The First Day

It doesn't matter how old you get, how cool you can be or how worldly you are the first day of anything is always awkward.  You break a rule you didn't know existed or perhaps you don't have anyone to talk to, or maybe you even forgot your lunch money.  In my case, it was all of the above.

 

I rose nice and early on my first day (still a little jet lagged) at 3:00 in the morning.  Which gave me plenty of time to get to breakfast at 7:00. I needed to try to check out of my hotel early or arrange for a late check out that day since check out was at noon and that's when the morning session ended.  When I got down to the front desk however, there was no one there.  A petite older man wrapped up like he was facing a Siberian winters guards the front door and tells me in broken English, "8:30 Madam. No one till 8:30." 

 I needed my passport to be able to register for the volunteer work, so of course no one would be there.  And of course it didn't occur to me do this last night.  So, with a little chagrin I marched out the front door knowing this afternoon was probably not going to be a breeze.  

The walk was easy, I did not get lost.  I was able to find another volunteer and actually struck up a nice conversation on our way to the Mother House for breakfast.  She was an interior designer from Barcelona and she had just four more days in Kolkata. We were some of the first to arrive at the volunteer breakfast which consists of bread, bananas and chai.  I can't eat bread, I don't like bananas but I do love chai. I take two bananas and a glass of chai and find a spot to sit.  There are a number of small benches in the volunteer room.  The room is long, almost in an L shape and down a half flight of stairs from the main floor of the mother house.  The floors are concrete but everything is clean.  Well, this is Kolkata so comparatively speaking everything is sparkling clean.  (This is one reason I like the Mother House.) As I sit down, people start to file in for breakfast and socialize with one another.  An older Irish gentleman sees me and insists that I am Irish and when I open my mouth he is quite shocked to hear that I am American.  We talk about my lineage briefly and then he makes his way over to a group of people from the UK and Ireland.  As people settle in to spots I started to notice the different groups of people and see the different clicks.  There is a large group of French people sitting with a nun in her shockingly traditional habit and a young priest.  There is a group of Spanish speaking people,  Italians, Asians, Australians, two very bohemian looking west coast men are philosophizing.  A very pretty young English girl talks about how she is too small for some clothes that she bought and two plump kind faced Canadian women talk to a trio of very southern girls.  The moderately sized room becomes very crowded and in the middle of all of this hub-bub I look around and realize that I am in the antisocial ginger group.  Quite literally, I am on a bench with three other redheads all just looking pasty and sitting and eating and drinking and not talking and certainly not finding this ridiculous.  I sit back and decide to also not talk about it and just settle in, enjoy the awkward and pray that someone is watching this scene and finding it as funny as I am.

 

The day gets started with a the ringing of light bells, a little prayer and song and them some announcements.  They call forward and say goodbye to the people who are having their last day.  Then a garage door at the far end of the food table is thrust open letting sunlight pour into the room as the day commences.  I approach the sister and tell her about my inability to check out and get my passport.  She hands me a three day pass for Daya Dan and I tell her that I will have my passport tomorrow. 

I step outside and find my group.  We hop on to a bus that is painted in a bright and almost psychedelic way.  I sit down next to a young indie looking American girl who was corralling our group.  Her name is Claire.  She is here for a few weeks and has been back packing through the country since the fall.  She's from Long Island, studies yoga back in the states, is a massage therapist and has been doing physical therapy with the children at Daya Dan.  She travels quite frequently.  I begin talking about my visit so far when a man puts some sort of clicker in my face.  "Oh, it's 4 rupees for the bus," she says.  I start looking through my money belt and come put with only dollars, very American dollars.  I realize I have left my Indian money back in my hotel room.  Ugh, how embarrassing!  But fortunately this good souled New Yorker is swift and pays for my ride when I curse my stupidity under my breath.

 

The first day jitters.  It can make anyone screw up.

We hope off the bus a few minutes later disbursing onto clusters of three and four to ride the auto rickshaws or tuk-tuks.  These little buggers looked like they jumped the fence at some amusement park.  I chuckle at these kelly green and gold trikes as I hop in and then proceed to experience the real life Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  The driver takes off like shot gun and we are barreling down the road swerving back and forth to avoid all the many obstacles that pop into the road.  I now feel like I have entered a real life video game.  The little three wheeled vehicle races along the road and I imagine the point system for this game.  You loose points for breaking, gain points for every additional passenger you are able to fit in and every near miss.  Extra bonus points if you are able to touch get close enough to steal fruit off of stands and/or are close enough to other tuk-tuks to high-five the other drivers.  

One thing that you must understand about Kolkata is that the drivers are crazy.  Everyone functions like the people on scooters in Rome.  Everyone including cabbies, regular motorists, tuk-tuks, cyclists, pedicabs, bus drivers and why not throw in some regular old toothless dude running in front of them rickshaws just to spice things up. There are no traffic laws, or perhaps it just seems this way, and they all do whatever they want.  Head lights are optional, there are no stop signs and very few traffic lights.  Seat belts and traffic cops could be categorized with big foot and the leprechauns.  You've heard about them, people claimed to have seen them, but where is the proof?

The joy ride on the tuk-tuk stops to let us out in the middle of the road near an alley that leads to the entrance to Daya Dan.   Claire had the foresight to give me six extra rupees for the ride, thank goodness.  We all head down the alley to Daya Dan.  

 

I am anxious to get here.  I have seen pictures of this place from when Kate was here.  This is one of the places that she volunteered here and it's where she met her now little brother Sudeep.  This home is filled with disabled children who need love.  I am not sure what to expect to see or feel.  We enter and (like most places here) take our shoes off.  I walk through the main room on the first floor.  The walls are painted bright and cheerful with happy pictures of children with the sisters and positive sayings in primary colors.  There are a few very energetic boys who are dancing around to "YMCA" and a few who are a bit more subdued on the floor or in their wheelchairs.  I follow the other volunteers in, grab an apron and head out back. 

We walk out to a narrow but long outdoor space where many local women are starting the laundry.  At the house there are these women who are referred to as "Mashies" (pro pounced mah-shees) who serve as the care takers here along with the sisters.  They wear their saris and hardened expressions as I approach.  They set up the laundry system (which is done by hand) four large metal buckets set up in a row.  We all soak and scrub, rinse and wring, then toss to the next bucket.  Now, at first when I see these women, I think they a a little harsh.  This is not the loving welcome I was hoping for. But after a while I begin to understand them a bit better.  These few women are there all the time for these children and serve as nurse, house keeper, cook and teacher for these children.  It's very easy to think they are rough on these kids but I imagine it can't be easy with all these fortunate pampered sunny faced volunteers waltzing in and out and only spending five hours a day with them while they pick up the slack.  

The laundry is good hard work.  Scrubbing and rinsing and wringing out the many sheets, towels and clothes in the very cold water is a really nice physical reminder of what I am doing here.  It's a good thing that I was way too lazy to carry my laundry down four flights and to the super scary laundromat with the cracked out homeless man as it's mascot when I lived in Harlem.  I am rather proficient with doing laundry by hand.   I find this scrubbing and rinsing quite therapeutic and social.  I get yelled at by one of the mashies.  She is small and stern.  Her face is completely frozen in a protective judgmental expression.  You can tell that she probably hates all of us.  She doesn't speak, well really she yells and only in Bengali and gets very mad at me when I grab the wrong pile of laundry and then start to do it not following her system.  She rips the laundry out of my hand, throws it on the ground and then adamantly points to a different pile.  I do as she wishes and when the other volunteers start to leave the laundry I decide to stay till it is all done.  I may not be perfect but at least I finish what I started.  I hope this earns me some bonus points with her.

Today is Saturday and so we take the children to the park for the day.  I am told to take a young boy in a wheelchair.  I am not certain what his diagnosis is but I think it maybe cerebral palsy.  As it turns out, he is quite intelligent.  He moves quite slow and is incapable of really speaking but he has a bright happy smile.  His name is Bernard.  I like Bernard.  He has a sense of humor and even takes the buckle of his seatbelt and jams it into the spokes of his wheelchair as a prank.  He is laughing at me as I am trying to figure out why his chair won't move.  We play an extensive game of "does you wheelchair sound like (insert most ridiculous sound you can think of)?".  As I we stroll around the park I meet a few other volunteers.  There is a young Australian woman named Miriam visit on her summer holiday with some college friends.  I meet an older Irish woman named Monica and one half of a young Spanish couple from Barcelona who decided to travel because they graduated from university and there were no jobs.  There are two very tall and ridiculously handsome Argentinian men.  Tall, handsome, charitable and good with kids?  Wow.  

My morning quite frankly is highly enjoyable.  There is a boy named Manu who is very handsy and yells quite a bit.  "We got a belter on our hands!" I yell and realize mid sentence no one knows what I am talking about.   

Part of me thinks that this is somewhat of a soft option, for my time here. But I am posed with the question, what would these children's lives be like if they were born somewhere else?  I learn that while many of these children were orphans who were moved here from the regular orphanage some actually have families but were given up because their parents could not care for them.  Their ailments range from mental retardation and autism to being nearly vegetables.  Bernard reminds me of a girl I went to elementary school with.  She had her aides and a motorized wheelchair and a specialized program for her education.  She had parents whole were a constant source of love and positivity.  Here the children have a constant revolving door of teachers and caretakers.  But at the same time, here are these kids getting to go to the park and getting hugs and love.  That's not so bad, but it's not a happy story either.

After our outing at the park we make our way back to the home for some physical therapy and tutoring.  I spend the rest of the day with Bernard and talking with the other volunteers.  I see one of the guys I had seen philosophizing that morning.  His name is Callum and he is from Vancouver. I was right about his west coast vibe, even if he is Canadian.  Cal teaches disabled children life skills back home.  He is even tempered and patient.  We all get to know each other a bit more as we take the metro back to the Sudder Street. 

As I walk back to my hotel I prepare myself to get out of another night at this over budget guest home.  As I'm walking I cross in front of this car that is attempting to turn on to a street of completely stopped traffic when the driver takes his foot off the brake and gentle runs into me. I proceed to yell at him and then not so gently punch the hood of his car.  I'm from New York, I didn't just fall of the turnip truck.  I'm prepping myself for a fight with the hotel people, don't get in my way.  As I steam about this latest aggravating encounter I hear someone yell my name.  I look up and see Kate at the end of the street.  An overwhelming sense of relief comes over me.  I run to her and throw my arms around this non stranger.  I have been doing fine here on my own but still, Kate looks like home.  She is followed by two locals who she obviously knows from her previous trips here.  We swap our horrifying arrival stories and I find out hers was very similar to mine but they are settled now on Sudder st and the kids are attempting to nap to adjust to the schedule here.  We decide to meet at her place so that Josh can help me get settled into a hostel.  I bid her goodbye as she heads off to go find some Internet. 

I return to my hotel and find no argument from the man at the front desk.  This is a good omen I decide.  Things are looking up and I am finally starting to feel settled.  I check out and head over to Josh and Kate's place where I sit and chat with Josh more extensively about their arrival.  The two little ones nap while Ray plays on the iPad.  I am so ecstatic about seeing familiar faces.  We talk about where I am going to stay and Josh tells me about some good places to eat.  I still have eaten anything here yet.  Kate returns and Josh helps me get settled into a hostel and then takes me to a place where I can call my folks. I have yet to speak to them.  It is five in the morning but I know that my mother could not care less, she will just be so happy to hear from me.  I update her and assure her that I am feeling much better about everything. Its good to hear my mom's voice but I need to continue on my way and finish moving in.  

I have dinner that night with the Tucker family.  They are energetic and fun as well as knowledgeable reminders of home.  It is interesting to cruise down the streets with them and their double wide stroller.  I feel like I am part of a parade or some sort of celebrity the way it attracts attention.  Small children follow us fascinated by the stroller and white children. I'm not sure they have seen anything like this before.  But they are rough little fire crackers and when Ray has had enough he pulls the sun guard down to separate himself from the grabbing inquisitive children.  But eventually after dinner it's all been too much and I let the family go to bed.

The Hotel Paragon

Someone once told me that in terms of dating I have ridiculously high standards.  Well let me tell you something, in terms of hotels I have ridiculously flexible standards.   When I checked in to the first place I stayed in on Sudder Street I remember thinking that this place was cheap, cramped and unimpressive.  That was before I ever laid eyes on the Hotel Paragon.  As I look around the dorm room I am staying in with five other people I think, "This isn't so bad.  I can do this.  It's just like summer camp .../prison ... / abandoned mental institution."  This place looks comically and frighteningly similar to many places that have been investigated on Ghost Hunters.  The walls are all painted the same peeling and chipped faded mint green color.  There is at least two decades worth of dust on the ceiling fans.  The ceiling is open in the hallway.  Mother nature is the maid here.  The bed sheets all have HP written in sharpie written on them.  I think of Harry Potter naturally and a bemused short cackle bursts out.

 There are some typical Indian bathrooms and well as a western style bathroom stall that would cause my Nana to contact vomit if she saw it.  And the showers you ask?  Well there is hot water only in the morning from 7:00 - 10:00 and in the evening from 6:00 - 8:00.  You take bucket, fill it with the hot water and then take a bucket shower.  Just like Cinderella I tell myself, sort of.  But when your paying two dollars a night For housing what can you expect.

The good news is my roommates.  I am living with four other girls who are volunteering and one guy who seems to only sleep.  My friend Claire from Long Island is one of them and I am introduced to another girl named Hannah who is from Berlin.  We get along swimmingly and I have spent a great deal of time with them since.  Another girl is leaving soon and this other is Rachel who is from Washington state.  She's chill but volunteers in the afternoon so I don't see her except right at bed time and on our morning walk.  I have found a group and already I am beginning to feel that these next few weeks while Hannah and Claire are still here will be wonderful.  And when my mother offers to help pay for my housing after looking up the location online Claire forbids it until she is gone.

 

"We have a really good room right now," she says " you can move after I leave."

It's good to have friends.