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