MORE INDIA: VOLUNTEER WORK
Many people have asked me what exactly I was doing in India, besides wading through monsoon-flooded streets and watching goats get decapitated in ritual sacrifices (that's for another blog entry...) Did I have some program arranged to work at before going to Calcutta (Kolkata) or did I just show up there randomly and say "Hey, I'm here to help, what can I do?" The answer is, well, yeah.
It kinda goes like this....I've always wanted to do something like the Peace Corps, but wasn't quite ready for the two-year commitment that it entails. However, it turned out that one of my friends from university (and kindred traveling spirit!), Spencer, had already been living there for a few months, working as a volunteer with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity at Nirmal Hriday/Kalighat (Home for the Dying and the Destitute) so I decided that this would be a great moment to at least do what little I could. So I asked him for some advice and pointers (although he didn't really have too much of a plan when he arrived either, just kind of showed up and offered to help), and the rest is history.
I don't want to get into a long diatribe on my work with the sisters or put forth a complete analysis and critique of the conditions I encountered and the work that is done there (perhaps in another future entry...) Rather I will say that, in general, the sisters and volunteers (and of course the late Mother Teresa) truly give a great gift of themselves every day, offering love and care to those who need it most. Although I do have my issues with the Catholic Church, I enjoyed working with these nuns and the other volunteers (a very international group, many Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, etc.--really got to practice a plethora of languages!), and was especially impressed by their respect for all religions. They did not actively try to convert the patients to Christianity, and, for example, if a patient died while at the center their body would be sent to the appropriate temple or mosque, church, etc., for funeral services.
So what exactly did I do there? Well--besides occasionally acting as an interpreter--my duties were basically that of an orderly....with no formal training. Just showed up and did what the sisters or other volunteers asked me to, basic tasks like giving out food (and, eventually, "promoted" to giving out meds), washing dishes, cleaning up soiled clothes (and patients), giving massages and doing some rudimentary physical therapy and just spending time sitting down and talking with the patients. At first, one is quite paranoid about contracting some horrible disease like leprosy or TB or malaria and you wear gloves and masks and are constantly washing your hands...but then you reach a point when you realize that the best thing you can offer most of these people is a little human contact and love, and you start to relax (after having to clean out the infected remains of the socket where an eye once dwelt, I got past my scruples pretty quickly--in fact, quite surprised myself by handling it much better than I ever would have thought possible...)
Although it may sound quite depressing, it was really rather peaceful and beautiful. But the more uplifting of my work is reflected in the image above: a card made by my students at M.E.N.T.A.I.D., a school for mentally handicapped children where I volunteered as a music teacher. I happened upon this wonderful and enriching experience purely by accident... One day, my first week in Calcutta, I randomly met this English guy and we started chatting. Turned out that he was a musician, and that another friend of his, also a musician, had lived in Calcutta a couple of years ago and had worked as a music teacher at this school. Well, to make a long story short, he gave me the contact information and POOF, suddenly through the friend of a guy I hardly know I end up offering my services as a music teacher for the duration of my stay in Calcutta!
It was a beautiful experience, the children were SOOOO appreciative and enthusiastic (great precursor to my current Music Therapy studies). I taught them some of the basics of Western Music, while at the same time doing quite a bit of improvisation and musical storytelling with them on a potpourri of instruments--and learning quite a bit about the extremely rich tradition of Indian Music at the same time! In fact, looking back on it now, I couldn't honestly say who benefited more from our time together, the children or myself...
In short, hope to go back to this wonderful country to do more when I can (although thinking of doing a volunteer program as an English and/or music teacher in China or México next summer, so we'll see...)
OFF THE BEATEN PATH: INDIA, GETTING LOST
