Kolkata Trip:

Before I tell you about it though, it was RAINING when we left Vizag. I had been pining for rain all week, but was told by everyone that it was simply NOT going to happen, since it’s the dry season. Well, God loves me a whole bunch, so He gave me 20 minutes of rain in Vizag J. BUT THEN!! It was POURING RAIN in Kolkata! It was so beautiful, especially when we first got there, because it was so green and lush out in the boonies where the school was. Tender mercies!!

First fabulous idea: flying instead of taking the train. It took 3 hours instead of 24 AND we got free water. That may not seem like a big deal, but when tap water is nonpotable, giardia-free water suddenly becomes a hot commodity.

Second: working at NISHTHA for a few days. At first, none of us were really sure what we were going to do, where, or how high the lice risk would be, but as it turned out, we were volunteering with a women/girl empowerment organization that works specifically with education. During the days, we visited a girls’ school where all of the students had been field laborers. We thought we were going to be teaching English, but we ended up practicing what they already knew. So there were a lot of rounds of “Ride that Pony” and “Down by the Banks” played. I even had to dig in deep memory storage for “London Bridge” and “Duck Duck Goose.” It was pretty well hidden.

It was really interesting to observe the girls, especially for their varying degrees of interest and dedication to furthering their education. Particularly in the more rural areas of India, the girls get married at 16 or 17 and so staying at home to learn the ropes of being a good wife and mother starts pretty early. According to their local culture, THAT’S where they should be, if not earning money for their families; they have no business in school. That attitude is very much reflected in the older girls’ participation in their classes. Just like any student, it’s hard for them to see the connection between effort and sacrifice now and benefits later, but I feel like the culture is far less conducive to promoting their scholarship. In some cases, these girls may be the first ones in their families to attend school at all. They really are pioneers and it’s remarkable what NISHTHA is doing for them. The woman we worked with, Mina, is one of the regional directors (or some such thing) and she’s really an incredible woman! She’s so sweet and is so dedicated to providing educational opportunities to women and girls so that they can begin to see how their lives can be different, better. I’m so glad we got to go.

The girls were so excited to have us there. A program from Utah called YMAD visits every so often to paint the walls, play with the girls, teach English, etc. and so they became very attached to us very fast. They were all such sweet girls, despite their incessant need to cling to our arms and waist everywhere we go. They present a pretty intense falling hazard. We danced with them for a bit and got to teach them the Macarena with much more success than our last attempt at teaching the Macarena to Indian niños….although no one in our group has the song on their ipod, so we danced to a Maroon 5 song instead.

We were only able to go to the school for 2 days because there was a huge strike on day 3 that was supposed to be very dangerous and we were forbidden to leave the hostel compound where we were staying for 36 hours, though the scariest thing that happened in our neck of the woods was when a lizard fell on my roommate. We got pretty stir crazy. So what do you do when 5 girls are stuck in a room for that long? Eat candy, watch Despicable Me, and plan weddings, of course! Guh. So much wedding stuff. Christian generally stayed well away in his own room, only coming down at night for scripture study and Tron. Poor kid. He’s taking a boat-load of estrogen like a champ, though.

The cost of staying at the hostel was much lower than anticipated, so we each got to make small donation. I’m so so glad we got to go! It was amazing!

It was amazing to see the difference between Kolkata and Vizag, or even more generally, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. It was very jungly in the area around NISHTHA. There were ponds, rice paddies, cranes, goats, and egrets EVERYWHERE, Eva loves goats, so we paid special attention to those. The culture was pretty different as well. Even the way people dress…..Well, I mean of course the dress would be different since it’s so much cooler in West Bengal, but the women don’t even seem to wear toe rings and we saw some pretty different hairstyles. All of the baby Telugu we’ve picked up over the last two months is totally useless here, since their speak Bengali. Weather-wise and vegetation-wise, it was a bit more like what I expected India to be like.

The rest of Kolkata was really cool, very fun, very different. We moved to the city to our hotel, Bodhi Tree on Thursday after saying goodbye to Mina and it was SO nice! Plus there was wifi. Can it get any better? We went to the zoo (z’s and j’s often get confused, so we actually visited the big joo to see the jebras….just keep going, it’ll get funnier) where we were definitely the most interesting animals to be seen. We got some pretty great pictures of zoo attendees turning their backs to the animals so that they could take picture of us instead. We bought some hideously awesome colorful straw hats and went to the Victoria Memorial, but, wouldn’t you know it, it costs 10 rupees for Indians to go in, and 150 rupees for foreigners. So Christian went in, found and old man who wanted to guide him around while we sat outside eating peanuts and making Princess Bride jokes. After that we went to Sir Hogg Market to buy gifty things. Holy cow. The moment, the vendors saw us, the prices went up 700%. It was an intense experience with lots of “Here ma’am! Come here!”s and “Bags, ma’am?” and “My price, special for you, good quality!” Plus I think we got scammed by a beggar mother into buying way-too-expensive milk, but it felt good to be generous, so whatever. Boy, it’s draining work, being ripped off. We split up for awhile, which was also terrifying. Anyway, the long and short of it is that we spent too much, bought fun, mostly useless, cool stuff and got fruit shakes at the end of it. The mango shakes with ice cream were killa and Eva had big fly in hers. BUT! No food poisoning. And she drank it all , anyway. Our tolerance for grossness is becoming drastically altered. Last week, Eva told Mackenzie that ants had gotten into their barfi. At first, she was disgusted but after considering her intense love for barfi, she said “that….is not a dealbreaker.”

We heard there was a McDonald’s close by, so we walked the 3 blocks or so to get there. It was an eventful 3 blocks. At one point, a pack of angry dogs ran right into Mackenzie’s ankles, right in front of me. She ran forward to get away, but I stopped cold, screaming my head off, trying to use the man standing next to me as a shield between me and dog fight. We had joked about Dr. Nuckolls’ tendency to exaggerate or at least tell the truth in the least sympathetic way possible to get us more accustomed to India. Once, we asked if the stray dogs were going to be a problem. He said “oh nah, unless there is a pack of 20. Then you should probably get out of there.” Oh Chuckles. McDonalds was nice, but there was a guy who came up to us asking us how his face compared to Christian’s and to rate him on a scale from 1 to 10. He said “I’m looking for a girlfriend. I cheated on my last one so I’m suffering.” It was an all-around uncomfortable conversation….for many reasons. We went home and crashed. The next morning we went to Mother Teresa’s home (one of them, anyway) where her tomb is, as well. The house is still a working convent/museum and it was cool to feel a measure of the spirit there. I learned a lot more about Mother Teresa and I was very intrigued by her much more literal interpretations of serving Christ, and it’s very evident that she loved the Savior immensely. I loved seeing the nuns’ white and blue-bordered saris and habits, thinking of how much good they’ve done and are doing. Eva commented that she thinks Heavenly Father specifically placed people like Mother Teresa and Gandhi on the earth outside of His church so so that they could have an impact in spheres that would have normally rejected the church and the gospel outright. I completely agree. He is the master micro-manager, after all. I also liked seeing all of the foreign visitors and how touched they were with Mother Teresas’ mission as well. After that we tried for forever to find a taxi to take us to the mosque a few kilometers away but the overcharging was too much so a nice man helped us get on a trolley car that took us to a very very old part of Kolkata. Old, crowded, dirty, almost zero women. We walked a few blocks and found the gate to the mosque but didn’t’ see any women inside. We sent Christian in, and thanks to his powers of persuasion and our foreignness (and, as it turned out, our ability to make cash donations), we girls were allowed in. I’m so grateful, too, because it was SO beautiful. We walked up and down the marble staircases surrounding a courtyard where devotees prayed and washed ritually in a pool. I loved how peaceful it was. I felt the Spirit there, too and it was awesome. The donation/fee was well worth it.

Afterwards we got stuck shopping for awhile shopping (also very much worth it because the goods around there are amazing) and we stopped for lunch at a Muslim restaurant that served beef Indian dishes. We hoped for the best, since I assumed it to be halal, and there were tons of other people there, but it looked pretty sketch. Scratch that, it SCREAMED food poisoning. I mean shirtless, sweaty men stewing ginormous pots of meat in a dark back room, cats running around, cold food, the whole bit. We prayed hard and ate fast and of course, they brought us the most expensive item on the menu. Poor Christian didn’t even get his beef. That’s okay. He’ll get his fill on the good ol’ US of A.

I had really wanted to go see the Jain temple but we weren’t quite sure where it was and Rachel was feeling pretty sick, so after haggling with con artists (ahem…taxi drivers) for awhile, we just decided to take the metro home. The walk to the station was super scary and that night I kept having nightmares that I lost my group….but we made it safely. A lady on the platform reprimanded us for being in such a dangerous part of the city. She said “normally, I always wear trousers, but when I come down here, even I wear traditional clothes.” I felt pretty dumb, and in hindsight, it definitely wasn’t very smart of us to do all the things we did, and I’m so grateful we made it back safe and sound. I’m more and more convinced that Heavenly Father rather enjoys answering my parents’ prayers.

We split up on the metro then, 4 of us going home with Rachel and 3 going to the market again. Mackenzie and I went out to buy a little cake for Christian’s birthday (it was the next day, but we would be travelling), then decorated our hotel room with Eva with some pretty fabulous decorations, including a birthday banner that read “Happy Birthday Christi” with the last two letters crammed next to the last I because we ran out of the napkins it was written on. We didn’t have any string or tape, so we tacked it to the wall using floss and bindi stickers. I also made a crown made of flowers and floss. He seemed pleased when he got back. I hope it was a good enough birthday for him! I’m so glad he’s with us. We really do have an awesome group. We may get a little impatient from time to time, mostly just when we’re hungry and the oreos have run out, but we really love and respect one another. We’ve been reading the Book of Mormon every night as a group and I think that that has been making all the difference. We have an awesome mix of personalities, and things just keep getting better and better!

As much fun as Kolkata was, we were all glad to come home to Vizag…It’s so cool that Vizag feels like home…I’m starting to get antsy to get back to the US, but I know I’ll miss India  a whole bunch. There’s so much to do before that happens!!

Love you more than all the Ganesh statues in Kolkata!

Allison