Pre Calcutta Thoughts..
In less than 24 hours, I’m on my way to hopefully be what will be an experience of a lifetime. As the time for departure has gotten closer, I’ve found myself searching the Internet for stories by people that have been there. They are few and far between, especially by people around my age group (the 40 plus age group!).
Most of the blogs I’ve found haven’t been all that inspiring. I’ve found one or two that were very good and caught the emotive side of working with the Missionaries of Charity on Bootsnall–but other than that, pickings have been sadly slim. I haven’t found any blogs that have gone into any depth about the intellectual richness of the city, either. Volunteers blogs about their time there seem to focus exclusively on the day to day volunteering and the various forms of escape they’ve needed to sustain themselves in what must be a very challenging situation.
Many volunteers only go to help out on their way to another destination, or perhaps go for no more than a month. I haven’t found any blogs by anyone who has been a very long term volunteer like I am planning on being (I am planning on being there for 5 months, with a view short breaks thrown in for my sanity).This is why one of my major goals while there is to write a blog with daily journal entries describing the experience of both volunteering and of being in the city itself– so that future volunteers can read it and get more of a visceral, immediate idea of what it will be like.
I wonder what it will be like to be in this dirty, crazy, and polluted city for so long and how it will impact my state of mind, spiritual life, and health.
I think right now my biggest worry is about health and the risks that I am about to take. Even on the streets of Calcutta, rickshaw-wallahs have the cough of tuberculosis, let alone in some of the homes Mother Theresa established that I will be working in. And that’s just one of the many contagious illnesses that I’m about to expose myself to. I even worry about simple things like food poisoning so on, because I’ve had the luxury to prepare my own food for over a month now and I am no longer accustomed to having to eat whatever is served to me.
I think about my own spiritual life and path, and I wonder how will being in a place with so much suffering day after day fit in with my beliefs? What will it be like to live for months on end where people practice a caste system and people are doomed to the be the lowest of the low because that was who their fathers and grandfathers were? How will this experience change how I look at humanity as a whole?
I worry about the noise, the lack of privacy, all the people packed together in tight, stifling conditions. I think of the strong smells, the choking fumes of car exhaust, the mud and the human excrement in the streets…I can only imagine what it will be like, and even my imagination fails me now.
I worry about how I will deal with taking care of myself, with validating taking care of myself, when I will be surrounded by people who literally have nothing and are dying on the street. How will I walk by them everyday? How will I look at that child lying in the street with nothing? How will I look at myself?
I think about why I have wanted to go be a longterm volunteer in Calcutta for years and years, and now that I’m actually going to do it, I wonder what put it into my mind as a young girl. How did she think such an experience would impact her young life? Now that I’m actually doing it, how will it impact me and everything I think and believe about who I am–my identity?
I think about the growth ahead, for which I am both excited and nervous. I have the sense that a tremendous amount of self growth will happen in the five months ahead, and I have no idea who I will be when I am done. It’s scary and tremendous all at the same time.
At the same time I am thinking about all of this, I think about the tremendous cultural capital Calcutta is. I think of the challenge of learning Bengali… of meeting writers, artists, and poets … Of watching films and going to book fairs… How can all of this exist next to the other side of Calcutta?
I’m about to find out.
gigi
Tags: 1
illuminate.gigi
prednisone 10mg prices prednisone purchase canada purchase prednisone
https://buyprednisone.store/# prednisone cream
can we buy amoxcillin 500mg on ebay without prescription: amoxicillin 500mg cost – amoxicillin 500mg capsules
cost of lisinopril 2.5 mg: generic lisinopril 40 mg – lisinopril best price
https://furosemide.guru/# furosemide 100 mg
https://amoxil.cheap/# amoxicillin 500mg
ivermectin oral: ivermectin 1%cream – ivermectin 2%
buy lasix online: Buy Furosemide – lasix furosemide 40 mg
http://amoxil.cheap/# where can you buy amoxicillin over the counter
ivermectin eye drops: stromectol order – stromectol uk
furosemide 40mg: Buy Lasix No Prescription – lasix medication
amoxicillin 500mg prescription: buy amoxicillin from canada – amoxicillin generic brand
http://amoxil.cheap/# amoxicillin without a doctors prescription
stromectol without prescription: ivermectin buy online – ivermectin cost
http://furosemide.guru/# furosemide 40mg
https://furosemide.guru/# lasix 100 mg
lasix dosage: Buy Furosemide – lasix for sale
amoxicillin price canada: amoxicillin 250 mg price in india – generic amoxicillin online
http://lisinopril.top/# zestril 10
prednisone 500 mg tablet: prednisone buy – buy prednisone without prescription paypal
where can i buy stromectol: ivermectin where to buy – ivermectin 3mg tablets
lisinopril 10: lisinopril 4214 – order lisinopril
http://furosemide.guru/# lasix generic name
ivermectin cream cost: stromectol coronavirus – ivermectin 4000
ivermectin online: stromectol 12mg online – ivermectin stromectol
lasix side effects: lasix 20 mg – lasix for sale
https://lisinopril.top/# lisinopril uk
https://buyprednisone.store/# prednisone brand name us
purchase ivermectin: ivermectin medicine – buy ivermectin cream
furosemide: Over The Counter Lasix – lasix online
https://buyprednisone.store/# how much is prednisone 5mg
https://lisinopril.top/# lisinopril 10 mg tablet
furosemide 100mg: Over The Counter Lasix – buy lasix online
lasix medication: Buy Lasix No Prescription – furosemide 40mg
https://buyprednisone.store/# how to buy prednisone online
buy amoxicillin online no prescription: amoxicillin online purchase – amoxicillin 500mg pill
buy lisinopril 20 mg without prescription: lisinopril 80mg – buy lisinopril 10 mg tablet
http://amoxil.cheap/# amoxicillin online purchase
prednisone 54: price for 15 prednisone – can you buy prednisone over the counter in mexico
prednisone over the counter south africa: buy prednisone online india – buy prednisone online india
http://furosemide.guru/# lasix 40mg
amoxicillin 500 mg brand name: buy amoxicillin 250mg – amoxicillin 500mg over the counter
http://buyprednisone.store/# prednisone 50 mg coupon
https://amoxil.cheap/# price of amoxicillin without insurance
https://lisinopril.top/# lisinopril australia
lisinopril 2mg tablet: lisinopril 20mg tablets price – lisinopril 40
https://amoxil.cheap/# amoxicillin cost australia
buy ivermectin stromectol: stromectol generic – ivermectin 3 mg
http://stromectol.fun/# stromectol buy uk
amoxicillin 500mg price canada: amoxicillin 500 mg cost – amoxicillin 500 mg for sale