true life planet

From my journal entry October 7th, 2007

I am exhausted.

Today was my first day at Dany Dan, a home for autistic and mentally retarded children in Calcutta. Actually, this home run by Mother Theresa’s Sisters of Charity has kids with everything from autism to deafness to strange wasting-away diseases.

The morning started with a walk to the Motherhouse, which is located about 20 minutes’ walk from my hotel.

Walking through the city streets at 5:30 am, I found myself looking at a totally different Calcutta. The streets were quiet, the day was just beginning…It was much less disorienting without all the chaos.

One could not walk on the sidewalks, as they were full to capacity of sleeping men, women, and children. Bodies, bodies, bodies. They were so thin they looked like they would break. Children were very thin, with little narrow limbs and bloated bellies. People slept right on the ground, on the pavement, or on a piece of cardboard, using a piece of cloth from their clothing to cover their face.  I tried to count all the bodies and stopped at 430 people. (And that was within 15 minutes!)

People were taking turns to do their daily absolutions. In spite of the filth of the city, it’s inhabitants are fanatical about personal hygiene. Huge geysers and faucets spilled water out into the gutters, as men wrapped only in a tiny piece of plaid cloth covering their privates lathered up the best they could under the circumstances. Everyone in the neighborhood takes his turn, and a small line formed near each geyser of men.

Enormous piles of trash lined the streets, assaulting my nostrils. A few trashpickers were attempting to get an early start with their workday, and sifting through piles of stinking refuse, rotting food, ash, paper, metal, and human waste. They were accompanied by several calves and cows, who were calmly chewing their way through plastic bags.

Dogs were laying in the middle of the street, still asleep. As I walked, I thought about how yesterday a tourist told me thought that all the dogs in Calcutta should be put to sleep because they were treated so inhumanely, and how I had told him that I had thought the dogs in Calcutta were much better off than any dog I had seen in Central America. Here, at least, they eat trash and refuse, leftover food, and whatnot. They weren’t fat by any stretch of the imagination-but nor were they starving to death. They leave you alone when you walk by, and mind there own business–while the dogs in Central America actually run up to you and bite you and are literally skin and bones.

An occasional household had all awoken and had begun their cooking fires. A woman was making chapati with gnarled hands, using the sides of her hands to form the flat bread. Another woman had what looked to be a stomach and intestine of some animal, which she was rinsing out in the frothy contaminated gutter. A small child sat sifting through ash for charcoal to cook with. Another child defecated in the gutter.

The gutter is bubbling, oily, and full of disease and human excrement. The smell of urine overwhelms me.

The men who drive their yellow taxis around the city are just waking up. They fold themselves up in the back seat of their cabs at night to sleep-then wake up in the morning and give themselves and their cabs a complete wash. Men who carry huge carts made of bamboo are also sleeping on their carts, wearing their only set of clothes.

There seems to be a lot of water being used here…it pours out of the geysers on the streets, spilling into the gutter and the street. I have never seen so much water.

I count 54 rats–8 of which are dead, belly up in the street. The live ones are big rats, light in color with pink tails. They scamper around door ways and sleeping children.

A group of crows–very beautiful birds, the crow of Calcutta, a dark blue and gray with a small head–pick apart a dead rat while a very old man wearing only white, dirty trousers attempts to hit a crow with a slingshot. He hits one, and it immediately gets turned over to a woman nearby who begins to prepare it for the cooking pot.

I finally make it to the Motherhouse. It’s 6am, and they have a mass there every morning at 6, for an hour.

It’s a special day today, because this is the 50th anniversary of Mother Theresa’s having established this order and the homes that are still in operation today.

The mass is nice. Its a refreshing a hopeful change from everything outside on the street. There is alot of talk about everything that has been accomplished so far, a what a miracle it has been. But there is also alot of talk about what more needs to be done.

The mass is followed by breakfast. I am surprised when I enter the breakfast room how many volunteers there are, and how many of them are young backpackers. I expected more volunteers of an older age group. But there is great comraderie and everyone is very friendly.

After a breakfast of bananas, bread, and chai, we all head to our different destinations.

There’s a large group going to Dany Dan, where I am going..so we all pile into a bus. The bus has one part for women and one part for men. After the bus, we squeeze into auto rickshaws for the last part of the journey.

We arrive at Dany Dan, put on our aprons, and report to the head  nun. When she finds out I am assigned there for 5 months, she is estatic.

The place is chaotic. There are 64 children total, and 34 of those are boys. I am assigned to be with the boys on the first floor. They range in age from 7 years old to 18 years old.

The morning starts with laundry, which must be washed by hand in buckets, then carried upstairs to the roof to be hung up to dry.

Children are being bathed, and then we have to dress them all. This seems to take forever, but when we area done only an hour has passed.

Its then time for prayer. the kids have an alter in their main playroom, and they sing a song.

After prayer, its time for school. I am assigned to Binoy for the next 5 months, a very intelligent autistic boy with a short attention span and severe vision problems. He is very hard to work with and I have to think alotabout how to reach him and keep it interesting for him. We study writing and reading for an hour and a half, and then he goes to music class.

The kids are learning Christmas songs, and Binoy has turned out to be a very talented drummer… he blows me away with his drumming!

But I don’t have time to enjoy his performance, because I am busy keeping kids from hitting each other, running around, and changing poopy  pants.

Then I go down to the dining room, where I am assigned several children to feed everyday. Most kids can feed themselves, but some need help with how to use their hands and how to use a spoon. It takes about 45 minutes to feed one child. As one is feeding them, a nun comes by a drops various medications into their dal and rice, turning it into a very unappetizing stew of brownish lentils, vitamins, and pink syrup.

After lunch it’s naptime. It’s hard to get all the kids into bed, let alone get them to stay put.

I take a nap myself, since I’m going to be here all day on my own. All the other volunteers have already left for their other assignments–most are going to Kalighat, the home for the dying.

I wake up from my nap and am told I need to do physical therapy with one of the autistic boys who doesn’t like walking. It is very hard, he doesn’t want to do it and I have to muster upthe energy from somewhere to get him to at least try to walk. We work together for about half an hour.

Then I help the child suffering from soome sort of retardation and spastic disorder–he’s 18, actually, not a child–do arm exercises. When this kid smiles he lights up a room. He’s amazing, a truly gentle soul.

Then I start taking the kids out for short walks, one at a time, into the alley. They don’t go out much, so it’s very overwhelming for some of them. One kid gets very upset at the sight of a parked car, but the rest of the kids have a good time. There is a cricket game going on down the alley, all Indian boys and teenagers playing, and everyone is very kind. They find two spare chairs and I keep bringing the boys over to watch the game. The boys love it, they love being part of normal life and being with other boys.

The rest of the day is spent just playing with the kids, and trying to keep them from harming themselves and others. It’s very tiring, and I have to be alert always. I do not have any thoughts in my head other than these boys and what I need to be thinking about for them.

By the time I get off work and manage to take the metro home and get to my hotel, I’m worn out. There is nothing left.

Even the walk to the metro was overwhelming..it’sthe Hindu Puja celebration right now, and the streets are filled with shrines and people dressed in their best clothes, visiting all the Pujas. It’s hard to make one’s way through the streets there are so many people.

How will I do this everyday? I wonder. Yet the work is very rewarding, the kids are wonderful, and I love it.

Still, I can see that it will be a struggle to find balance here.

gigi

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