Home

Friends, I am home.

I apologize for the delay in relaying the message, but I had good reason. Krista and I decided three weeks before we left, for a number of reasons, to forego backpacking through western India and instead fly home early and surprise our family. We were so excited! We changed our plane tickets and contacted my brother Peter, who agreed to pick us up at the airport. We said our goodbyes and avoided mentioning anything of our departure in our emails- my last entry was written the morning that we left.

I had been very sick for a week before we boarded the plane with what I thought was a serious case of food poisoning but the excitement of coming home had kicked my weak body into high gear and gave me the adrenaline I needed to get through the beast of a trip back to Tennessee. By the time we reached Nashville Krista and I had not slept in well over 24 hours and we didn't care! We made our appearance at my good friend Tyler Jame's show where Peter was playing and we surprised not only my family but all of our friends. I was overwhelmed by being home and surrounded by all the people I loved and had missed so much.

The next two days were spent with my parents, who had come into town to see Pete perform- I felt relieved but was losing energy and my symptoms had not lessened. By Sunday evening, I plummeted. I became severely dehydrated and over the next few hours was unable to tolerate even water. My friend Kerry was with me and I am so thankful. Had circumstances differed only slightly I would have needed to be taken to the ER.

Krista took me to the Infectious Disease clinic at Vanderbilt the next morning and they began running lab tests. I am unclear about what happened, except that they gave me an iv and a liter of fluid. I know first hand that Krista is a wonderful nurse, she stayed by my side for five hours. I don't remember coming home or the two days that followed, but there were flowers in my room and friends who came to visit, and my sister. My sister Emily played nursemaid and my sweet boyfriend Mark stayed close by. My Mom came back in town. I slept. I was given a heavy dosage of antibiotics and within a week I was back on my feet. My body is weak, as though I woke up from a coma-which isn't, I guess, so far from the truth!

What a miraculous turn of events that I came home when I did! I can imagine what could have happened  had I been traveling through Rajasthan when I became so sick. I am increasingly more thankful for the people in my life and the overwhelming abundance I have been born into. My life is blessed. Beyond what, even after this experience, I can comprehend.

Having seen sorrow, I know I have never tasted it. Having met despair, I know I have never held it's hand. Having witnessed poverty, I know I have never slept in it. Having touched disease, I know I have never worn it. I look at my healthy body, at the wealth of our country, I notice the safety of the walls of my house, the clean air and water, I look at the faces of my friends and family, and my complaints die on my lips. What do I have to add but "Thank you!" ? What do I have to offer but gratitude? What do I cling to but humility?

I thank each of you for coming with me, for participating in this process. No one has a community of friends like mine. Your prayers were my arrows.

All my love,

Ev


P.s......I may write again. We will see what adventures the future will bring! I leave you now with one of my favorite quotes which has become my prayer :


"I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive, but to justify all that has happened."
                                                                                                
                                                                                             (Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

A Word on Fear from the Dark

Last night a power outtage in our district left me with no time to write and plenty of time to think. I thought mostly of my experience here and again of the chapter I posted last about fear. It struck me after a couple of hours and I was instantly wide awake-in the corner of the humid black room I lay in my mind lit like a small match and I smiled. I am slowly sewing this quilt together here in the dark...

The thing about that chapter that struck me as so powerful, so insightful, is that it is an accurate description of the environment here. Read through the history of this city and you will discover a long, sordid love affair with fear. The political unrest and corruption of this communist state in West Bengal is as corroded by fear as it is by acid rain and acts of terrorism. It is in the mortar of the buildings, the grease on the wheels of business and religion. People drown in it on the sidewalks. Imagine the description from "Life of Pi", only mulitply the instant described by a lifetime of moments and you will begin to see semblance of some of the people I have encountered and the world that they know so well.

Here is the unique twist. When Krista first proposed this trip she mentioned that she felt she was coming here to encounter suffering. Krista and I then stepped into this world briefly, as though onto an elevator platform, and for a brief period of time we have been painted into the landscape. We have been afraid, we have been sick and exhausted. We each entered into our own kind of suffering- our tiny personal prisons of discomfort and disappointment, made smaller by the vastly worse conditions surrounding us, from which we have largely been protected. We have been pricked with enough pain and at the right moment to make us aware of who we are and how we live....and how often we fail to consider both counts.

No coincidence that as each of us struggled in our own way through conditions we find nearly intolerable (though 17 million people survive them every day), I remembered in my bed last night the words of Matthew Henry in his commentary on Psalm 58:6. Where David writes "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not recorded in your book?", Henry explains "What the psalmist is saying here is that we need no other weapon than prayers and tears." What words!

From one of the most brilliant military tacticians in history comes this simple and tested advice: to engage the enemy you must first feel fully your own defenselessness. Lay your intellect with its flat factual comprehension prostrate before something greater. We must engage fear with hands not armed, but folded. We look it in the eyes until we see through it. We cry out in pain and in prayer to the one who is ever-attentive to our needs.

And then, though blind as we may feel, this:

In foreign countries, in frightening places, out from dark corners and down treacherous roads answers this voice...

"I will lead the blind in a way they do not know, in paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do and I do not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16



Promise kept.

A Chapter on Fear

Another bout with sickness has had me trapped flat on my back for three days. Building up a tolerance for water, but only that-the one thing I am devouring is books. I have read and read and read until my eyes burn and my brain clicks and dings like a typewriter. Today I finished "Life of Pi", which I began yesterday. I read slowly so as you can imagine I have had plenty of time.

However graphic and gory in detail, this book sent electric shocks through my mind. It is the story of Pi Patel, a sixteen yr old Indian boy and sole survivor of a sunken cargo ship who finds himself on a lifeboat in the Pacific ocean with a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal Tiger.

Chapter 56

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins with your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons of technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the sopt. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies, hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficut to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

Annie Dillard

"I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aged and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I have come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them..."

The New Church

Krista and I visited Sari Bari yesterday, a four year old organization operating out of the Kalighat red light district and at work to change the lives of women being exploited by prostitution. The vision for this business is restoration, pure and simple. They foster relationships with women "working the line", they visit brothels and over the years have created a blossoming community in the midst of a very dark and hopeless place. Similar to the work of Freeset, this smaller community offers an alternative to prostitution through learning a trade and creating handmade products which are sold through the website. The name "Sari" (a word often strongly associated with women) and "Bari" (meaning home) is a beautiful description of the work that takes place here- old saris are torn apart and given new life and purpose.

The temperature here is climbing rapidly-even in the last two days we have noticed. The dusty grime of the sidewalks and streets mingles with sweat and by mid-morning you feel like you have a second layer of skin. We boarded the 45B bus and walked down the street to the entrance of the Kali district and waited for Brent and his wife, friends of Krista's who have been living here for a year now and working with S.B.  They appeared out of the crowd and ushered us through a series of small alleys and into the four white washed rooms of this non-profit.

The women sat on the clean concrete floor in a room with happy red trim and a fan spinning high over head- a calm, clean respite out of place in this district. They were strong and kind, ranging in age from late twenties to fifties. I cant explain the gravity that they have, a self posession that changes the way they walk and move. You feel like they are your mother- or your aunt- and it is clear that they are all your superior. Brent led a brief Bible study in bengali followed by an English lesson and then their work day began. The women are not only trained in their craft but educated- all of them learn basic math skills and are taught to read.

Krista and I and two other visitors sat outside and talked with a girl my age named Beth who is originally from the states and has been living here for four years to be a part of this organization. She gave us the background story and explained in detail how Sari Bari works, what they provide for women who are brave enough to step out of the line (401k, retirement plans,health insurance and education funding for their children!), and how relationships are forged and sustained within the community. It is a delicate process made possible only through the tears and sacrifices and courage of the small staff here. She said if she had known ahead of time what horrors she would encounter in the brothels here she may well have chosen another direction in life. Beth just signed another three year contract largely in part due to "the beating heart" of the operation- the Indian women I met yesterday who have undergone this "metaporphosis"  and make all of the agony worth it, who outweigh the bad with the goodness and light they bring to this work.

The poor understand limitations. The women here have no option, they are forced by whips of desperation and poverty into the shackles of this trade. Living in little more than cells inside the brothels-some of them never being permitted to leave their rooms, they are well acquainted with surrender. This is why, when given the hope of a new life through the hands of an organization like Sari Bari, the process of restoration is realized.

I don't think I fully connected the experience today until hours later I listened to a discussion called "Breathing Under Water", by Richard Rohr. He said,"The poor hold the seed of the gospel and in every age in so far as the church incorporates the outcast, those that it pushes to the edge, those that it hates and rejects-the church rediscovers Christ just where he said he would be- in the least of the brothers, in the little no-bodies of the world."

 "The real spirituality of the church is surfacing in the third world, not through the intellectualism of our society," said Rohr. The work of the preoccupied church is being executed and accomplished by other hands who are reaching out to broken women, to the elderly, to the abused, to the mentally handicapped, to the unlovely and the diseased."We always say there are no prostitutes who work at Sari Bari, only our sisters," Beth said. Unlike in my life and in many congregations, shame is never a part of the equation. Any one of those women in their apparent devastation have found a greater sensitivity for spiritual things than I have in all of my successes, and Beth who has chosen to give up three more years of her life to the hidden work in these narrow alleys will leave a richer mark on humanity than many who have acquired both wealth and power.

-Ev

Next to the Skin

Yesterday Krista and I boarded a bus at 7 am and were driven an hour outside of the city to a village along  the tracks of the local train. We had signed up to visit Titagar, the leper's colony established by the missionaries of charity.

I have never seen a person who wore this disease on their body-in my limited knowledge it must be one of the most tragic and disfiguring. As I understand, medical professionals are still unsure of how the disease is spread. I read in "Shantaram", the book I keep picking up and putting down, that in one of the Indian dialects the word for this disease translates to "the living dead," a term we would associate with zombies in a horror film. Truly, it is horrific. The human body decays and the human soul inside becomes trapped in an ever-constricting cage. You lose sensation in your limbs, you lose soft tissue, you lose digits and then limbs, your eyes scar white until you lose your vision, you lose your family, your community, you lose, you lose, you lose.....Leprosy is treatable. Unfortunately, as in most cases at Titagar, help came too late and their bodies had already begun to revolt. Though perhaps the deterioration was halted or at the very least slowed, many were without hands or feet or sight.

The community as a whole is contained and self-sustaining. There is a ward for men, one for women, for children and family apartments all on site. There is a school for the children and a small chapel. The most amazing and impressive thing there was the weavers factory. All the sheets, blankets and clothes Krista and I have washed in the laundrey line at Prem Dan, all the textiles  for every center were hand woven on the looms of Titagar. Even the famous blue and white saris of the sisters of charity are produced by seventy five leprosy patients at the colony. The residents who are able to work sit at stations against the walls of a long, narrow building. The process is complicated, the patterns are intricate, the work is repetitive and exhausting- apparently one elderly man has been in charge for years, he accounts for every thread of the tens of thousands, he keeps up maintenace on every primitive loom and his work is flawless.

The members of this society have the use of a huge, lavish garden of vegetables and flowers which is well kept and planted not only out of necessity but also for beauty.  Goats and hogs are kept on site and produce milk and meat. The buildings themselves are stucco and painted in the soft, clean, cool tones of a hospital in the early 1900's. The property is surrounded by  horizontal strings of barbed wire stacked about 12 feet high. The grounds behind the property have been sectioned off in a giant quilt of crops like mustard and rice. It is one of the most beautiful places we have seen since we have been in the city, and life inside those walls must be far more calm and pleasant than life outside them.

It was good to walk through and be confronted with something I was admittedly nervous to experience. To look into deformed faces and see beyond the disease to the person who smiled and greeted us kindly with "Namaste, good morning."  It has also been on my mind that Mother Teresa chose to have the garments she wore produced here, with these hands that carry the title "unclean", by people who have been cast out of society for thousands of years. The most recognizable symbol, the "flag" of Mother Teresa's work was created by the gnarled hands of the leper. In a sense, she put on that disease every day and wore it right next to the skin.

Again, I am gaining a better sense each day for what bravery looks like. A month before the possibility of this trip was even realized, a friend asked me what I would change about myself if I could. "I wish I were more brave", I had answered without the slightest idea of where to begin. I feel like I have an idea, at least, of where it begins.

 Thankful again today for the experience of this place.


-Ev

Small Heavy Things

Regarding "Little Songhita" post:

Had photos developed a few days ago and this morning Krista and I felt well enough to go to work at Prem Dan. Gave Ghita the photos we took of her six month old baby who is in another facility. Have a video of her looking through them with wide eyes and it will make you weep. I cannot wait to show you!

A ten minute walk to Sishu Bhaven, a five minute search for the nursery, ten questions leading us to the right child and a fifteen minute wait to have the photos developed were well worth the minute amount of effort it took to lift Ghita's spirit today.

Small effort on our part may exact huge change in the lives around us. It is worth it just to try, I promise.

-Ev


"Dear Lord, the great healer, I kneel before you. Since every perfect gift must come from you. I pray, give skill to my hands, clear vision to my mind, kindness and meekness to my heart. Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift up a part of the burden of my suffering fellow man, and a true realization of the privilege that is mine. Take from my heart all guile and worldliness, that with the simple faith of a child, I may rely on you."
                                                                                                                                -Mother Teresa
 

 

Pinned

When you are sick in a foreign country, when your body is too tired to get out of bed and your mind is too bored to quiet itself, when you have stared at the ceiling for all of the hours that compose several days time- then, sometimes, you begin to learn a few things.  You are made to sit like a child and you wait to be taught.  You become a student of your own history.

When all of the comforts of home lay on the other side of the world, when all of the distractions you crave are unavailable to your grasping hands, when you suddenly realize that you are the pendulum swinging at once to worry about the future and then to grief over the past-then, you become aware of the present. You wonder how many hours you have spent turning in that process which yeilds no harvest of wisdom or growth. You, in a fog of resentment have recounted the years that seemingly shortened and evaporated and then realize that the fault lies with you-it was you who drifted through them numbly like a ghost. You have a change of heart-you wish you could have them back-you wish you could be present for each of those unrecognized moments.

When you feel like the butterfly pinned to the velvet wall and the truth about yourself is inescapable. When you start wondering for the first time in a long time what stands behind your reasoning, what drives your motivation, when you consider that "rock you would be willing to die on"...it becomes increasingly more clear. Sometimes you were unselfish and loved people easily and most of the time you weren't and didn't. Sometimes you acted out of the goodness of your heart, most of the time out of the calculating machine of your head.

Friends, I have lived only a few days in this place. Already I see a great many things I could have done differently, I knew to do better, and still I chose my comfort over your blessing. Forgive me, please.

I am not desparing nor am I wallowing in depression, so don't assume wrongly that I am in a destructive place- I am in a dark place actually, but my heart is widening, my eyes are finding the light and my feet feel weightless with the hope of change. Looking forward to coming home and living differently,

Love you all,
Ev

Songbirds of Kolkata

taVillage dispensary again today in the little parish of Oaurapur. Sister Margherite was happy to see us again- although we are not able to help a great deal due to the language barrier- I think she appreciates the effort or at least the companionship. It is getting HOT here. Standing in the white of the sun will leave your skin red in less than ten minutes. I have to be careful.

We worked in topical medicine dispensary until noon and made the bumpy bus ride back to the Mother house. On the way back the sisters spirits were high and they literally erupted into song. Two of the younger sisters sang traditional bengali songs and when they forced Krista and I to sing an american song all we could think of was the Sound of Music sountrack- they drowned us out- must be a favorite.

We are exhausted but at ease today. Going to stay in this evening and make a dinner of mashed potatoes, carrots and cabbage. Got the photos of Songhita developed- cant wait to give them to Ghita tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Valentine's day and we are planning on celebrating with friends on the rooftop of the Modern Lodge- which is a hotel on Sutter Street. Nothing about the Modern Lodge is modern, mind you. But it has a great roof-which alot of good people live under and I have promised to bring the one luxery I am glad I didn't leave at home- portable speakers for my ipod.

A dance party is in order. Wish Nashville could attend. Love you guys,

Ev

Bagbazar and the Idol Makers

Yesterday was an experience. Krista and I agreed to cross the river and explore Bagbazar, a small village up the banks of the Hooghly entirely devoted to the art of sculpture.  Our guide was Doe Doe- a smart little french woman in her seventies with a snow white bob and round frame glasses-she stands at 5'1'' on a tall day. She speaks French, English, and Spanish and usually all three at the same time. She is a force of nature. The self-proclaimed "warden" of our guest house, she likes the kitchen to be left spotless and has been known to drag guests out of bed if they have left dishes in the sink. She lives on the bottom floor and she knows everything.

Doe Doe has been returning to Kolkata every year for 12 years running. She has amazing stories and I have plagued her with questions from the minute we met-which I think is why she likes me so much. She forgets our names every morning-they are difficult for her to pronounce-so she refers to us as "My Dear Americans" as though she were making a formal address to the whole of the United States.  So, anyway, she offered to lead us across the river yesterday and we took her up on it. She knows her way around, and watching her handle the locals is like watching a little white rabbit push around a wolf pack-men here know better than to hassle a french woman.

We rode a crowded bus for twenty minutes, boarded the first boat, stopped fifteen minutes later to exchange at the Howrah Railway station, then boarded the second boat bound for the Bagbazar dock. The water of the Hooghly is pea green. Along it's banks the locals still bathe, wash dishes and cremate the dead in the ghats, or stairs of stone-some of them dating back to the British colonial period of India. A cremation was taking place on the right side, only men attend-the women left to weep at home. Below the ceremony a little boy ran naked and laughing through the shallows and just to the left carnival rides were in full swing- there is no fine line here between the reverential and the commonplace. Wilted flower garlands dotted the water's, surface and caught in the  fishermen's nets, the perimeter of which was marked by small broken pieces of white styrofoam. Most unusual were the great mounds of garbage that covered the stairs of every ghat, making them impossible to access and forcing the locals to cut through the brush of the bank instead.

We walked up the old planks of the dock and into the little tired village of Bagbazar where everyone, literally everyone does one thing- they make idols. All of the buildings in this village are small-people don't require much space and are content to eat,work and sleep all under the roof of a 12 x 12 shed. Numerous tiled shrines smelling of urine and incense and painted chalky pink and safety orange lined the right side of the dirt path. We walked through the main street at 3 oclock and most residents seemed to be asleep, stretched out in the beds of trucks and slouching in doorways. We turned right into the fourth alley and found a man painting the face a plaster effigy. He freehanded the detailed eyes and curved red lips, his work was perfect. He had probably drawn those lines thousands of times. The rest of the town are stalls, enclosed on three sides and facing in to little dirt alleys.

Each stall housed a different stage of the process. Hay in huge bails is collefted and shaped into the cores of bodies, limbs and heads creating scare-crow like figures- hundreds of them in uniform size. Next, clay is made from the bed of the Hooghly-sifted and worked until is becomes malleable. It dries like plaster. Then an artist begins the painting process by first coating the form in white then adding shadows in lichen green and burnt orange. Walking through those stalls with pale limbs reaching out was eerie! Another artist added the detail-elaborate decorative paintings in jewel and primary colors. Faces emerged. Hair also was made at that step- black seaweed is pulled like cotton and rapped into ropes around sticks to dry forming perfect spiral curls which hung down to the waists of both the gods and goddesses. A tailor dressed them in rich fabric. And finally decorations of thin metal headpieces,gold bangles, and plastic spears radiating from the shoulders were added. The result was impressive and unsettling. Kali was wheeled by on a wooden cart, her tounge dripping with blood, her black body stood on top of her decapitated victim. We moved out of the way to let her pass by.The idols will be used all over the city in temples, ceremonies, and festivals. They will be worshipped. The will be offered sacrifices. Mud and straw is suddenly elevated to an exalted position and the line between the holy and the familiar is blurred. Fascinating process.

Other side notes-Krista was followed down the alley by a snarling street dog -we are paranoid about rabies here and Krista pulled out her mase. We came well prepared. A drunk man hassled us for a bit but Doe-Doe handled it with the help of a local woman. Took us two hours to get home but quite an adventure!

Work was great today. Ghita cant wait to see the photos we took of Songhita, which we will develop tomorrow. Our errand earned us an uprgrade in title, from "friend" to "sister" in Bengali. She will be difficult to leave.

Miss you all,

Ev

Little Songhita

What have we got? Who knows? Krista and I were laid up in bed again this morning-missing a second day of work. Boo. Seems like we have traded symptoms. My breath is shallow and I am now coughing up a lung and Krista's throat is incredibly sore. I want my sore throat back.

We rested until 8 am- I boiled water for coffee on the burner downstairs. Orange for breakfast. Laundrey. Got dressed quickly and we walked the four blocks to Shishu Bhaven to keep a promise we made three days ago. Ghita, our lovely little friend at Prem Dan who told us she had TB and that her baby was at Shishu Bhaven, has sent us on an errand. We were to find Songhita-her six month old baby girl and take pictures, have them developed and bring them back to Prem Dan. "You will recognize her smile- that's how you will know her", she said. That is what every volunteer has said-Ghita and Songhita smile the same.

We arrived at Shishu Bhaven already exhausted from the heat and the dry air. Ducked through the tall grey steel gate and into the main courtyard. The sisters pointed us in three incorrect directions before we found the toddlers nursery ourselves- this is the way business is done here. We slipped our shoes off and quietly let ourselves into the nursery on the second story of the right wing of the building. A mashi nodded her head as we entered. She sat cross-legged on the floor and 12 little bright-eyed kids crawled up her arms and pulled at her clothes. We asked where Songhita was- she didn't speak English, but a little chubby girl dressed all in red with a ponytail sprout at the top of her head- 5 years old maybe, tugged at our pants and pointed to a crib against the far wall. We peeked over and a beautiful little girl was sleep inside. She looked like a little flower. "That is who you want", said another mashi approaching from the opposite aisle. She confirmed that Songhita's mother had been taken to Prem Dan-not only with TB but with a heart condition.The attempted operation to repair Ghita's heart had failed and at the age of sixteen it is unlikely that she will leave Prem Dan.

Krista reached over and snapped the first picture of Songhita-the flash woke her up and she grinned with her eyes still closed. Peeking one eye open and then the other- she is the loveliest thing I have seen here and my heart breathed for the first time in three weeks. Ghita was right- they have the same smile. We probably could have picked her out of the line of cribs. She continued to grin at us with her big dark eyes. The children in that room were products of a situation like Ghita's-or, they were simply unwanted. Their mother's moved into the adjoining rooms for 8 months waiting to give birth. The sisters and mashis fed them, washed their clothes and encouraged them through their pregnancy. They brought a child into the world and immediately afterward, they disappeared-leaving this little flower garden of beautiful children behind them, and leaving their own son or daughter to the orphanage at Shishu Bhaven. Their is a frail, pale skinned little girl who was born too early lying in a crib with a feeding tube-she has aids, as did her mother who disappeared a week ago. Another child was next to Songhita, her mother is also at Prem Dan, though we don't know who she is-we took a few photos and will have them developed as well.

It was good for my heart to spend twenty minutes in there today. To have kids pull at my clothes and hug my knees with their chubby little arms. Immediately restored something that the last three weeks had worn down. Hoping at some point we can come back and spend a few days here.

I have seen a distinct and deep-rooted disregard for human life. That is why so many children are abandoned routinely- left at the mother house, or worse, left on the street. That is also why women are abused in the most criminal and horrific ways.And it has something to do with the fact that a man, two weeks ago could be hit by a bus as he stood waiting to cross the street and no one paused. Not a moment of thought was given-traffic did not break. The bus continued down the street. Finally a few men dragged his body to the edge of the sidewalk and left him there, eventually someone called an ambulance. Our friend Sophie witnessed the whole thing and her nineteen year old mind could not make sense of it. It makes sense to me- I have seen stages of disintegration flash before my face like bolts of hot white from a strobe light and it is all connected. There is a mass deadening of human souls taking place here. It is possible to take everything away from a person- even to deny them their own humanity.  There are a few things that I have difficulty in dismissing as cultural differences because it offends something in the recesses of who I am-something that was placed there- not something I can accredit to myself-not something of my own making  but something I was created to hold and to honor. The distortion makes me shudder and causes life around us to literally fall apart at the seams.

Little mother Ghita with her weak heart, who proudly loves Songhita from a fixed distance is as reassuring to me now as it will be to her daughter in the retelling, when she is gone. There are a handful of little flowers making their way through the cement.

Ev

Laying Awake

Last night I watched the sun set in a lavender fog over the roofs of our street. The smoke never clears here-the heaviness in everything, even in the air, is unrelenting. The darkening of the evening is sudden and long, flat shadows of night traffic creep like black water in pools through the alley and splash up and onto the walls. There is a sister who sits eclipsed by a faint light in the third story window of the mother house. I can just see her through the laundrey lines to the right of our rooftop patio. She sits undisturbed for an hour every night, like clockwork- contemplating what, I wonder.

The shadows began to take shape, the lines of them hardening into the bodies of men, beggars and the street children who haunt our alley at night.  A little girl riding a bike in circles chased by two little boys- they were just around the corner and I could hear their games- games I can participate in only from this rooftop, and only in this way.

The nights are cool - though the temperature increases everyday.When the patio light is out I am hidden and can watch our narrow alley in peace. When the patio light is on- I attract an unwanted audience of curious men from the higher roof line of the building next door. But when the light is off, it is wonderful to sit alone up here and become invisible for a few hours. Not a foreigner, only a pair of eyes.

Yesterday was a half day at work. I became tired very quickly and we came home early-I spent the rest of the day in bed. I am feverish, more I think from exhaustion than from the cold that has finally caught up with me. We ate dinner early and spent the evening indoors. I talked and laughed with Krista and we stayed up later than usual. It is good to laugh here. I am thankful everyday that Krista is my companion!

I laid down to sleep and stared at the cieling for a long time listening to the night sounds of A.J.C. Bose Rd. The crows rasp of a birdcall is more reptillian than I would have supposed. The horns of every car, bus, autorickshaw and bicycle are like a chorus of a foreign song I have heard a thousand times and still don't understand. It must be a familiar, comforting sound to the locals. (I try to imagine being homesick for this place, but I can't.) At 2 am a man vomitted out the second story window of the building behind ours. Wild dogs fought hungrily in the alley. It weighed on my mind that the children might be down there and I worried. I stayed awake longer and thought about alot of things. I thought about several of you. The street went quiet. At 4 am the Muslim call to prayer wailed through the speakers of the mosque a block away. I fell asleep and had a vivid nightmare not worth repeating. Our alarm went off at 6 am.

Laundrey today with heavy limbs. I decided not to work directly with the patients because I wasn't feeling well. Washed dishes in bare feet after lunch. Soshanna, the beautiful 80 year old woman I mentioned at the beginning , waved me over to her. She blessed me- kissing both sides of my face, drawing a cross on my forehead with her thumb and folding my hands into praying hands-she bowed down and touched her forehead to them. She is wonderful.

I fell asleep in our apartment two hours later and woke to find that Krista had gone back to work and left me sleeping. She was excited about today- we finally have permission to visit Khaligat, the smallest and most well-known of Mother's houses. We will work there in the afternoons, Krista as nurse, and I as her assistant.
(Krista is feeling better by the way and has been busy all day trying to anticipate my needs-which she excells in doing.) I am anxious to hear her report of Khaligat this evening!

I will read a few chapters of Shantaram, a book Kat Shelley told me to buy- which I didn't, and then happily found a discarded copy of in my room! Tired and going back to bed for a little while.

Goodnight friends,

Ev

New Vocation

Good work today! Krista and I volunteered for wound care! Sister Mary was respectful and obviously now trusts Krista to execute the procedures (finally!) so, under Kole's guidance I had my first taste of medicine. Just the smallest dose. And it went great.

We cleaned and bandaged wounds and dressed burns and sterilized bed sores and even watched Joan, the  paramedic from London, set an arm and build a cast. For the next month we will be working together and tonight I will fall asleep excited about tomorrow.

I have to tell you, the thing that hits me hardest is the way women in Prem Dan in excruciating pain just clench their teeth and take it- these are the strongest women I have ever seen. I helped dress the burns on a beautiful little girl who couldnt have been older than 11. She had big innocent eyes and a small frame and sat patiently while we peeled gauze bandages away from her blistered skin. She has deep burns on both shins, her torso, her back and her upper arms-where more than likely boiling liquid had been thrown on her. She closed her eyes, turned her head to the side and did not utter a sound as we sterilized the area- her body gave her away though and she shivered uncontrollably.

The broken arm was a young patient-22 years old who had a long history with Prem Dan. She was gorgeous- the most gorgeous girl I have seen here, tall and slender with graceful limbs and a shaved head (all patients are shaved because lice is such a problem)-she carried herself defiantly, though. Joan scolded her in Bengali and then explained to us that she was a drug addict who would show up at hospitals with wounds or burns and as soon as she had medication would disappear- breaking out at night from any institution that tried to keep her. I nodded to the hand of her broken arm- the  index finger was curled and claw like- I wondered if it was a birth defect or an injury. "Oh, you want to see?" she said firmly but not angrily in perfect English, and turned her palm over revealing two missing middle fingers and the shortened pinky. "Train", she said flatly. I asked her if she had broken her arm by hopping trains as well. "Yes." Joan wrapped her arm in wet plaster bandages and told her to leave the cast for six weeks- the girl laughed at her. Joan thinks she will tire of it and eventually try to cut it off herself.

So many cases-each one of them unique- some injuries are granted at birth, others are given by husbands, some self -inflicted. To burn yourself and disfigure yourself horribly is a practiced form of public shame or a cruel tactic used by "big brothers" to get more money out of their begging slaves, playing on the pity of tourists. There is a couple in the slums outside the gate of Prem Dan who pitifully plead with us for medicine for their child- an infant who has deep gashes along the side of her ribs that extend under her arm. The injury is infected- terribly infected- and the little girl is always crying and exhausted with pain. The sisters have refused care-which seems cruel except that apparently the mother and father keep the child in pain, irritate the wound to keep it from healing and more than likely even created the problem for the strong pain pills they assumed they could get. This is a savage world.

Today I loved being here and my hands have found plenty to do. Out of the laundrey line and into surgical gloves.

Goodnight from me and good morning to you,

Ev

Looking for Gold

Krista and I were pleasantly surprised at Prem Dan this morning. The sister who Krista nicknamed "Nurse Ratchett" has been on our cases from the beginning. She has elbowed Krista out of opportunities to use her degree and help a patient and she has on many occasions made me feel like I was in the way of her work. Both of us have had this experience so both of us were shocked when today- Nurse Ratchett pulled Krista out of the laundrey line and asked her professional opinion on a case with a patient. She smiled and introduced herself as Sister Mary- this woman NEVER smiles. Then, she pulled me out of a crowd of willing volunteers to help her and another sister serve lunch- and that NEVER happens. Doesn't sound like a big deal- but I am telling you...it was a big deal to us.

We had lunch today with an Anglican priest  from Cape Cod named Steven and our friend Jason, who is a writer from Texas and has been living in Hong Kong for four years. The four of us sat in a restaurant off of Rippon Street with roaches running across the oily glass tabletop- the food was decent- the conversation was excellent.  It was a huge comfort that both of these guys were sympathetic to the difficulty of being a woman in this place. It was the first time that Krista and I felt we were among friends here and it reminds us of our amazing guy friends back home- What good men you are!  The way you live is in sharp contrast to this culture and sometimes,as my pal Johnny so simply stated, "You gotta thank people for what they don't do." So thank you guys, for being stand up men. Believe me- I feel so so blessed to have men in my life that protect me, encourage me and show me respect.

Steven is on a plane to Bangkok in the morning. He waved goodbye over his shoulder and said "I will pray for you in this journey." Then he was gone. Such a unique experience to meet people only for an afternoon and then watch them disintegrate into the crowded streets of this city knowing that more than likely our paths will never cross again. But that they had for a few hours, crossed in one of the most unlikely places in the world. Reminds me of C.S. Lewis's oft repeated urging to value these small intersection points with strangers. Find meaning in the triviality of a shared lunch break- there may be gold in the conversation you have. There is no coincidence here- everyone I meet has a message for me.

Goodnight. Love you,

Ev

I Concede the Point

Krista is running a temperature. I only know that because I felt her forehead. She doesn't complain- I am telling you. This woman is a gem! I wandered around dumbly last night in the throws of a migraine and slept the only way I could- in a fevered coma. Woke up late and groggy- both of us slept a little longer. Krista can't work in her condition and I won't leave her so we stayed upstairs all morning in our nest.

I boiled water for coffee. We ate an orange and listened to a Tim Keller message called "My Servant Job". If you have the time today and can download that message-DO IT. That will explain so much of the way I feel today.

Keller cited a line from an Elizabeth Elliott book called "No Graven Image" about a speech pathologist who poured her life into working with a South American tribe, learning their language and then translating the Bible into their native toungue. Through a tragic turn of events, her life's work was lost and her trust with the tribe was destroyed. On the other side of her grief she writes "If God was my accomplice, He had betrayed me. If God was God, He had set me free."

I just read over my post from yesterday and I feel that some of the frustration with this place has dissipated a bit. I knew I would change here- I didn't know I would need to change so much. Their is purpose behind every set-back and divine appointments that we cant help but meet. This is a holy direction, I think. The sense of justice I have worn proudly like a badge-the contempt I have felt for injustice that short-circuited my compassion- the glory of my young ideals are all crumbling. The dust is being swept away to reveal clean, solid earth. That place is called humility and I mean to build something here.

Ev

Mother City

Today I have not thought about many things except of getting from point a to point b. I am a little numb and Krista is a little sick. Our surroundings are taking their toll on my head and on Krista's immune system.

I have been trying to remember all afternoon a conversation I had with a new aquaintance so that I could record it here this evening- but my brain is foggy. Helmut- I am guessing at the spelling here- is a German grandfather who devotes six months a year to this place. Through the hustle of winter when all the international volunteers arrive and crime and drug trafficking skyrockets- all through the spring and summer when the rain begins, bringing with it the heat and an influx of disease and not a pair of willing hands are in sight. He has done so for 8 years. He has finished his life- left his home-left his retirement to come here and be a grandfather,to the best of his ability, in what even he described as hell on earth.

Helmut explained to Krista and I in unpracticed English that people who make it to Prem Dan don't have a story. They don't have a legacy- they didn't have the advantage of a career or education- they haven't accomplished anything. They have no mother or father- no relative who would take them in- maybe spouses who discarded them or disabled them. They have only the absence of everything we have. This made my face flush hot with shame- because this was one reason I had traveled here. I had believed that maybe at the end of life people have a moment of clarity- words rich with wisdom- life experience worth its weight in gold-stories worth remembering and recounting. Helmut buried that notion in such a matter of fact way- he had been here 8 years trying to accomplish what I had allotted only 6 weeks for and he knows that we will both come up short. He has said only that people here are survivors- they kept breathing when they weren't supposed to, they recovered from fatal injuries, they scavenged like the many crows of Kolkata and they lived. Barely. And those little thread-bare successes had not mattered to anyone. For every old person that dies in these beds-there is a very long queue of children living towards the same end.

Helmut has tried to rescue, tried to rehabilitate, tried to mend, tried to comfort-little by little he has become a friend to some of them but father to none. "They will not be fathered here", he said, "Their mother is Kolkata. Sometimes they will fight like animals to get back to her. They will only live a very little while. They cannot comprehend anything beyond Her."

At lunch today a dirty little 8 year old boy carried a dirty 3 year old boy to the sidewalk restaurant that we frequent. The 3 yr old was naked except for half of a t shirt. Both were without shoes. A young french tourist bought them a meal.The little boys ate it on the ground like little wolf pups. Stuffing handfuls of food into their mouths- nearly choking on it. The baby would not leave a scrap of food on the plate-when his older brother tried to pull him away he writhed and screamed. This was the beginning. If they live, if they survive their mothering they will become the men I met the other night in the dark streets of this place,they will abuse the women I met in Sonagachi and die in the same condition of those in Prem Dan.

I met Khali today, I think. The celebrated goddess of death and destruction is killing nearly 17 million people. All of them. In some way or another. And she is nothing more than an overwhelming and seemingly inescapable lie.

Sorry my thoughts are heavy tonight. Pray for the many hands, like Helmut's, that are working here to do good things. There is a small harvest that to them, I am sure, is a great reward.

Goodnight,

Ev

Bad Day, Good Day

Yesterday was rough all the way around. Didn't sleep the night before. Felt nauseated all morning. Volunteering at Prem Dan made Krista and I want to hitch hike home. Krista began with wound care and was solemn when I found her after I finished laundry. I watched as she treated the last two women with bed sores the size of  tea saucers and nearly 1/2 an inch deep. Patients were vomiting and urinating all over themselves and the volunteers, lice has swept through the house and the Mashis- the hired female workers of the house- were straight razoring heads in the courtyard as patients cried and screamed. Some had been knicked by the gruff shave job and blood trickled down their faces, mixed with tears and stained their clothes. It felt just a bit like a concentration camp. Krista and I helped patients to the bathroom and tried to manuever crippled little legs through a cramped stall on a slippery floor. The sisters were a wreck. Actually- so were we.

The one highlight was the last five minutes of work when we dragged ourselves upstairs and said goodbye to Soshanna. Soshanna is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. At her full height she is a little taller than my elbow. Slender and regal with high cheekbones, perfectly symmetrical features and a mop of snow white hair that hangs down below her waist, which she usually pins in a bun on top of her head. She is eighty years old- and the deep lines of age that crease her face have only made her more beautiful. All women should love to age as she does. Soshanna insisted that both of us sit with her on her cot and listen to her as she sang along to the music piped through the speakers along the cieling line. She is absolutely immaculate- even keeps her own set of dishes under her tidy little bed. She calls all of us "bondu" which means friend in bengali. She kisses all of us on the head and the hands and presses our hands to her heart. She is so like my own grandmother who passed away years ago. I can hardly look at her and not feel as though she is mine. Wandering up silently beside us was Loki, a strange little person- a child with an old persons face. She looked almost elvish and had a tiny little smile and deep set eyes. Loki's face had been cut deeply at the corners of the mouth and under the chin- somehow it had changed the whole shape of her face, making it appear flattened with protruding ears.Krista hugged her and she buried her face in Krista's waist and froze their. She responded in such a strong way to the slightest gesture of love or kindness. Krista looked up at me with eyes full of tears. My turn. I grabbed Loki's little hand and smiled at her, said "Come here, Bondu" and gave her a big hug. she buried her face in my shoulder and breathed in deeply, as though she was making a mental note of what that hug felt like. Amazing, how quickly our hearts have become maleable here.

Yesterday evening was "Volunteer night"- which happens once a month. Krista and I made the mistake of following a long trail of volunteers to a chapel about a twenty minute walk from the mother house. We were exhausted and after an hour and a half of mass, then a lecture about mother teresa, then a movie about mother theresa and then a dinner of chicken and raw vegetables, which we could not eat- we were almost panicked to get home to our quiet little nest of an apartment. Instead of waiting for everyone, we followed a tough little woman named Joan who has lived here for 15 years. Joan is in her late 60's, a medic from London and she has probably seen it all- when we asked her if she felt safe walking alone at night she said in a curt british accent "Well yes, as long as you dont look anyone in the eyes. I witnessed a murder once and you just can't respond. They just can't know that you saw anything, otherwise you might disappear, as well. And also- there are the dogs. They hunt in packs, you know, at night- such an awful thing if you are caught in one. Yes, you musn't look anyone in the eyes." She threw her hand to her right and said "This is your lane just follow it until you see the lights and take a left." The she disappeared . Krista and I spent the next twenty minutes in the scariest place I maybe have ever been. Men were nearly running us down on motorbikes and laughing- it must be a game they play with eachother- the whole road would be open and one would come up right beside us and nearly take our feet out from under us. At one point a man leaned out of an autorickshaw and tried to bite Krista on the shoulder. Men were shouting at us and coming out of buildings to watch.People were animalistic. There were only men on the street. As a woman, I have never been made to cower like that and it made me absolutely hate this place. This city is like Jekyll and Hyde. Not even so very lovely in the day time but absolutely hellish at night. I was plagued by anxiety dreams last night so I didn't sleep much- and besides that the Muslim call to prayer went all night and blared like a brass section from speakers all over town. I was glad when our alarm went off at 4:30.

I was happy to wash our clothes and hang them on the line in the dark. I was glad that the kitchen was unlocked and Krista and I could make our instant coffee this morning. We ran into our friend Jason- who is also American, a pal of Johnny's- on the bus today and chatted a bit. We washed clothes in the sunshine. We drank chai on break and Johnny wandered over. We served lunch and washed dishes and got kisses on the forehead from Soshanna. We had fun in the rythem of simple labor today. Sat in the back of a crowded bus with Anna and the Spainiards who refused to take an autorickshaw for 10 rupees today when it ony cost 8 yesterday. Spainiards will not be cheated and will wave their hands in the face of anyone away who tries. I love that about them. So we paid six rupees, rode the bus- were stuck in traffic for an hour and a half (instead of the 10 minute ride it would have been) and then walked twenty minutes to our restaurant. It was great.

Ate at Tirupathi on the street- Vegetable and egg lo mein is our favorite. And we walked home again- I bought water and Krista bought a pineapple and here I am, writing to you from the internet cafe downstairs.

I am thinking about each one of you- I know it must feel like I have only been gone a few days- it is a weird phenomenon- I feel like it has already been a month. And only five and a half more weeks to go.

This is bootcamp. And I have double push-ups waiting on the roof.

Namaste,

Ev

The Sisters

Verity takes too many risks and she laughs at Krista and I for taking too many precautions. We aren't eating meat here and Verity is drinkg water out of the tap. Verity threw up all night in the bathroom beside our room and this morning swore she would change her ways. So, she still felt sick this morning and had to cancel plans with us- we were to go with her and the sisters to the dispensary in a village outside of town.
Krista and I went anyway- and we are so glad we did.

Sister Margherite heads up all the dispensaries. Today was a medical trip, so topical ointments in gallon jars were being given out in small handfuls. Other times food rations or clothing will be passed out- there is a despensary project at Daya Dan that is a dermatology clinic where street people come so that volunteers can remove maggots from their wounds. I have a feeling Krista and I will be doing that sooner than later.

Anyway, Sister Margherite is in charge. She is a tough woman, and almost didn't allow us to join them today- she deferred the decision to Sister Andrea, a british doctor in her seventies who is Margherites superior. Sister Andrea has been here fifty years- prior to most of the major development of this city. Sister Andrea gave us the go ahead.

We climbed into the back of a turquoise truck- a bit like the army transport trucks, only bright green and full of nuns- and began the incredibly bumpy, teeth chattering ride to the village. I am trying think of an accurate way to describe the air here, it is almost like inhaling electrical smoke, and my lungs feel exhausted by it already. We passed grubby little tiled shrines and flower markets, vegetable markets with dirt floors, a fish market under a tin roof- the smell was overpowering and the sisters laughed at me when I pinched my nose.
We portioned out shortbread crackers into newspaper parcels as we said "Hail Mary" over and over again. I cut my hand on the tin container that the crackers were packaged in and Sister Mergherite looked at me with disdain- until she cut her hand five minutes later and I raised my eyebrows at her. Then she laughed under her breath and her posture loosened a little.

We arrive at the village and unloaded. There is no hospital close by so the Sisters deliver basic meds twice a month and whole families travel by bicycle or on foot to get here. Eczema is widespread here- alot of women complained about that. Scabies is a HUGE problem for the kids. A wall-eyed young woman thrust a limp little baby forward out of the crowd at one point. The baby was being eaten by scabies- the worst case all day, the mother and older brother had also contracted it. Krista asked to see the babies wrist to check for spread of the parasite and then shot a quick glance at me sideways as the mother unrolled the sleeve and revealed six little fingers on one hand.

I understand I think a little, after today, why people love medicine- why they pursue careers in it and study it for years. It must be such a wonderful feeling to identify a problem and be able to offer a cure. Krista LOVED our day today- she was able to help. She gave the sisters advice. She was a few cases today that she had only ever heard of.

We finished at 11:00 and boarded the truck again. The sisters brought candy to share on the way home and devoured it- sweet things have a short life expectancy in India- there is a sweet shop on every corner. On the way home we listened to Sister Margherite tell her story. She has been here or five years and was transferred in order to take over Sister Andrea's place, who is older and unable to travel like she once could. sister Margherite lived in Africa for fifteen years prior to moving here. She worked with the Sisters of Charity in Tanzania and Rwanda- in dusty little border villages. She said that civil war was at its peak when she was there- The sisters would lay the blue and white sari of their order on the roof so that the soldiers would not throw bombs into the center. Both sides of the battle would bring their sick and their injured to Sister Margherite- she made them lay their weopons down at the door, but she would admit them all. The soldiers also would bring the orphans to her- discarded children- some of them had been mamed, their arms or legs cut off. Sister Margherite took them all. Took them in though there was no electricity, no running water and hardly enough supplies. And she loved it- she said she loved every minute of it. She is one of the war heroes here- a five star general of the Sisters of Charity.

You would not believe these women. They have colored in a beautiful way what bravery looks like.

Had lunch with my buddy Johnny and then walked home through the Muslim district.Bought four oranges. Writing this really fast- I am going to do some push ups and take a shower.

Love you guys,
Ev

Sonagachi and the kiwis

Krista and I played hooky this morning. I hardly slept last night because I miss my bed back home- can't seem to get used to the wooden plank( literally a wooden plank) that we are sleeping on. Just one more way in which I have been pampered by the US. I slept through morning prayers and woke up at 5:15 am to shower and get ready for the day. Today was important- we had a meeting with modern day heroes.

I had arranged yesterday in  the internet cafe to meet Fleur- a fascinating little lady from New Zealand who is on full throttle all the time. We met Fleur at registration and she mentioned that while she was here she had to make her way to the Sonagachi district to visit the "kiwis" (native New Zealanders) who work there in a rehabilitation program for women rescued out of the sex industry. The project is call Freeset and I know of them through Kathryn York who just visited them with Chris a couple of months ago. I jumped at the chance to tag along.

After breakfast we grabbed a taxi and rode 20 minutes until the scenery began to change- People looked sicker, the women more haggard, the streets dirtier. We exited the cab and walked a few blocks, took a left into a narrow alley that then narrowed further, and then further still. I was on edge and maybe for good reason- the little I knew of that place was bad. Sonagachi is the worst red light district in this city. It is famous. It is old and set in its ways. And estimated 10,000 women work this district-some out of brothels, some out of their homes. They have a union. Most of their husbands are cruel and coupled with the high substance abuse common to this neighborhood- they force their wives and daughters into exploitation, their addictions require it. Aids is absolutely rampant here and India is expected to surpass Africa for outbreaks either this year or the next

10,000 women and young girls, some of them no more than 7 years old, kidnapped and drugged and taken from their rural villages or across borders of their native countries. 20,000 men who grew up in this culture, or really this subculture of Indian culture- without fathers, without models, without any idea of wrongdoing in their cruelty. 30,000 exchanges within every 24 hour period and then add in all the children that this lifestyle produces.

I have never seen women reduced to rags. My eyes are full of tears as I write this.

We ducked into a cool dark building through a small gate and then joined the gathering, the bible study- the cieling to our right opened up to a courtyard in the midst of this three strory building and on the floor of this courtyard the women sat. Like jewels in the bottom of an old worn jewelry box, wearing saris of every color, gold rings in their ears and noses, tidy hair and white teeth. Some of them had been intentionally disfigured, scars ripped through their faces. A couple of them smiled when we acknowledged the beautiful children that climbed on their shoulders, most of them stared at the floor- they had the look of Job, maybe thats how I would describe it- having lost everything with no promise of return and sitting in ashes. Absolutely spent, poured out, wasted. But exuding bravery, and the steely determination of prisoners of war.

The message was given in Bengali by Allister, perhaps 65 years old, a doctor from London who moved to Kolkata 3 years ago with his wife to work in this district and more specifically to work with Freeset, helping to aid women suffering from Aids. The message dismissed and the women ran up the flights of stairs and to their stations and the mood was immediately lightened as their hands found purpose in their work. At freeset, the women are trained to sew. They make t-shirts and jute bags- and their work is flawless. They are taught to read and write and navigated through the basics of math so that they can fend for themselves, at least a little in the unkind world they live in.

The Hilton family founded freeset. They moved to Kolkata 10 years ago and into this neighborhood they live in this building- though they have two teenage kids of their own and older children at home in New Zealand. They have committed their days to the women who walk these streets at night. They are the Mother Teresa's of Sonagachi. Over the past five years their work has blossomed here and the 20 women they started working with has swelled to 150 or more. New girls arrive every day, in tears and desperate for redemption.

We toured the facility with Dan, also from NZ who commited 6 months to Freeset after he visited the workshop a year ago( Kat, Dan says "hi"). Dan encouraged us to talk to the women who were transformed at their posts- they laughed at what we wore, the said good morning to us in Hindi- they chatted easily with eachother.We met Steve, again from NZ. A big, handsome, jolly guy who makes people laugh in the way only a New Zealander can. Steve moved his family here a couple of years ago, wife, baby girls and young sons. Their little community was hard at work preparing a permanent home for Steve and his family- making a home out of a slumping, dusty, old, dangerous building. Such a perfect picture of the rebirth that takes place here every day.

We walked down a horribly filthy alley and past two brothels toward the river. I was afraid- how does anyone get used to this place? Men were bathing in the doorways, some sat crumpled in a drug induced coma. Children played in the dirt half clothed and dogs fought eachother for scraps from smoking little kitchens. A right and then another right, left through an unmarked door, up six flights of stairs through three apartments and into the Love Kolkata Arts offices. Lorenna is a soft-spoken motherly figure, warm and gentle and full of comfort. She is from NZ and has lived here for 11 years with her husband, a dutchmen from NZ. They work tirelessly in a hot, cramped little office. Their work is similar to Freeset only they make cards and journals and manufacture water purification systems hoping to befriend little girls before they enter the industry. We talked with them and hugged them goodbye.

As we walked back through the little corridors back to the main street- we passed all the girls from Freeset who were heading home on mid-day break. They all looked up and smiled. The Hiltons insist that the women not leave this neighborhood, but stay and exact change from the inside out. They are teaching them to make better choices. They have not even spared themselves but have sacrificed the comfort of their own homes, the familiarity of their own countries to reach these women, and I am telling you- every day here is a very real sacrifice. This is bravery and love on a level I have never seen before.

Look them up and see what they do- find a way to participate if you can in "Sari Bari", "Freeset" and "Love Kolkata Arts".

Goodnight all.

Ev

Kahli Temple

Today we slept in. It's our day off. We walked with our neighbors Verity and Sophia, three blocks down the street in the busy morning traffic of Thursday and into the dimly lit, empty restaurant of a hotel. "Expensive" breakfast this morning because the mother house was not open today. So we paid the equivalent of $2.00 for "frenchtoast", scrambled eggs and chai. Krista and I listened like two kids tuned into Saturday morning cartoons as Verity gave us a few hilarious stories about herself. Verity is 28 and catholic, grew up in the suburbs of London, and has volunteered at the Mother house for 11 yrs. She briefly lived in New York as a caretaker for a nun who wrote a famous book about Mother Teresa. There she dated a 62 yr old jewish cardiologist and fell in love. When, on her birthday months later she threw a leopard print shoe at him and accidently hit a police officer she was arrested and bailed out by the sister, her relationship came to a halt. She is hilarious. Heavy accent and a wild artistic style of dress which hints at a desire to stand out rather than fade into the background as Krista and I hope to do.Verity is golden and in high demand here in Kolkata- everyone knows her and the sisters rely on her heavily. She is more at home here than in London.

We parted ways with Verity and Krista, Sophie and I headed back to the guesthouse to meet three of Sophie's friends from Spain- none of them spoke English, all of them in their 50's maybe- I recognized them from Prem Dan yesterday. They were leaving India this evening and said tearful goodbyes to the patients of Prem Dan yesterday. One of them is a nurse and was excited to meet Krista, as she hopes I am sure, Krista will take her place.

Anyway- these ladies took us on an adventure. We saw ALOT of Kolkata today. The Victoria Memorial- a huge beautiful white marble structure with manicured lawns- a remnant from the british colonization. Packed with documents, and paintings , and tourists. No photography allowed- The cieling of the main hall was high and domed with clarestory windows, european style decoration and an oculus - trapped birds flew around and around near the top and light poured in cutting the stagnant pale air inside with white shafts. I took a video of that cieling with my flip camera. I couldnt resist. Thanks Pete for giving me a departing gift that makes me feel like a spy. The guards that patrolled the memorial carried rifles- they didnt have a clue.

Then a grand tour of the city- 17 million people call this place home. Of course, there is no way to possibly know if that figure is true. That is probably a modest estimate. Our cab took us down winding streets, over the Hooghley river, I think it was, on first the old bridge and then the new suspension bridge- the first major large construction project the city has commisioned. I held my breath the whole time we crossed it. Who knows how stable that is?

We drove past the train station and twenty minutes later into the Kalighat district- the oldest in Kolkata. This city is named for Kali, the goddess of death and distruction- often pictured as a woman with her tounge elongated and outstretched and her many hands grasping the hair of her victims severed heads. Bloody and violent- I wish I understood the symbolism in her images and how this supposedly translates into hope and peace as the hindu belief claims. I do know this though- the temple we visited today is considered the most important of the five in Kolkata.

We were given a tour of the temple by a freindly man who greeted us with blessings of health and prosperity. He led us down the aile where they slaughter male goats every morning and a male bull once every year. Blood and dirt and grime covered the floor and made it dark and sticky and women stood barefooted in the mess and swatted at flies as they laid flowered garlands on the killing place inside the stall. The air was thick and choking with the sickly sweet smell of decay and a fog of incense. They sacrificed a child a year here for two hundred years. It is dark- in every way you can imagine.

We caught a glimpse of the goddess- in the packed shrine. Her three eyes and black face- then on to the pool of her husband and his shrine. The pool is shallow and  rectangular and houses the dirty holy waters of the Ghanges river which has been piped in. People come here to bathe- a middle aged man of skin and bones, heavy with illness weakly pulled at his clothes on the edge of the water beside a woman bathing her baby boy.

We were taken one by one to the god's shrine where we were painted with the red ash on our forehead- blessed with long life, health, prosperity and a good marriage in the future and then forcefully encouraged by four men to empty our wallets as a donation to the temples kitchen and in honor of our family name. No thanks.

Such a sharp contrast to the work taking place in Mother's houses. She is respected by every person in this supersticious place. She was such a light here and her work has prospered in her absence. I am honored to be here in her home, with her family and among the people she poured her life out to love.

I am finding my way here.Tomorrow I go to Freeset ministries to meet Kathryn York's friends there. They are a New Zealand family with an amazing story- look up there website and see what they do.

 Today is done friends. I love you guys

Ev

Two degrees of seperation.

The Kearneys really are famous! So on the bus this morning on the way to Prem Dan- Krista and I met one of the only three Americans I have seen here. Johnny is from Portland Oregon and knows Patrick and Matt- or at least has mutual friends. UNBELIEVABLE!!!! In Kolkata- and riding on the same bus. I am still shocked and so so so happy! Johnny has been here for two weeks- and will be here volunteering in the same house the rest of our stay here.

Work again was wonderful- laundrey. Then Chai break, then serving lunch and sitting with the patients, dishes, and putting them down for daytime naps. The little lady with the glasses that I told you about is named Amahlla (I think). She and her friend Martha run the show- they have seniority- they have been patients for 11 years and they get what they want. She looks fragile but, I'm telling you- she could knock me down if whe wanted. Perpetual smile on that face. She nearly pushed a little blind woman off the bench so I could sit down and Martha shoved another patient-HARD- so that Krista could sit on the other side. They like us, luckily. She doesnt speak English but here is what she comunicated to me through sign language. "The food here sucks. Not enough salt. Don't tell the sisters I said so." With that said, Amahlla disappeared and reappeared almost immediately with a handful of salt she swiped from the volunteers break table- which she must do all the time. She then grinned and sat with her hands folded angelicly in her lap until lunch trays came around and she kicked me in the shins to get up and bring her lunch. Unbelievable. I know my place.

The other woman I told you about- the one that had been horribly disfigured...we are piecing together her story. She is young- probably younger than me. Krista spoke with her yesterday and she has the voice of a child. She is completely aware of everything around her and speaks English. Quiet and polite and suffering in a way that no one can imagine. Her mother-in-law threw acid in her face. Apparently common because two more burn victims arrived today and it is typically a crime committed in the home- I shouldnt say crime. Crime implies that someone was prosecuted. They are simply victims. I cannot tell you what it has done to my heart to be in this center for only two afternoons. I feel like my soul has been torn apart and sewn together and then ripped again- over and over. At the end of every gruesome thing there is something light-hearted- on the other side of that something that will make my eyes fill with tears, and then Amallah, who makes me laugh and Ghita who makes me dance. I want this experience for all of you. I am already changed a little. We washed dishes and kissed them goodbye.

Krista, Johnny, Anna (the 20 yr old gal from Barcelona we met yesterday ) and I flagged an autorickshaw after work (yes, I know, I said never again. Unfortunately it is impossible to avoid riding in these.) and we headed to Sutter Street-where Johnny and Anna live for lunch. The majority of the volunteers live here. It is Brooklyn, only unbelievably dirty and exotic. The lodgings there make our digs look posh. We ate at a little "cafe"- really just a stand with a tarp over it and christmas lights and cd's hanging from red thread as decoration. WE FOUND FOOD!!!! It cost pennies and it tasted so good. Krista and I are so excited. Excited that we are not eating bread again, like we have been.

then to the top of Johnny's hotel where he made us coffee- a luxury- on the roof and we sipped out of terra cotta pots. We talked about the Enniegram. Surprise surprise. And then Krista and I walked home all by ourselves, through the muslim district, past the meat market and Shanti Bhaven, one of Mother's houses. We walked confidently- today was a good day.

Pushups and situps on the roof. Internet cafe. I am headed to the shower to try to scrub the stink off of me- not likely to happen...and then dinner and bed. Off tomorrow so maybe the Kolkata flower market.

This day is done- whaever it is- Wednesday I think.

Namaste ya'll,

Ev

Prem Dan

Awake again at 4:30 am. Brushing teeth outside in our bathroom in the dark. Black crows watching from the railing. Hurried downstairs and into the alley to the door of the mother house for morning prayers. Listened as the sister unlocked the five heavy locks that keep the door secure during the night.

The priest visiting from Ireland keeps falling aleep during the message and Krista and I nudge eachother and giggle. Many of the sister and volunteers are coughing. Hopefully not from TB or some airborn infection- more likely from the horrible sooty quality of the air here. I kept my scarf wrapped around my face this morning- seemed to help.

Breakfast again of bread, chai and bananas. Then onto bus 202 which would f\deliver us two block from our destination of Prem Dan, the second and larger of the two hospice centers, Kalighat being the first. We walked through the narrow, dark alleys of the slum that surrounds the compound. Surprising that this place looks, smells, and sounds so dangerous but it apparently is one of the safest places (as far as violent crime rates go ) to travel for foreigners in all of India. Entered through a solid metal door inset in the heavy walls and was surprised at the beauty of this house. Grey spackled concrete walls with green shutters, palm trees and flowers- more closely like a florida development than a home for the destitute and dying. What a relief. the first two hours we washed clothes and linens by hand under a partially covered portico. The volunteers stood in a long line against a counter that ran the length of the building in which deep concrete sinks had been cut. Pleasant work. Krista was on my right and Anna, a 20 year old civil engineer from Spain on my right. anna said that in the months of July and August over 80% of the volunteers are from Spain. Krista nodded toward the end of the line and Iglanced over to see a patient- the first one I laid eyes on. This was a test.

The woman was sitting in the sun, motionless, like a statue. a thin cotton blanket wrapped around her body. Such a small frame she didnt even look real. She was missing both eyes, and her right eye socket had an infection, her skin was discolored in certain places and was stretched tight over her face. A possible bacterial infection or injury of some kind had torn at her face on the left side so that you could see all of her teeth and her tounge flicked in and out of her mouth.  I couldnt help but shudder. I watched her out of the corner of my eye for a few minutes and then saw one of the sisters, dressed all in white- a sturdy, deliberate woman- the kind that you obey the first time she asks you to- lead the woman by the hand into the center. I may not ever forget that picture. Krista and I finished and followed them inside- I was trembling a little, honestly.

This place is home to 130 men and 130 women all dying of anything you can imagine. TB, organ failure, burn victims...it is what it says- the home for the sick, the destitute and the dying. the first floor of the womens ward is for the patients who have only a few days left. The second floor for younger stronger women who maybe have a matter of months. Prem Dan is beautiful in its simplicity- making US nursing homes look like prisons really. Wall ceilings, white walls, large windows with green shutters....little iron beds with tiny Indian bodies. Rows after rows of them. I walked around timidly at first until I made eye contact with a little lady sitting ubright against the wall- she looked like she could have been in an animated movie. She was wrapped in a plaid blanket and had a mop of white hair, all of her probably weighing no more than 60 pounds. but she wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that made her eyes look huge and she smiled toothless smile and patted the bench beside her. I sat down and she held my hand and spoke to me in Bengali as though I understood every word. She introduced me to her friends, asked me questions, and showed me the bracelets around each of her tiny wrists. Every four seconds she would pause...blink three times...and grin.

I met a woman who appeared to be in her eighties- she was 49. She was missing her right ear, her left eye and her left leg had been mangled in a car accident but she was full of joy and laughed easily. She chanted "Twinkle twinkle little star" to me in broken english. Beside her a young, healthy looking woman appearing to be my age -I took by mistake as a volunteer. She hugged me and kissed my face calling me friend over and over again in Bengali. Ghita, a patient of Prem Dahn is dying of TB at the age of 11 or 12- she doesnt know for sure how old she is- her baby is dying in Shanti Dan- another house on the other side of town of TB as well.

We fed the women lunch. Washed dishes. Rubbed aching backs and sore legs and painting fingernails (which the patients INSIST that you do- they love this! some of them have red fingernails on one hand, blue on the other, and pink toenails).  Then back to bed for afternoon nap.

We grabbed our things and left the compound at 12:30. Krista and I are new and timid about getting around in this crazy place. We followed three girls through the maze of shacks in the slum- which was an experience I will record a video of in the days to follow- over two busy railways and out into the main street where we caught an auto rickshaw- a cross between a dirtbike and a clown car. sets four people total- often accomodates eight. There were six in ours. Our driver cut across four lanes of a busy highway-perpendicular to traffic-and we came within inches of a head-on collision with a full sized taxi and a massive pile up. That is the last time I ride one of those. Two weeks ago apparently three italian guys were riding in an auto rickshaw and were involved in a wreck. They broke their arms and legs and caught the next flight back to Italy- which is 10 hours- only to avoid being seen by doctors in this city. It is apparenty that bad.

Pray for us. Krista and I have to laugh about the crazy things that happen here. Volunteers are getting sick. Terms like Typohid and Cholera are being thrown around- maybe, hopefully, probably an exaggeration on the truth. Doctors here enter people apartments and draw blood without permission and without steralized instruments- totally weird. Krista and I are not down with that and will follow the Italians lead and jump on a plane home if anything requiring medical attention occurs. Dont worry. But do pray. I would love to get out of here unscathed.

Love to you all. The third day is done.

Ev

We have arrived.

After an incredibly long two days of travel. Krista and I made it to the Kolkata airport. The air here smells like what you would imagine a temple would smell like- damp air and earth. We got in a cue for a prepaid taxi and I have to say the taxi ride was amazing- though it does take a minute to get used to the traffic here. The buildings here are something out of a movie, and amazing movie with an amazing art director...all in disrepair but at one time regal and perhaps the aging process makes them more beautiful.

The beauty and the filth here are in sharp contrast . There is a photo op around every corner and oh how I wish I was a photographer.

We checked into our rooms at the Bely guest house which shares an alley with the Mother House. I could lean over my balcony and almost tough its gray concrete walls. Krista and i have a simple room with a bathroom which we share with two other girls and a balcony with lines for drying clothes- we are on the top floor so at night it feels a bit like sleeping in a bird nest with all the activity happening beneath you.

Last night- which ended for us at 6pm- that is 6am Nashville time...I slept better than expected though the noise of traffic is so foreign and unfamiliar. Traffic runs loudly until 2am when it abruptly stops and everyone sleeps- except for the street dogs which fight underneath our window. Then the muslim call to prayer begins at a low wail at 4am and traffic begins again.

Krista and i were up at 4;30 am and the mother house for prayer at 5. then adoration service til 7 and breakfast- which consisted of the best chai I have ever had- fresh bananas and bread. From there we got a day pass to Daya Dan- the house for mentally and physically handicapped children from 6-15 years old. We washed laundrey by hand in buckets and carried the wet clothes up five flights of stairs to be hung on the line. Then were paired off with a child for "school". I worked with a little boy with cerebral palsey named Bernard. Sweet spirit and sharp as a tack. I was teaching him how to spell "cat", and "cow", and "dog"- and then when I had my back turned he scribbled "Mother Teresa". He was bored with my lesson plan. Ha!

We left the house at 11am and walked to sudder street- the westernized portion of Kolkata where-as it turns out - is NOT westernized at all. No way to describe the streets here- winding and twisting like thin veins of water throughcracks in a sidewalk. And I have no words for the traffic- the wild dogs, the trash, the motorbikes, cabs, buses, auto rickshaws all competeing for space and people cooking, bathing, selling things, napping, begging, urinating....on the sidewalks. The storefronts all look exactly the same- no distinguishable landmarks so it is nearly impossible to navigate. but walking down the street is an adventure!

I am off to dinner with our next door neighbor, Verity,  who is from England and has spent the last 11 years volunteering off and on at the missions.

Keep praying for us! we need it. I feel as though I have been gone for two weeks already. I love you all and thank you a thousand times over for encouraging me to come to this place which is sure to humble and refine me in the ways only an experience like this can.

Ev