It’s Electric!!!

First of all, I want to add captions to the pictures I posted last week. The top picture is with the orphaned children at the Missionaries of Charity convent. Yes, that was the wet skirt incident. :) Which little one do you think it was?! It could have been about 5 different ones…who knows?! The second picture is outside of DDC where Andrea and I are staying. It has very beautiful greenery and gardens. The third pic is simply showing you how we look in Indian sarees. :) Believe it or not, we have 5 and ½ meters of fabric wrapped around us! We even have a bindi on our forehead (the dot). We had quite a bit of assistance putting the saris on; it was about a half hour process. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to do it by myself next time.

So as for the update…I am back safely from Bolaigoin. We arrived last night around 10pm. I have a whole week worth of new stories and experiences, but as always I will pick a few to write about. The sisters were extremely hospitable, loving and compassionate and they made sure we didn’t go hungry! (I think I’m still full!) Our regular daily schedule was wake up about 4:30, morning prayer with the sisters at 5:00, Mass at 6:00, breakfast at 7:00, relax and rest for an hour or so until 9:00, leave for the villages at 9:00, walk for an hour or an hour and a half to a village, stay out most the day (with a lunch break), then evening prayer with the sisters at 7:00pm, dinner at 8:00, bed around 9 or 10pm. Yes, the days were jam-packed. And I know what you’re thinking, yeah right, Erin, did you really wake up that early?! And yes, it’s true, some days we got to sleep in until like 5:15 or 5:30, but either way, I’m usually pretty slow to get moving in the mornings…as some of you might know…but somehow I managed quite well and it was actually a relaxing start to the day. During one of the prayer times the sisters asked if we would sing a song, so Andrea and I sang Amazing Grace because it’s a song we both really like and we thought it would be an appropriate one to teach them. Andrea has a beautiful voice and was able to keep the tune, because well, if it were up to me….it might not have been so pretty! The sisters loved it and had us write the lyrics down for them so they could learn it, then the next day we sang it two more times and they joined in.

So as for the village experiences…where to begin? The first day we were there we met a team of health workers that Sister Anisha coordinates and supervises. They were very excited to meet us and had many questions for us. Where are you from? What is it like in America? Are there poor people there? Do you have villages? Do you have any black people? What do you eat? And many more questions…Some were more difficult than others. The health workers are trained on different issues facing the tribal communities and villages. They are trained about different health issues such as AIDS, Diarrhea and many others. (Many children die here every day from diarrhea). Other topics of trainings and meetings include Women’s Empowerment, and Self-help Groups. The women have been learning that they can also use their talents and make handcrafted materials to sell and bring in some money for their family. This also offers them a support network and increases their confidence and dignity as women. Each of the health workers coordinates about 10 self-help groups where they are able to meet on a regular basis. The primary purpose of the self-help group is economic development. The goal is to help the poor understand the concept of saving and teach them how to do it as well as how to take out loans from the government and pay the loans back. One especially important aspect of the groups is the internal loans that take place. Each group member contributes a certain number of rupees to the group fund each month and if one member has an emergency and needs to take a loan from the rest of the group, they are able to do so. The groups also provide a great base to implement different programs to improve health and education. Through the health workers as well as the self-help groups, a great deal of information can be administered to the communities and it creates a great opportunity to increase knowledge and awareness about different issues, as well as an organized setting to implement new programs that are planned and developed here with the SWI staff. SWI alone is linked to over 2,000 self-help groups. It is a very efficient way to reach large numbers of people and communities. There are also sub-centers set up in the villages at different locations on certain days of the week where a government health worker comes and offers medicines and vaccines to the community members. If someone needs to be sent to the hospital they will also arrange for that. One of the days we were there Sister Anisha took a woman (a teacher from the hostel) to the hospital whose face was swollen on one side around her jaw and her eye. She had been complaining about a headache, but it turns out that she had a severe tooth infection that hit a nerve and traveled upwards.

Within the villages there are a few schools run by the government but not all families send their children to school. The school provides one meal a day so some children go to get the food and don’t stay for the class because they have to help their families work and earn money in order to eat and survive. The convent we stayed in is also a girl’s hostel on the second floor. For about 20 rupees per month (less than one dollar) a child may stay in the hostel, go to the school and get three meals a day. So the families that can afford it send their children to the hostel so they may get an education and a safe place to stay. There is also a dispensary at the convent where they store medicines and offer health services to treat the children when they are sick. There were about 80 or 90 girls staying there and the boy’s hostel and school is run by the priests next door.

One of my favorite things from the week was whenever we walked by the children, they would always say, “Good Morning Didis” or “Good Evening Didis” all synchronized. (Didi means elder sister.) One evening we were there the children wanted to show us their dance program. So they dressed up and performed different dances for us! Again, couldn’t stop smiling! It was very entertaining and a lot of fun. We had brought some candy for them, so after they finished the program we gave them each two pieces. They got in a single file line and each got a huge ear-to-ear smile when we gave it to them as they said, “Thank you Didis!” :) Just about the cutest thing ever! Then they wanted us to do a dance for them, so Andrea and I were caught on the spot trying to think of something we could do to entertain them. I suggested a little mix of the Electric Slide and The Macarena. It wasn’t near as impressive and graceful as theirs and we couldn’t help but laugh during it, but nonetheless, they loved it! Yeah, can you picture it?!! Haha. Then the teachers got a brilliant idea to dress us up in sarees (they didn’t know we had before) and so the kids got a kick out of the whole process- flowers in our hair, bindi again on our forehead…the whole thing! Then when we went to take pictures outside we were bombarded by all the girls running and trying to hold our hands and arms for the picture. Then after the photo session, Andrea and I taught them how to give high fives and tens. I think we gave about 90 of them, they were pretty excited. :)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! We got to go to some houses where the health workers lived. One lady we spent a lot of time with was Bondita. She was actually one of the supervisors of the health workers. We got to meet her 5 year old daughter and her husband as well. (Her son is staying in the boy’s hostel.) Bondita showed us all the hand-crafted mats and table cloths she had made and generously offered to give each of us one; she insisted we take one with us. She also was very excited to give us lunch. Because we were in the villages, we had to be super careful about the food and drinks we tasted due to contamination. She is an individual I won’t forget. Her smile was so bright and she and her daughter both were filled with so much love and so much joy.

After that the girls were able to convince the sisters to let them go watch the football (soccer) game that was going on at the boy's hostel. It was some kind of huge tournament with probably about 400 people there. Should have known better that we would end up being interviewed by the announcer! Knowing most of the crowd couldn’t understand us anyway, it was somewhat easier to talk. They wanted us to sing as well, but we didn’t quite go for that one. It was pretty funny though, we thought we would go watch the game and as soon as we got seated up with the announcer the crowd was no longer watching the game…It was a lot of fun though and they played very well. It is just like American soccer except they play barefoot.

On Sunday we went to a church blessing and had Mass at the small new chapel. There was a very entertaining program after with lots of songs, dances and bright costumes. Of course we enjoyed all the dances, but our favorite by far was the boys dance. All the dances we had seen so far were mostly just girls, but this one the boys were dressed up and the dance was very catchy and entertaining!

The week was filled with all these wonderful experiences, but also many very tough and challenging ones. Just to mention a few...We were a good 40 minute drive away from Raiganj (I was wrong in my last blog when I said 15 minutes), and I felt quite disconnected from everything without internet available and very minimal cell coverage.The weather was very hot and humid and Andrea and I both got fevers and had to take a full day of rest (very likely dehydration and heat exhaustion). I had a really close call with an accident (no worries though, all is well!). The malnutrition and the poverty level in the villages are quite different and much more intense than here in the town of Raiganj. That in itself was a lot to take in. When spending some time with the girls in the hostel, sister was explaining to us some of the circumstances and stories of each child. One child she explained didn’t have any parents; one had a mother in the hospital and no father (he died from TB). Sadly, this is all too common here. All these challenges and experiences contributed to me feeling a bit homesick, tired and overwhelmed, but at the same time, they made me realize not only what I take for granted but the things that I often mistakenly think of as guarantees - things like my health, my family, my food, my home, and my life.