Kyrie

I can't believe that we've been in India for a whole week! Our journey began at SeaTac airport on Wednesday where before we even got on the plane we met someone from Seattle University who was also flying to Kolkata (Calcutta) to work with Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity. We reached London Heathrow and spent our layover talking to a Canadian family who work with Canadian International Development Agency and work in a pineapple farm in Ghana. We reached Kolkata on Friday where Fr. Puthumai met us and took us to Seva Kendra, the Caritas center in Kolkata. Let me back up for a minute. Fr. Puthumai is the director of the Social Welfare Institute (aka Caritas) in Raiganj where Erin, Scott and I plan on spending the next few months volunteering. SWI has connections to CaritasIndia and also does a lot of work with Catholic Relief Services. So we went to Seva Kendra, had breakfast, and rested from our flight. That afternoon we went to the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity to see Mother Teresa's tomb, then went to the Catholic Relief Services office to meet the staff there and had our first Indian coffee and meet and greet. From there we went to the train station and hopped on a train to Raiganj.

Eleven hours later after our first full night's sleep in India we arrived and jumped in a car to go to DDC, where Erin and I would be staying. DDC, or the Diocesan Development Center, is a training center about four miles out of Raiganj where SWI holds various trainings. There aren't any going on right now, but there are classrooms and dormitories and pigs and chickens and a huge pond. Erin and I are sharing a room, and we live there along with some of the other female SWI staff and a few Cannosian sisters that teach at the nearby Jesuit School. That afternoon we went to SWI, where we will be working and where Scott is living, along with Fr. Puthumai and a few other priests that assist at SWI. On our way back to DDC we stopped to visit the MC sisters at the nearby home that they run for unwed mothers and their children. There was a girl there who they had just brought from the hospital. She was just skin and bones and being spoonfed by her mother. The doctors expected her to die at any time so the sisters had brought her to care for her.

On Sunday, after Mass at the Cathedral, Sister Philo who runs the house at DDC took us to meet some of the Catholic houses in the area. We started at Loyola Seminary, which is a minor seminary for those training to be brothers. Then we went to St. Leo's seminary which is the seminary for the diocesan priests. Then we went to the TB clinic run by the MC sisters. At every single place we went we sat down and had a cup of coffee and visited with our hosts. While we were at the MCs we experienced our second major rainstorm. When it rains here it really pours. We finally got up the courage to run back to the car and made our way back to DDC for lunch. Right as we got there we heard our first clap of thunder. It was really loud, the kind of thunder that would make you jump into the arms of the person next to you, or run into your governess' room and start singing about your favorite things. After lunch we went to the new Vocational Training Center where dropouts from St. Xavier's can learn how to drive so they can get jobs. Then we went to St. Xavier's school, the Jesuit school in town, and also took a tour of the hostel where boys from the villages can come and live during the school year. Then we went to visit the Carmelite Sisters of the Little Flower and the novitiate that they run, we stopped by the Poor Clare's Convent next door but didn't stay because they were having Mass, and then went to the Cathedral where Fr. Puthumai used to work and visited with the sisters that run the school there. All in all it was a really good day. I met more nuns than I've ever met in my life and had 7 cups of coffee in the course of about 5 hours.

Monday we had our first full day in the office. Erin is working with the Health education program so she's been editing the report for their last project and helping as they prepare for their next community health program. Scott's teaching an English class, so he spends most of his time working on lesson plans. I'm working with the CDCP program (Community Based Disaster Relief) so I've been familiarizing myself with the project and helping Scott with lesson plans.

On Tuesday there was a festival, so instead of going into the office we went to help out the MC sisters. Sister Sofia asked me to teach the children, so we went over the alphabet and numbers, which they're all pretty good at. If anyone has any good elementary ed ideas, or some good action songs, please let me know. The girl that had been bedridden the last time we were there was sitting up on the bed, and when we sang songs she even stood up. She couldn't quite get through all of head, shoulders, knees and toes but she did pretty good for someone who had been on death's door the day before. That afternoon we went out to some of the villages near Altapur and stopped by the school and hostel there, where most of the sponsorships from Sean Bray's Assist a Child program are going. As soon as we got there the sisters had chairs set out for us and the girls put on a pretty elaborate dance performance for us which was pretty incredible considering that they had about half an hour's notice that we were coming. Afterwards we had a tour of the hostel and made plans for Scott to come back and work on a needs assessment of what needs to be repaired, mostly the roof in the medical dispensary where the ceiling is eroding and water is coming through. We also started to discuss where extra funds from Assist a Child is going to go. Father has already decided to purchase a battery backup system for the MC's (the electrical current here ebbs and flows) so that the children won't get scared when the power goes out, which it does a few times a day. We also discussed buying beds for the children at Altapur (right now they sleep on blankets laid out on the concrete floor) but now that USAID has cut their funding most of the Assist a Child funds will probably go towards food costs.

All in all it's been a great first week. I don't get claustrophobic under the mosquito net anymore, Erin and I took the bus by ourselves for the first time this morning, and I've completely forgotten how to eat with silverware. I've even learned how to make a homemade cup of Indian coffee: equal parts instant coffee, milk powder, and sugar. I haven't seen a sunset yet, although every time I see the sky start to change colors I have to fight the urge to drop everything I'm doing and run up onto the roof, but for now I can keep it as one of my goals. So here you go- short term goal: watch the sunset. Long term goal: ride an elephant.