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
stromectol covid 19: ivermectin 9 mg – can you buy stromectol over the counter
http://amoxil.cheap/# can i purchase amoxicillin online
stromectol 3 mg dosage: stromectol 3 mg tablets price – ivermectin 0.1 uk
furosemida 40 mg: furosemide 100 mg – lasix furosemide
https://stromectol.fun/# ivermectin cream 1
https://amoxil.cheap/# buy amoxicillin online with paypal
prednisone where can i buy: prednisone 3 tablets daily – 10 mg prednisone
https://stromectol.fun/# ivermectin lotion for scabies
https://furosemide.guru/# generic lasix
lasix 100 mg tablet: Buy Lasix No Prescription – buy furosemide online
lasix medication: Buy Lasix – furosemide
http://lisinopril.top/# lisinopril 30 mg
amoxicillin generic: amoxicillin azithromycin – buy amoxicillin 500mg usa
furosemida: Buy Lasix No Prescription – lasix 40 mg
https://buyprednisone.store/# can you buy prednisone over the counter uk
where can i buy amoxicillin over the counter uk: amoxicillin pills 500 mg – prescription for amoxicillin
https://buyprednisone.store/# prednisone 80 mg daily
buy lisinopril online india: lisinopril 18 mg – lisinopril 10 mg online
buy cheap amoxicillin online: amoxicillin cephalexin – amoxicillin 500 mg for sale
https://stromectol.fun/# ivermectin malaria
lasix medication: lasix online – lasix dosage
https://amoxil.cheap/# where can i buy amoxicillin online
where can i get prednisone: prednisone 50 mg tablet cost – prednisone in mexico
https://buyprednisone.store/# prednisone 5 mg tablet price
https://stromectol.fun/# cost of stromectol medication
prinivil 20 mg: order lisinopril 10 mg – lisinopril 2.5 mg for sale
where can i buy stromectol: stromectol price uk – price of stromectol
stromectol 3 mg dosage: stromectol tablets buy online – ivermectin 0.08%
http://amoxil.cheap/# how to buy amoxycillin
lisinopril oral: zestril tablet price – lisinopril 19 mg
http://furosemide.guru/# lasix furosemide
amoxicillin 500 mg tablets: amoxicillin 500 capsule – generic amoxicillin cost
indian pharmacy online indian pharmacies safe Online medicine home delivery
https://indianph.com/# mail order pharmacy india
pharmacy website india
https://indianph.com/# reputable indian pharmacies
top 10 pharmacies in india
top online pharmacy india india online pharmacy top 10 pharmacies in india
indian pharmacies safe indian pharmacies safe indian pharmacy online
http://indianph.com/# top 10 online pharmacy in india
https://indianph.com/# online shopping pharmacy india
top 10 online pharmacy in india
https://indianph.xyz/# Online medicine order
https://indianph.xyz/# top 10 pharmacies in india
cheapest online pharmacy india
https://indianph.xyz/# world pharmacy india
mail order pharmacy india
indian pharmacy online indian pharmacy online mail order pharmacy india
http://indianph.xyz/# indian pharmacy paypal
indian pharmacies safe
http://indianph.xyz/# indian pharmacy
best online pharmacy india
http://indianph.xyz/# top online pharmacy india
https://indianph.com/# india pharmacy
india online pharmacy
https://indianph.com/# indian pharmacy paypal
online shopping pharmacy india buy prescription drugs from india indian pharmacy online
diflucan: can i buy diflucan over the counter – diflucan pill for sale