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
versandapotheke deutschland: kamagra bestellen – internet apotheke
https://potenzmittel.men/# online apotheke preisvergleich
http://kamagrakaufen.top/# online apotheke gГјnstig
gГјnstige online apotheke potenzmittel manner versandapotheke
https://viagrakaufen.store/# Viagra online kaufen legal
versandapotheke deutschland kamagra jelly kaufen deutschland gГјnstige online apotheke
https://kamagrakaufen.top/# online apotheke deutschland
online apotheke preisvergleich: Potenzmittel Schneller Besser – versandapotheke versandkostenfrei
purple pharmacy mexico price list best online pharmacies in mexico mexican drugstore online
buying prescription drugs in mexico online medication from mexico pharmacy medication from mexico pharmacy
mexican pharmaceuticals online mexican pharmaceuticals online medicine in mexico pharmacies
medicine in mexico pharmacies mexican online pharmacies prescription drugs mexico pharmacy
mexico drug stores pharmacies mexico drug stores pharmacies medicine in mexico pharmacies
https://mexicanpharmacy.cheap/# buying from online mexican pharmacy
mexico pharmacy medication from mexico pharmacy mexican mail order pharmacies
medicine in mexico pharmacies reputable mexican pharmacies online purple pharmacy mexico price list
mexican rx online mexican pharmaceuticals online mexican mail order pharmacies
https://mexicanpharmacy.cheap/# mexican drugstore online
best mexican online pharmacies best online pharmacies in mexico mexican mail order pharmacies
pharmacies in mexico that ship to usa purple pharmacy mexico price list pharmacies in mexico that ship to usa
http://mexicanpharmacy.cheap/# mexico pharmacies prescription drugs
mexican border pharmacies shipping to usa mexico drug stores pharmacies mexican rx online
http://mexicanpharmacy.cheap/# mexican drugstore online
http://mexicanpharmacy.cheap/# mexican drugstore online
buying prescription drugs in mexico online reputable mexican pharmacies online buying prescription drugs in mexico
mexican online pharmacies prescription drugs mexican pharmaceuticals online medication from mexico pharmacy
buying from online mexican pharmacy best online pharmacies in mexico reputable mexican pharmacies online
best mexican online pharmacies mexican rx online mexican rx online
purple pharmacy mexico price list reputable mexican pharmacies online best mexican online pharmacies
mexican mail order pharmacies mexican mail order pharmacies mexican border pharmacies shipping to usa
http://mexicanpharmacy.cheap/# best online pharmacies in mexico
http://mexicanpharmacy.cheap/# mexico drug stores pharmacies
reputable mexican pharmacies online buying prescription drugs in mexico online mexico pharmacy
purple pharmacy mexico price list mexican mail order pharmacies mexican mail order pharmacies
cheapest pharmacy canada canadian drug pharmacy pharmacy canadian superstore canadiandrugs.tech
http://mexicanpharmacy.company/# best online pharmacies in mexico mexicanpharmacy.company
п»їlegitimate online pharmacies india top 10 online pharmacy in india – online pharmacy india indiapharmacy.guru
reliable canadian pharmacy reviews canadian pharmacy no scripts – canada drugs reviews canadiandrugs.tech
https://indiapharmacy.guru/# reputable indian online pharmacy indiapharmacy.guru
http://edpills.tech/# medicine erectile dysfunction edpills.tech
the canadian drugstore canada pharmacy online legit canadian pharmacy 24 canadiandrugs.tech
https://edpills.tech/# cheapest ed pills edpills.tech
http://canadiandrugs.tech/# real canadian pharmacy canadiandrugs.tech
canadian pharmacy prices northwest canadian pharmacy – legitimate canadian online pharmacies canadiandrugs.tech
http://canadiandrugs.tech/# is canadian pharmacy legit canadiandrugs.tech
rate canadian pharmacies canadian pharmacy no scripts – canadian world pharmacy canadiandrugs.tech
http://canadiandrugs.tech/# vipps canadian pharmacy canadiandrugs.tech
https://edpills.tech/# best ed medication edpills.tech
http://edpills.tech/# ed pills gnc edpills.tech
https://indiapharmacy.pro/# online pharmacy india indiapharmacy.pro