Kolkata, India 2018

Note: This is a blog that got caught in draft form. No time like the present!

Kolkata, India 2018

I never dreamed I would go to Kolkata.  In March, the Principal and I took 18 juniors and seniors in high school to Kolkata, India, on the Children of Kolkata Interim.

Here are components of a reflection I wrote a week later.

So, what do I make of my time in Kolkata after being home a week now?  I’ve really not continued to process it as much as I hoped so this may serve that purpose.

OPENNESS: I found that I was able to open myself to others on a level that I hadn’t before.  A human to human level; perhaps even a level that acknowledges the Christ in another.  Connecting to Sheela (a girl cared for by the Missionaries of Charity) and many of the other girls through touch, smiles, eye contact, and intention did that.  All pretenses that are put up automatically as a part of a developed world dropped away and all that was left was one human being with another and love.

LOVE: Love as something big and bright and all encompassing.  Love that doesn’t need anything tangible back but that connects and is resonant with another.  

CONNECTEDNESS: Connectedness with my fellow chaperone David and the students on the trip.  Connectedness with certain girls at Shanti-Dan and other volunteers: Donna and Josephina. Connectedness to the Khans: Mohin and Nazim. Connectedness with people on the street that we saw and passed by - just by smiling and giving real eye contact.  At the beginning of the trip I was so enamored with James’ ability to connect to kids and adults alike - strangers- that almost instantly became friends.  How did he do it?  I learned that he simply opened himself to their humanity and that is all it took.

PERSPECTIVE:  It is good to know that the life I live isn’t the only way to live life.  Somehow this real life is less real than that life.  Now that I have witnessed and felt what I have witnessed, felt and known, I can always return to that Truth or live in that Truth.  I only need to choose to do so.  Look each person in the eye and see the real him or her, the human beneath the pretense.  Be real.  Be seen.  Be open.  Be connected. Be.

Developing world - Kolkata:  I wasn’t horrified by what I saw.  I didn’t feel sorry for people.  I acknowledged their strife for day to day living and I know I can’t know what it is to be them, BUT I was actually impressed with the way the society is set up to support the poor, the sustainability already in place.  These are things like un-fired pottery for cups, bags made out of old newspapers, street markets that needed no extra plastic, easily accessible (albeit gross) public toilets, public baths, and public water supply (pumps). Public transportation/transportation for rich and poor (bikes, walking, Uber, bus, tuk tuk, rickshaw, taxi (1953?)), burning your own trash, taking your recycling to a place, spices sold in jars, cloth sold for sewing, virtually no packaging to clutter things up.

Developing world life - to be poor - Kolkata:  This is certainly just by observation, right?  But homeless people slept on mats or cots or in their rickshaw on the side of the road, bathed, got water, food, toilet, all there.  People talked to each other and problem-solved together.  No cell-phones to separate them from their fellow human beings.  Those with no one might be “lucky enough” to be taken in my Missionaries of Charity.  There, while residents own absolutely nothing, they are cared for.  They receive a bed, food to eat, clothing to wear, medical attention, exercise, physical therapy, education (for the girls at Shanti-Dan).  From volunteers like us they receive additional attention, kindness, and love.  This is what it looks like to take money out of the system altogether and simply pay attention to the needs of others and how what you have can fulfill someone else’s needs.  Amazing.  This is not to say that life isn’t hard, probably often lonely, perhaps hopeless for some.  That I cannot say.

Mother Theresa’s tomb:  I want to give this a bit of attention as it is something that has stuck with me.  The place was surprisingly powerful.  Truly powerful.  The heartbeat of Kolkata, I called it.  There was an energy there that overwhelmed me.  I can’t say that I identified it as Love, actually.  But it was Energy (with a capital E) and it was Real (with a capital R).  I wanted to cry, really.  The kind of overwhelming, powerful emotion - crying - that comes to you when you’ve just learned someone you loved has died.  And you know that they are gone but still with you.  Like that.  A powerful presence was in that room where her tomb was.  And it was not present for me in the chapel just one floor up.  I shall not forget that.  I have encountered other sacred spaces - this definitely counts as one!

Cambodia in Spring

I highly recommend going on a mission trip.  I’ve just completed my second trip.  This time I spent Monday - Friday of Spring Break with a group of 22 people from Church of All Nations, Hong Kong, who were working in conjunction with an organization called CWEF.  We had the opportunity to sight see a tad bit, support organizations which empower former sex slaves and homeless men and then teach children at a school and integrate into their rural community.  

Things I never thought I would do but have done:  

1. Eat fried scorpion.  The tail - to be exact.  It tasted earthy and more like dirt than anything.  (I’m sure you can figure out why.) Don’t need to do that again.
2. Eat fried cricket.  Fried in oil and seasoned with salt - not too bad really.  Just don’t stare in their vacant eyes too much.  
3. Un-thatch and re-thatch a chicken coop roof. I was part of a team of about 9 people, true.  But I never imagined I would do it.
   
4. Teach 4 to 14-year-old Cambodian children animals in English.  Their school is basic - a play yard, cement building with one room for each of six grades.  No electricity.  Natural lighting.  Black board, teacher desk, student desk, posters on the wall.  The children had fun and were engaged in the 45 minute lessons. But they really loved play time jumping rope, making friendship bracelets, and playing soccer with the kids from Hong Kong.  At the end of their day it was lunch time.  Children walked or rode bikes home.
   
5. Meet and talk with a family with no electricity or clean water source, but squatter latrine out back.  As far as I could tell, they had only a one-room home made out of wood and dirt floor.  Platforms to sleep on, sit on, work on, use as a table or anything else.  Babies and children didn’t appear to have any possessions or toys and weren’t giggling or playing rough.  Just shy and smiling with beautiful soul-light in their eyes.  Father said knowing Christ has brought him a sense of peace in his poverty. Chickens, cats, and roamed freely.
6. Breathe dust and dirt.  So much dust from the dirt road going through the community.  Always dust in the air as cars and motorcycles bop by.  Road crew came by to water the road to help tamp down the dust, but somehow, it was back to atrocious the following day. That means everything you have gets dusty: floors, pots and pans, cooking surfaces, feet, hair, arms.  And with limited water source, people can stay dirty a long time. 
7. Help make five gallons of dish soap from the chemicals and water needed to do so.
8. Shave banana plant for pounding into a meal mixed with rice husks for the farm ducks.
9. Love, love, love human beings from a place and society foreign to my experiences.

What’s the take away? 

Well, I realize that outsiders can be helpful in lifting a community up, but that there are likely good ways and bad ways to do it.  You want to give them what they need to lead a healthier life, but don’t go in trying to change their society.  Something like building a water filter that can clean gallons of water at a time, is made from community materials, and that the people are taught how to do it and the value of doing it - that works.  Bringing in a hundred plastic toothbrushes, maybe not.  Where do they throw them out when then are done, since they are not biodegradable and there’s not easy garbage disposal?  And what if they can’t get more when you are gone?

Societies are running for the most part in a way that is sustainable for THEM.  It may look very different from what I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s not functioning.  

Long term relationships with a community and its people seem to be a good way to go, but again, don’t impose your views upon them and don’t make the community dependent upon your support.  CWEF supports the school we were at by hiring teachers.  But then they ask the students to contribute a very nominal amount of money to their education.  This way, CWEF can back out and move to another community, while the school can continue to run off of the tuition paid by the students and the investment in education that the community comes to value.