Alright, I'll start with February 10th, the day we arrived in Kolkata...
Or night, rather. After flying from Nashville to Newark to Frankfurt, the last leg of which I literally had the seat next to a screaming baby, we finally arrived around 1:00AM India Standard Time. Coming out of customs, we were met by Jaiashree and Piyos (hope I got the spelling right on those) who greeted us with big smiles.
Jaiashree and Piyos are an essential part of the SEED (save, entrust, equip, disciple) Society, an organization that was formed in 2009. Back before SEED was in existence, Jaiashree worked for a well-known international Christian organization. But while she was doing good work with this organization, she saw needs that weren't being met in Kolkata, particularly in the slum areas. So she left to serve the "least of these", an amazing step of faith that led to the creation of SEED... and, a couple years later, also led to meeting 16 Americans at the airport at 1:00 in the morning.
Stepping out of the airport into the amazingly warm air, we had our first encounter with beggars.
Child: "Madam, I can have chocolate?"
Me: "Oh I'm sorry, I don't have any chocolate..."
Child: "Okay, rupees is fine then."
They were just little boys, who apparently lacked adult supervision and a bedtime. We had been explicitly instructed beforehand not to give money to beggars... but no one had mentioned what to do in the event that chocolate was requested. One of the boys had a Snickers bar in in hand, so I think giving chocolate to beggars is okay.
Without much delay, we all piled into a little bus - which would become "our" well-loved bus by the end of the trip - with all of our luggage. And I don't use the word "piled" loosely here...
Keep in mind there was a row of people sitting on the right side of these bags too. I don't know how I managed to get a whole seat to myself, and by a window! Unfortunately, I couldn't see much of Kolkata through the darkness as we rode to Seva Kendra, the Catholic-affiliated hotel-type place where we stayed. What I did see out the window were buildings upon buildings, most of which looked abandoned/run-down. I figured this was an anomaly, like a sketchy part of town, or that things would look different in the light of day.
Nope. That's pretty much what Kolkata looks like in the daylight, on every street... just add 15 million people. And buses. And cars. And rickshaws. And bikes. Even after being there over a week, all the streets looked identical to me. There are just shops upon shops with no gaps in between, and all of the buildings look like they were once beautiful, but that they'd somehow lost their luster along the way. (I had the recurring thought while in Kolkata that if I could just get enough paint, I could fix the place up. A fresh coat of paint, a bath... all surface solutions for a city with deep pain.) And the strange thing was, there could be a hardware store adjacent to an MRI diagnostics building adjacent to a used bookstore, all with multiple vendors out front selling food and plastic trinkets.
When we got to Seva Kendra, a few of us put our bare feet in the soil because supposedly this acclimates you to a new environment. Or maybe we just did it for the photo op? Either way, I stand by the decision 100%.
After washing our feet, we all settled into our respective rooms for some much needed beauty sleep. Here's a (lovely) picture of me and Angie, my "roomster" for the trip, upon our arrival.
And here's the room, and the bathroom.
At first glance, I didn't think we had a shower. And then I realized... the entire bathroom is the shower. You can see the shower head to the right. I was very apprehensive about the whole thing. I actually woke up the next morning dreading the fact that I needed to bathe. I made Angie go first. Fortunately, I got used to our situation as the week went on. It's kinda fun, actually... you get to squeegee the bathroom floor when you're done to get all the water into a little drain in the corner (the brown spot on the wall in the pic). Okay, maybe that doesn't sound too enticing, but in a strange way I personally found it entertaining.
Oh, it's also important to note the mosquito nets over the beds. I miss my mosquito net dearly. At night, we would sleep with the window open and our mosquito nets around our beds. It's like being in a cocoon, except instead of being a bug, you're a human. And the bugs are on the outside and they can't get it in. It's a beautiful concept, really.
On that note, I'm off to sleep in my tragically net-less bed.
(I didn't intend to write in this much detail. Tomorrow I'll write about the actual DAY of February 10th.)
