CALCUTTA

content:
photos:
Vote this travel review

I do not know why there in July 1998 I thought.
I was tired.
A sentimental story that did not want to go well, a dual work which left me with no time to "recover", the dissatisfaction that accompanies our daily lives even though we are allowed to have the redundant and a great desire to think a little 'to me .....
Fixed my departure in February!
Two weeks of relaxation .....
Maldives, Caribbean, Mexico ...... I was just spoiled for choice, but to go alone?

Since the school had a very strong desire to India but had never had the opportunity to go there, maybe it was time!

I did not want to do an organized trip, but at the same time I was afraid not to do it ... I decided to support me for one of the many voluntary organizations operating in India, have a reference point at least, were essential.
The Indian consulate in Milan I was made available to dozens of books to be consulted to decide which one. Browsing through one of these books, a fogliettino of squared paper written by hand fell to the ground reported the address of the Mother House of Mother Teresa in CALCUTTA.
The case was chosen for me.

It just spoke to Christine, my friend and former companion of school. I said nothing, looked at me with incredulous eyes, but after two days of silence told me that she would be coming.
We found in air with a thousand feelings that argued with each other: excitement, fear, uncertainty, curiosity ... and a great tummy!

On a driving while ago I read "CALCUTTA, a violent and unexpected punch to the stomach ...", and so it was, but inside we have discovered an unexpected and unknown strength that has enabled us to react immediately. We found accommodation for the two weeks that we waited and the day after we went to Mother House for the registration of volunteers. When it's our turn, we asked where we would have preferred to work: children orphans, abandoned children, malnourished children, children with disability, dying, suffering from tuberculosis, hepatitis, mentally ill ... That of the children seemed more bearable, so we opted for malnourished children and handicapped to Shishu Bavan. Cristina you have spent two weeks, I am only one day, my programs were changed by the encounter with an Italian volunteer who convinced me to try a day at Prem Dan, a shelter / hospital, still run by nuns. Here you can find comfort mentally ill, even dying recovered from rubbish, sick, sick with TB. They had even more need of help because the volunteers prefer to choose their children and not adults.
They are finished in a dark, site of a chemical given to English Mother Teresa, all in concrete: walls and floors were rough, few sources of light, high ceilings, iron beds, thin mattresses i .. . The building housed about 150 patients. I did not know what to do, where to go, what to say. I was afraid of what I saw, the dressings of wounds, disease and odor concentrated there. The smiles of the volunteers, the sick, but especially Bruna and his sympathy, I have calmed down, at least in appearance.
After the first day of testing, the next morning I failed to get up out of bed ... I vomited for at least 8 hours. Anything I tried to eat or drink could not stay in my stomach. Preoccupatissima to have taken some nasty illness, Brown was to rebound explained - with its emphasis veneto and a beautiful smile - that was a normal reaction to what I had seen, a shock that can occur in many different ways. It 'been so because the next morning I was in good shape and not seen to give me time to do.
The day starts very early, the alarm sounds to 5.15 each morning (00.45 Italian time), leave the hotel still drowsy and not just because we lose 'our feet know the way.
After Mass and breakfast offered by the sisters - with milk tea (chai), bread and bananas - we start to work. I'm going to walk to Prem Dan through the neighborhood of Park Circus, through a beautiful and colorful market where we are the only woman selling eggs, people who sell fish, or potatoes and onions, or live poultry, or cauliflower, or rice ..... Everyone has their own specialty. " I will stop by my "favorites" and I'm spending: 1kg of rice, 4 eggs, 1 kg of potatoes and some onions. A nice spending for a total of 40 rupees (0.80 cents )......
Go to my street and the railroad arrived, a few hundred meters from my place of work, I find a SLUM by about one hundred huts ..... step to their front door and greeted me. I leave the bag of spending someone, so that at least for that day, eat. The huts are full of flies, we could not get in, do not know how to sleep! The smell and 'strong, wherever there is' someone who makes their own needs .... and piles of rubbish are very full of children, women, dogs, crows, cows, hoping to find something to eat
At Prem Dan and 'most everything' clean .... despite being a terrible place seems an oasis of serentita '.
I like to follow in Bruna dressings ..... now I have a stomach so'!!!!!
At 8 it began to work up to 12.30. The sisters do everything by hand, from cleaning to laundry, and the presence of volunteers is an invaluable aid. The morning passes between scopini to clean the floors, washing clothes by hand sitting on a bucket upside down, three-storey walk to spread the batter on the terrace. Then there was working with patients: cuddle, massage with moisturizing creams to prevent them decubitus, combed her laugh, eat and drink to those who can not. Big smiles you say thank you, you look deep demonstrate the pleasure to have you there with them. The afternoon is available for relaxing or for exploring the city.
Who feels it can work, but it is hard. 19.00 dinner .... and then ... there is' little to do! The families of the road preparing their hosts for the night and we return to our room.
What luck ..... one bedroom and bathroom !!!!!

A vacancy created by chance it has now become a fixture. I knew Italians and volunteers from around the world of all faiths and faith united for the same reason.
I speak with great enthusiasm, as if it were the most beautiful place in the world, but the impact is not easy.
It is not normal that you see on the streets of CALCUTTA, the smells, their habits, the poverty, the "case" on the sidewalks, traffic, heat, pollution, and until you try you can not know as will be our reaction. E 'a choice and a very difficult journey that should not be undertaken lightly. When you are faced with children with cleft lip, with severe disability, a sick or dying of tuberculosis ... the magic of the holiday disappears. Did you have to compare yourself with your weaknesses, your fears with. Do you have to wash clothes or bed sheets full of feces, feces of infected people very sick. You may request to clean a wound full of maggots to disinfect or holes caused by decubitus ... or "merely" a caressing hand to those who are about to die.
I am happy to have reacted and why not be escaped from that moment onwards I met wonderful people, I saw smiles that never forget, demonstrations of affection from people of street demonstrations of generosity and the poor poorer.

For information on CALCUTTA visit my site:
www.CALCUTTA.editarea.com