Post #115 - February 3, 2013 - Kolkata, West Bengal, India

What we did: Prem Dan, shopped
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 4510R/$90

This morning I was finally feeling good enough to accompany Patty to Prem Dan. We taxied to the Mother House, had a very minuscule breakfast of masala chai, bananas, and bread, then took the 30 minute walk to Prem Dan.

As Patty has described in other blog entries, the walk to Prem Dan is somewhat shocking because the route is literally straight through a slum area. People are showering directly on the streets with hoses or buckets of water. There also seem to be designated shower areas where people can have the illusion of privacy while crowds of people roam by. It was where meat and fish were being sold that was the most intense, however. Meat and fish were piled up on the sides of the narrow streets. The smell was relentless. We passed by a small shack and within were piles of what looked like chicken bones. Blood was everywhere, and in some cases little rivers of blood were flowing down the crevices in the street. Even worse, people were preparing food nearby to the mess of meat and other garbage.

We passed over some train tracks along the way. The tracks were lined with little shacks that many people called their home. The tracks themselves were regarded by the people as an open area. There were people chatting right on the tracks, walking along and over them, and just generally conducting their day-to-day affairs right next to them. When we passed by a walking overpass over the tracks, a group of school children standing on a stairwell all called down to us in unison and said “hello!”. Young people are often so friendly in India. I think they love using some of the English they are taught in school. Really, though, it’s not just the children in India that are friendly; most people here are friendly. And it’s truly amazing how positive many of these people are, especially considering the rampant poverty. Their outlook on life is so much different from ours in the West. It makes me believe we have things seriously backwards.

When we arrived at Prem Dan, Patty went to help the women and I went to help out on the men’s side. It being my first time here, I quickly introduced myself to two volunteers so that I could get their guidance. They both turned out to be extremely friendly. One man is in his forties and is called Val; he is from Italy. The other was a younger man, about 20 years old, from Taiwan; unfortunately, neither of us can remember his name.

The first thing we did was hang clothes to dry on the roof of the building. This was a fairly straightforward exercise. Apparently, some of the volunteers are involved in the actual washing of the clothing, but I didn't really want to have anything to do with that. We spent about 45 minutes hanging clothing and then we went down to the main floor to begin washing the floors. Basically, this consisted of carrying buckets of water from a large cistern and dumping the water on the ground. Other volunteers and workers then swept up the water. Every time I went to dump out a bucket of water onto the ground, I ended up soaking my shoes. Most people were wearing sandals, and others were just bare-foot. It would have been nice to know to bring sandals!

After we cleaned the floor, we spent some time with the men at the home. Most of them were sitting outside in a garden area, on the ground or on chairs. I took a page out of Patty’s book and first went looking for someone who it looked like he was lonely. I found an older man sitting inside. I had seen him before, in passing, and had noticed he was reading a book. When I approached him he had his eyes closed, although he was sitting up with his feet over the bed. I touched him on the shoulder and started talking to him. It turned out he was reading the Bible, which surprised me. We chatted briefly, but it wasn't long before I got the hint that I was annoying him. Some other people came and went and he was paying an unusually large amount of attention to them. I think he might have just found it awkward talking to me, even though he could speak some English. I was somewhat disheartened by his lack of interest, but then what did I expect? These people see volunteers come and go, and I suppose it makes very little sense to them to put any effort into developing relationships with volunteers.

After this, I grabbed some lotion and walked around asking people if they wanted a massage. This is a popular thing among volunteers to do. Most of the other volunteers were rubbing this white lotion onto people’s feet, legs, and arms. We were wearing gloves, so hopefully that is OK. Unfortunately, no one really showed any appreciation for anything and tried to communicate as little as possible with me. After I’d given a bunch of massages, I went to help Val clean the dishes from breakfast. There were fewer volunteers today because every Sunday volunteers go to help street kids at a special event, so there were many dishes to clean.

After about half an hour or so it was break time and the nurses put out some masala chai and digestive cookies. I still couldn't really eat anything because of my stomach, so I just had a couple cookies. I spoke mostly with the guy from Taiwan. He was extremely friendly. I introduced him to Patty while on break and we all chatted for a while. Patty pointed out Reka to me, who is a burn victim. She mentioned she had spent some of the morning with her rubbing lotion on her arms which Reka seemed to like. Her arms were apparently very dry, but Patty was worried the lotion may irritate her skin even more. From the sounds of it though, Reka enjoyed it. Patty was quite sad to see that Reka had completely lost both her eyes. Today was the first time she saw her face without the bandages covering her eyes. Her eyes were completely sealed shut. She also noticed a large new open sore near her mouth with what looked to Patty like pus being discharged. In India, it is not uncommon for women to be set on fire by their husbands, when the customary funding that is supposed to be provided by the wife’s family, ceases, or runs out. We can only speculate, but many of the women at Prem Dan believe this is what happened to Reka. It is for these reasons that boys are preferred over girls. Girls cost a lot of money in India. It is custom that the bride’s family pays for all the wedding festivities and as mentioned, continues to support them financially throughout their days.

Patty also looked after feeding Dupali. She was concerned because it was the 2nd day in a row that Dupali would not eat. Patty thinks she does not want to eat or take her medication because after the sister finished inserting the pills in her mouth she laid back down and let them fall out of her mouth. She also whines a bit whenever Patty tries feeding her. What is the right thing to do in this situation? The sisters continue to try their best to feed her but they can only do so much.
After the break, we spent the next hour or so bringing firewood into the kitchen area, piling it outside the kitchen area, and rearranging some of the larger pieces of wood in the storage area. It was mindless manual labour, but all the volunteers had some fun doing it together. I learned a little bit about Val. Apparently he really missed Italian cooking. I don’t blame him.

Once we were done with the wood it was time for lunch. We spent some time handing out dishes of food and then washed all the dishes. I was on the frontlines of this particular battle, scraping the dishes into a bucket before giving them a rinse and throwing them into a large container where they were washed. At one point, I dumped some leftovers into the bucket and it splashed on me. That was disgusting.
Once we were done washing the dishes, the morning was over and it was time to go. Patty was waiting for me at the gate, and we left with Val and the Taiwanese kid (I really wish I could remember his name!!). We walked to the main road and took an auto-rickshaw back to Sutter St. Val left us to go find his wife, but recommended we try one restaurant, so the three of us went. We had a great lunch with the Taiwanese fellow, although both Patty and I were exhausted. He told us many interesting things about Taiwan, including how the United Nations doesn't even technically consider it a country. He spoke English quite well and there were only a couple times when we had difficulties understanding each other.

After our lunch, we wandered to a main road looking for a taxi back home, when Patty spotted a couple shops she wanted to look in. We’re leaving India soon and Patty wanted to get in some last minute shopping. We had a little luck with some scarves and then headed back to our hotel.
We were both so exhausted from the morning that we decided to skip our shift at Daya Dan. I think if we return to Kolkata to volunteer again, we will only sign up for one shift per day. They are very exhausting experiences, and two shifts is simply too much.

We rested until around 8pm, when we decided to check out a nice-looking restaurant that serves Italian, Thai, Chinese, and Indian. Who could resist that combination? The food turned out to be very good, although very expensive.

When we got back to the room we watched about 30 minutes of Silver Lining Playbook before we passed out from exhaustion. Another early morning again tomorrow!