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