true life planet

It’s been a dream of mine–for some unexplained reason–to go and live in Calcutta, India and work with the Sisters of Charity with the homeless, poor, sick, and dying people of that city.

I never really could bring myself to do it, somehow. There was always life to be led, and that never really included running off to India for months at a time.

Finally, it’s going to happen.

I’m on a plane a week from today, heading to Calcutta for five months.

Going to Calcutta represents a shift in my life-and I haven’t even gotten there yet.

I think I didn’t make the effort to go before because I was incredibly superficial and I also was worried about what other people thought. (Funny how these two generally go together!)

Alot of people in my life were worried about disease, and that I would get something incurable. There’s alot of truth to this, because working with the Sisters, you are exposed to many diseases that you would have less likelihood of being exposed to in the Western world. Some examples are tuberculosis and  HIV/AIDS.

I don’t have alot of fear about getting sick. I think if I do, then I do. All I can do is try to prepare for it and try to be prepared so that the likelihood of that happening is a whole lot less.

Maybe this more casual attitude comes from having already been on the road for a year…..

During the past year, I’ve lived in places that were off the beaten path, where disease and illness were part of everyday life. I haven’t been immune to illness either–I’ve had malaria, dengue fever, dysentry, giardia, parasites, lice…

When I write out that list, it does kind of make me stop and smile to myself and think that perhaps I am totally insane.

But that’s paired with the fact that I really enjoy helping people who need the help most–and these people tend to live in terrible conditions. It’s just part of the package.

And I think that I am attracted to more extreme situations because they teach me more about myself and it’s an opportunity for growth–instant growth. When you’re in a jungle, and you have no clean drinking water and you’re down to your last jar of peanut butter, and you’re surrounded by little kids who are hungry, you gain more in compassion and humility than you can imagine. And while the risks you take in that moment become increasingly more and more irrelevant, you also become more and more wise, resourceful, and self reliant.

That said, it pays off to prepare and prevent as many things that have the potential to make me sick.

So, at the moment I’m hanging out at a friend’s house in France, reading up other’s experiences of volunteering and living in Calcutta. Most of the stuff I’ve found online have been glowing reports of the experience. But they’ve also increased the size of my med kit by 3x, and had me running around the nearby village trying to find everything from tea tree oil to rehydration mix to rubber gloves. Not easy in a tiny village in France!

While I’m in Calcutta, I won’t just be volunteering–Calcutta a center of intellectualism in India. There are more books written and read there than perhaps any other place in India. So, I plan on learning Bengali and participating in as many of the cultural experiences as my schedule and state of mind will allow.

And instead of writing out lots of individual entries based on notes, I’ve decided instead to write all of my journal entries down on the blog. This seems like the best way to look back at the end and see how I have grown from the experience, and it also keeps it much more raw and immediate for my readers.

Five months in Calcutta. I can’t believe this dream of mine is about to come true.

gigi

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