? Nah.
Gosh, I still have more to write.
The song Worlds Apart, by Jars of Clay, has pretty much been my theme lately. I swiped Peter's guitar and play it all the time.
I finished a journal a few days ago. Thanks to Domtar for the new one. :-)
I should mention the weather. Apparently it's been 90/95 degrees here every day. I checked the weather online for those numbers. It's been hot. I walk a lot. Strangely, at the end of the day, my clothing smells like sugar. I think it's because of all the chai I drink.
Apne Aap show. Ohhhhh man. When I started working for Apne Aap two months ago, Sraboni told me that she wanted me to teach a drama class on Friday afternoons. The women didn't show up for five weeks straight, so we started the class a few weeks ago. No one speaks English. 30/40-year-old-women, who live in the slums with a bunch of children. The first rehearsal, we played Pass the Clap and Boom Swish, to get them comfortable working together and being LOUD. The next rehearsal, I sat down with them and, through two layers of translation, asked them about their frustrations and hopes. One woman in the group can write Bengali, and Zareen can understand spoken Bengali. So we had a woman write down what everyone said, read it to Zareen, and Zareen translated it to me in English so I could write it down. That was tedious, but reeeeally awesome. Last Friday, at rehearsal, I tried to ask the women what they wanted the show to look like, the format, what they wanted to make sure was communicated, etc. And they told me NOTHING. Again and again, they said "Ani writes the show, we perform it" (in Bangla and Hindi). What?! I don't live their lives. I don't speak their language. But they trust me to be their voices? Okay. After pushing them for more information, emotion, ideas, anything, I talked with Sraboni, who said the same thing. Write the show.
So I wrote it.
I'm not going to post it on here. It's too long. They wanted it to be a half hour / hour long show. It has tabla, a Greek chorus, masks, a dance-fight. Oh, and it's in Hindi. I wrote it in simple English, and two Apne Aap teachers and I have been working on translating it every day. Saboushni speaks fluent Hindi, a little Bangla, and a little English, Mr. Computer Sir (my girls' name for him) speaks fluent Bangla, moderate English, and moderate Hindi, and I read and write English and speak a little Bangla. Together, we can slowly translate my English into transliterated Hindi. We don't need it written in Hindi characters, because the women can't read. They'll be memorizing the show aurally, which means that I need to learn to pronounce my entire show in Hindi.
We'll be performing it on the street at the beginning of April. I'll bring a camera. :-)
Okay, I think that's it.
No it's not! Jeff and I decided mine and Josefin's room needed a window, so we watercoloured one on the wall. It's pretty.
Time to go get chai and teach.
Love and many words,
Stephanie
So.
Gosh, this will take a long time and be super-sporadic.
Here goes!
In chronological order, from two weeks ago...
A day before I left for Sunderbans, at Apne Aap, my girls and I were like "psssshhhh we don't feel like learning anything today." So we ran upstairs to the little kids' classroom on the roof, turned on the radio, and had a dance party. It was fantastic. They were all "dance, di, dance!". For a brief moment, the thought "wait, I can't dance, I don't know how to dance" crossed my mind. And then I realized that my body has been crafted to dance to Indian music. Everything in Indian dance makes so much more sense to my muscles. The arm movements (kinda like you're spinning a balloon), the hips, the smoothness of it all - gosh. As opposed to the overt sexuality in Western dance, Indian dance is more subtle sensuality. It's beautiful rather than awkward and provocative. And all my girls were so excited about dancing with me, and we all sang, and then the Ring Ring Ringa song came on - the one they taught me a month ago, when I traded them for Sufjan Stevens. I firmly believe that part of my soul resides in the Ring Ring Ringa song. We danced in a circle, each girl had her chance to start a foot / arm pattern that we all copied, they stopped to teach me when I had difficulty picking something up. And though my mind was like "what?" my body was like "shut up mind, I know how to do this." ...then I French braided my hair to keep it back and my girls freaked out. Hair thrown at me from everywhere. I don't remember the Hindi word for "braid," but I heard it about a zillion times. So then our dance party turned into a hair braiding party. It was like a fifth grade sleepover.
New topic. Sorry for the jumpjumpjump, but there's a lot I want to write.
I prayed and thought a lot last week about this passage:
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Luke 6:41-42
First off, the image of a plank in my eye is funny. What would I look like walking around with a plank in my eye? And how ridiculous would it look if I tried to get a speck out of Josefin's eye with a plank in my eye? I'd probably jab her in the face. And there's no way I'd be able to see clearly.
I've been thinking about this from the perspective of giving advice. If you know me, you know that I don't really hesitate in advice-giving. I completely ignore the whole "don't give advice until you're asked" idea. But then again, I often am in no place to give advice. There are planks in my eyes. Last week, I made a list of my major planks, and I'm trying to figure out how to get them out of my eyes. To extend the ridiculously easy-to-extend metaphor, I've learned that removing planks involves a good mirror. Thankfully, going to Adoration as often as possible is helpful.
I should explain Adoration. Literally, it's a bunch of volunteers and sisters sitting in a room praying, with a consecrated wafer in a little golden stand on a table at the front of the room. If you walk in and don't know what's going on, it looks like a lot of people staring at a cookie. I purposefully started going to Adoration because it didn't make any sense to me. Cookie. Gold stand. Saying the Rosary, plus silent prayer halfway through the hour. What?
And when I got there, I realized why Adoration is super. This might sound strange, but the spiritual density in that room is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's overwhelming. It felt like walking into a room in which you know God is sitting. I almost fell over. Praying in that environment is mind-blowing. I don't know why. I can't explain it. And I really don't understand the whole God-in-a-wafer thing. But I do know that Adoration, for me, has become a for-sure way to make sure I'm in focused prayer for at least an hour a day. I've started going to Adoration at Kalighat, which is even more amazing. Five sisters, five/six volunteers...oh man. It's wonderful. I don't think I've ever had more focused prayer (scheduled prayer time? whoa.) in my life.
In response to questions, yeah, I pierced my nose. Safely. I sterilized the needle. It's completely healed. My girls think it's great. I like it. Mmmkay, that's all about that.
At Kalighat two weeks ago, there was a 20/30 maybe year old woman. Newly arrived. Stunningly beautiful. Big brown eyes. Could be a model. She doesn't speak. I spoke with her, but she didn't respond verbally. Every time I walked near her, she caught my gaze and followed me with her eyes. So I bent down, placed my hand in hers and asked "gan?" (song). She barely squeezed my hand. I sang Come Thou Fount. She looked a little happier, not that she ever seems to have any facial expression besides entranced. She's gorgeous. I asked another woman there what was wrong with her, and she shrugged. She said that the woman had just arrived a few days before, so the only thing they knew was that she had terrible FGM, enough that she needed a catheter. I don't want to talk about it. Look it up.
Sunderbans. Wow. Gorgeous. Jungle. We were only there for two days - we all took the weekend off from our Momma T assignments, which was good because I didn't have to miss Apne Aap at all. Our group was Matias (Chile), Jed (Colorado OMG he went to Brown and knows Talia Stein!), Josefin (Sweden), and Daniel (Cuba / Miami / Seattle). We woke up super-early, and took a train / auto / boat / auto / boat combination to get there.
I had a slightly heartbreaking experience at the train station. There were beggar kids all over the place, because there are a ton of beggars at train stations in India. This one girl, holding a baby, started "auntie, auntie, canna"ing me. Which means "auntie, auntie, food." There were two pieces of bread in my bag, so I shrugged and figured sure, why not? I didn't need those two pieces of bread. So I dug through my bag, found the bread, and handed one piece to her and one to the baby, who looked old enough to chew. And...the girl looked at the bread, looked up at me, looked down at the bread, looked up at me, and said "canna, canna?" And I said, "hai, eta tomar canna" - "yes, it's your food." And she just kept asking. All the while, the baby tore the bread into little pieces and dropped it on the floor. We walked away. A few minutes later, the girl found me again, and still asked me for food - still holding a torn up piece of bread, which crumbled on the floor as she asked for food.
I don't understand.
Anyway, train to Canning. Auto to shore. Giant ferry canoe to somewhere. Auto to somewhere. The auto had two rows of seats, facing each other - one backwards, one forwards. I was sitting in the seat facing forwards, on the right side. So, when we almost got hit by a giant bus, I was the one who saw it coming. By almost, I mean the auto driver nearly hit it head on, and then swerved to the left at the last moment. We two-wheeled it on the left side for about five seconds, all threw ourselves to the right, and then stopped to get Daniel's bag, which had fallen out. Daniel probably should have gotten badly injured - it would have made sense for him to get a foot caught up and tangled in the wheels. But nope. We were all shaken (not stirred) but fine. Super.
Then another boat, and we were in Gosaba, where we found a pink guest house with bucket showers and giant beds with mosquito nets, bartered the rooms down to 200 each, and set out adventuring. I. Adore. Gosaba. Nearly no one there speaks English. Fortunately, Jed speaks a lot of Bangla, so we were able to communicate. We drank sugarcane juice and ate street fruit. Jed and I walked over to the shore, where we discovered the grossest, most absolutely superb mud I've ever seen. Our feet sunk nearly to our knees every time we stepped. Naturally, I decided that meant we should roll up our pants and walk the thirty meters or so to shore. GROSS. But fantastic. And three kids joined us, and we all went "ew ew ew" and it was great. I have videos.
Then Jed and I walked to the village-y section of Gosaba. Where everyone on the tiny island lives. We wandered at random, walked past goats, chickens, cows, and green green green. Eventually, kids started following us, so we spoke Bangla with them. After some time, a woman stepped out of her house and called to us. We followed. She invited us in for chai, and pulled chairs out so we could sit on her porch. There ended up being about ten women, three men, and a half dozen children - and us. Speaking. In Bangla. We talked about everything we could communicate, joked about how Jed knew onek Bangla and I knew khub choto. Very little. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah wonderful.
In the morning - BOAT. Gorgeous. We went on a 500-rupee-a-person boat cruise around Sunderbans. We didn't see any tigers. But we saw monkeys and birds and a crocodile and deer and a funny-looking pig. Our tour guide was awesome. He didn't speak English, but that didn't matter 'cause we had Jed. He let me drive the boat. Jed had made aloo mattar and roti and brought it with him to Gosaba, so we had a picnic on the boat. Oh gosh it was wonderful.
Then four-hour bus ride back to Kolkata. Smelled like eggs.
On the way back down Sudder Street, I suddenly felt like saying hello to one of the beggar women - usually I don't greet them, because they'll follow me asking for money. I started to speak at the exact same time she did, and we simultaneously said "namaste, di" (me) and "how are you, sister" (her). For the record, "di" means "older sister." It was beautiful.
Fast forward. Kalighat the next day. The woman I mentioned earlier had been moved to a bed waaay at the end of the room, and had a namecard (Neda) and a sign posted next to her bed that said "please do not touch without gloves." And had what looked like sudden, massive scabies. Again, I asked another volunteer what was wrong with her. And she said, "oh, she just has HIV." Oooookay then. So I grabbed some gloves and sang to her for a long, long time. At one point, a sister walked past me, stopped, and I showed her my hands. She nodded and kept walking. Bhalo. Good.
Wow, this is taking a long panda time. And I'm not even close to caught up.
Last Wednesday, I left Apne Aap early (Muslim holiday, no girls) and went in search for my girls' slum. After an hour of wandering around Park Circus, I found it. Turns out 39 Tiljala road is nowhere near 36 or 41. Tik ache (it's okay). It was fun to find. I got to speak a LOT of Bangla. Their slum isn't a tarp-city like the one next to it - rather, it's a giant cement building in which they all live together. I didn't walk in, but it was nice to know where it is and what it looks like.
Thursday, Josefin and I went to the tarp-slum next to the Park Circus bridge. I could write for pages about this, and will, but not right now. We brought cookies, paper, crayons, a ball, and sweets, all hidden in Josefin's backpack, with the intent to find some kids (chelemeye kothay?) and play with them. We found a bunch of kids among the tarps, gathered them together, and I handed out cookies - ekta tumi, ekta biscuit (one you, one cookie). The kids were ecstatic. They started running away, bringing back other kids and pushing hands toward me. Only a few kids asked for more than one cookie. Maybe it was because I started saying "ekta tumi, ekta biscuit" early on. There was one kid who kept pushing his friends hands toward me, asking for cookies, and then only after all the other kids had cookies did he extend his own. And he was a little kid, not an older one who might feel obliged to take care of everyone else. Some mothers asked for biscuits for their children who were at school, so I said "ekhane ney, biscuit ney." Not here, no biscuit.
After hanging out with the kids for awhile, we moved on. Left the tarp slum, and wandered into the area of garbage-pickers next to the train tracks. There are hundreds of tarps set up next to the tracks, just like next to the bridge. I assumed it would be the same situation - nice kids, who just want to be kid-like. ...nope. Within minutes, kids latched on to me, a little too close to be comfortable. It was hot out. So I figured that ten kids or so was a good group to colour, and reached into Josefin's bag (which I was carrying) for paper. Within seconds, I was completely swarmed. Imagine a mosh pit of dirty children (and women) with me at the center. And this was before I even removed the paper and crayons. And it didn't matter how much I yelled "thamo (stop)" or "shanti (settle / peace)" or even "bas (enough)". They kept pushing in on me. Thank God I'm not claustrophobic. This went on for about twenty minutes. Nonstop. I couldn't get them off of me. And they were laughing, screaming, reaching, tearing the whole time - the children and the women. There was one man who tried to order everyone, but it didn't work. I thought maybe if I started passing out paper, they'd go away, so I pulled out one sheet - which got torn from my hands instantly. Twenty hands all grabbing at the same paper at the same time means no one gets it, not even counting the thirty or so who were too far back to reach. Another sheet. Same result. Another. Another. Finally, I gave up and tried to push them away. Fail. The kids / women ripped the entire pack from my hands. Oh well. We had more paper in the bag. The kids were all screaming for pens. I was still being pressed in on, squished, sugarcane through a juicer. I pulled out a few crayons. Hands. All crayons smashed. This would not work. I started pushing through, trying to get away. Thamo, thamo, thamo, and the kids yelled ney, ney, ney. Stop. No. There was one girl who kept grabbing my shoulders to pull me back. The others just ripped at my clothes. For once, I'm glad I bought such high-quality Indian clothing. It wouldn't tear. Pull pull pull pull...and I eventually broke free, only to be chased and resurrounded a few moments later. I yelled "just go" to Josefin over the crowd. She started walking away. If this sounds overly dramatic or chaotic - it was. If it doesn't, then I haven't described it well enough. We eventually ran back to the tarp-slum. The whole process took about a half hour. Josefin hadn't been as swarmed, thank God. I'm glad I had the bag.
We went back to the first group, regathered the kids, and gave them white paper and crayons. One each. They drew and were happy. I taught some older kids to write their names in Bangla and English. Happy happy. One woman yelled at us for not bringing them more food. The other women shrugged and smiled at us. The kids were gleeful.
Why the stark contrast? They're both groups of kids. Living in the same condition, in two slightly different places. Why does one group have kids who bring their friends over for one cookie each, and the other have kids who rip paper and form mosh pits? What's the difference between these two groups of children?
Also, I don't understand why I wasn't bothered by this experience. Josefin was deeply affected, and I...well, it didn't surprise me. The kids at Apne Aap mosh pit me all the time. Somehow, events like this don't bother me, but the girl in the train station who doesn't eat the bread I give her - that bothers me. The man on the street with the infected leg wound, who refuses treatment because the wound means he's a more effective beggar - that bothers me. Thirty kids flash mobbing me for coloured paper? Nah.
Gosh, I still have more to write.
The song Worlds Apart, by Jars of Clay, has pretty much been my theme lately. I swiped Peter's guitar and play it all the time.
I finished a journal a few days ago. Thanks to Domtar for the new one. :-)
I should mention the weather. Apparently it's been 90/95 degrees here every day. I checked the weather online for those numbers. It's been hot. I walk a lot. Strangely, at the end of the day, my clothing smells like sugar. I think it's because of all the chai I drink.
Apne Aap show. Ohhhhh man. When I started working for Apne Aap two months ago, Sraboni told me that she wanted me to teach a drama class on Friday afternoons. The women didn't show up for five weeks straight, so we started the class a few weeks ago. No one speaks English. 30/40-year-old-women, who live in the slums with a bunch of children. The first rehearsal, we played Pass the Clap and Boom Swish, to get them comfortable working together and being LOUD. The next rehearsal, I sat down with them and, through two layers of translation, asked them about their frustrations and hopes. One woman in the group can write Bengali, and Zareen can understand spoken Bengali. So we had a woman write down what everyone said, read it to Zareen, and Zareen translated it to me in English so I could write it down. That was tedious, but reeeeally awesome. Last Friday, at rehearsal, I tried to ask the women what they wanted the show to look like, the format, what they wanted to make sure was communicated, etc. And they told me NOTHING. Again and again, they said "Ani writes the show, we perform it" (in Bangla and Hindi). What?! I don't live their lives. I don't speak their language. But they trust me to be their voices? Okay. After pushing them for more information, emotion, ideas, anything, I talked with Sraboni, who said the same thing. Write the show.
So I wrote it.
I'm not going to post it on here. It's too long. They wanted it to be a half hour / hour long show. It has tabla, a Greek chorus, masks, a dance-fight. Oh, and it's in Hindi. I wrote it in simple English, and two Apne Aap teachers and I have been working on translating it every day. Saboushni speaks fluent Hindi, a little Bangla, and a little English, Mr. Computer Sir (my girls' name for him) speaks fluent Bangla, moderate English, and moderate Hindi, and I read and write English and speak a little Bangla. Together, we can slowly translate my English into transliterated Hindi. We don't need it written in Hindi characters, because the women can't read. They'll be memorizing the show aurally, which means that I need to learn to pronounce my entire show in Hindi.
We'll be performing it on the street at the beginning of April. I'll bring a camera. :-)
Okay, I think that's it.
No it's not! Jeff and I decided mine and Josefin's room needed a window, so we watercoloured one on the wall. It's pretty.
Time to go get chai and teach.
Love and many words,
Stephanie
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Balance.
Edit: After this making this original post, I've decided that I need to figure out a balance of communication. Thus, I've decided to give up just instant internet and phone communication. I'll keep checking and responding to my email and Facebook and updating this blog, but not very often.
Original post: I've realized that my connections via email, phone, and Facebook have recently caused me to be less dependent on God and much less focused on my work here. I know that communicating less is a selfish thing to do, but I just haven't been devoting myself enough to the work I'm doing in Kolkata because my mind is split between two continents. Thus, I've decided to completely commit myself - mind, body, and spirit - to what I'm doing here. If you really need to contact me, send me an email with a subject line that lets me know. I'll be scanning through my subject lines in my email about once a week. I'm going to try to keep posting on this blog, but it won't be nearly as often.
Quick update - still loving Kalighat, still loving Apne Aap. I'm writing a show with the women of Apne Aap called Asha Kori, which means "I hope". It'll be performed March 8th. Please pray for quick memorization, communication through the language barrier, and good public reception. Pray above all that the women's voices are heard.
Thank you!
Love and Park Circus,
Stephanie
Original post: I've realized that my connections via email, phone, and Facebook have recently caused me to be less dependent on God and much less focused on my work here. I know that communicating less is a selfish thing to do, but I just haven't been devoting myself enough to the work I'm doing in Kolkata because my mind is split between two continents. Thus, I've decided to completely commit myself - mind, body, and spirit - to what I'm doing here. If you really need to contact me, send me an email with a subject line that lets me know. I'll be scanning through my subject lines in my email about once a week. I'm going to try to keep posting on this blog, but it won't be nearly as often.
Quick update - still loving Kalighat, still loving Apne Aap. I'm writing a show with the women of Apne Aap called Asha Kori, which means "I hope". It'll be performed March 8th. Please pray for quick memorization, communication through the language barrier, and good public reception. Pray above all that the women's voices are heard.
Thank you!
Love and Park Circus,
Stephanie
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sidenote.
Hooray!
I haven't posted in awhile, but I will! There's a draft saved that only I can see. I'm working on it. I decided that posting pictures was a good idea, so...go see Facebook! Here's a preview:
We went to Sunderbans for the weekend. :-)
Stories will be written.
Love and gogogo,
Stephanie
I haven't posted in awhile, but I will! There's a draft saved that only I can see. I'm working on it. I decided that posting pictures was a good idea, so...go see Facebook! Here's a preview:
We went to Sunderbans for the weekend. :-)
Stories will be written.
Love and gogogo,
Stephanie
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)