Kolkata, India

Nepal…I’ll get back to your post

Hey friends! For those of you that are really paying attention to our travel schedule, you would know that we visited Nepal before India, and yet here I am talking about India rather than posting for Nepal. I even have Reese’s Passage for the Nepal update already, jus not my own writing…

Anyway, Nepal was absolutely amazing, and I’ll come back around and write about it, but for now I am going to focus on India, as I’m reflecting on my experiences here in the moment.

Kolkata, India. How do I put this place into words? It’s day one, and I don’t know how I feel. On one hand I am not surprised by anything I’ve seen and have just stepped into the city adjusting as I go. It’s how life on ATW has to work. On the other hand, everything has me a bit shook. 

We drove into the city at night. All I heard was the constant blare of horns. Cars, motorcycles, mopeds, and rickshaws chimed together to create a cacophony of pitches and tunes bound to drive one mad. Then there’s the advertisements—so many advertisements everywhere I looked. Movie posters, food brands, stores, jewelry, and clothing ads line the walls and perch on buildings, but never less than 4 of the same ad in a row right next to one another. They add color and chaos to the street. The women on the signs are always smiling, but the ones on the street don’t match. 

They all wear saris and create a rainbow of color. Many of the women at the airport wore jewelry and had sparkling clothing. It seemed a bit fancy to me as I walked by in a T-shirt and low-crotch pants, but they were pretty. I avoided eye contact with all the men but realized that they were free to wear a lot more styles than the women. The next day walking in the city only confirmed my observations. 

I woke up to rain and a very warm hostel room as the power had gone out the night before and never got fixed in our room. At breakfast, I looked outside to see that the grass field was a lake. When the team left for Sudder Street, it had stopped raining, but that didn’t mean the water would be gone. 

The brick sidewalks were missing most of their middle bricks and the streets often had a food tent or homeless person on the side. We turned down a narrow street and continued our walk until a few intersections down, where the street turned into a huge puddle. We stepped up to the side and walked around it, but we didn’t stay that lucky or dry. The next puddle was more of a river. The entire street was flooded, and we really had no choice but to walk through it. We stepped into the murky water, and I just tried not to think about anything in the water and how gross it really was. Some teammate’s shoes became soaked through, and I was thankful for my chacos (sandals) at that moment. Every now and then the flood would ease up, and we would walk on dry land for a short time, but it never lasted long. 

Aside from the water, the rest of the street was just as insane. The smell of blood and raw meat permeated the air from the meat butcher shops that were located along the road far too often. The stench mixed with the dirty water, street food, and humanity created a nauseating odor that ebbed and faded along our path. I was able to ignore it most of the time and I just kept walking. 

Cars and motorbikes passed by honking their horns at us to try to get us to move out of the center where it was the most shallow. Rickshaw drivers called out to us trying to offer rides, but none of us had cash, and honestly, this was the kind of experience we needed to have. In some weird way, I almost enjoyed the walk. It was an adventure, something I would never otherwise do if I wasn’t in the streets of Kolkata. 

I spent the afternoon eating lunch and then shopping at Sunshine, a past ATW favorite shop. The owners have become friends with our leaders after all these years of visiting India, and it’s now like seeing family. I would have spent a lot of money on fun pants, scarves, and journals, but I kept some self-control in the overwhelming amount of fabric that exploded in a pile on the ground. We crammed half our team into the tiny shop and dug through all the patterns and styles, as the men continued to pull more off of the shelves for us to look at. It was like a giant changing room, and it was hard for me to try on pants over my saggy pants so I just took my few pairs and hoped they would fit when I got home. 

A large group of us ate dinner, and afterward half of us went in search of a grocery store. We didn’t know where we were going and never actually found a store, but we did find an open market place, and a homeless village among it. In India, our rule is that we must always have a guy in our group, and I was really thankful for that rule while walking through the streets at night because they are hectic. I never felt unsafe, but I was a bit uneasy. I always avoided eye contact and stayed close to my friends.

There was one moment where we stopped at a market stand, and a group of young children ran up around the seven of us. They had hands up for money and pointed to the food at the stand. They were touchy and pushy, so I kept my hand on my pocket. One little boy and girl grabbed my arm and clung to me. I tried not to look down into their faces because I couldn’t bear to look at them. We aren’t really allowed to give them anything. Really you should never give anything to beggars on the streets in India and most countries; it only feeds the system and hurts them. These people can always get a free meal and even a place to stay at the Mother Homes, and it often just turns into a misuse of money. Still, I had to keep looking straight ahead, close my eyes, or look at my teammates with a pained expression. 

It’s hard. I haven’t even been to the Mother Homes yet to volunteer and see the hardships there, but I’m already feeling the weight of this place. It is already so much more difficult than all the previous countries. Somehow I’m able to deal with the flooded streets, stray and matted dogs, smells, and waste, but I saw a person holding their baby while under a tarp and sitting on cardboard tonight, and suddenly everything became a lot harder. I looked down for just a second at the children pulling on my arm, and suddenly everything was a little more real. I turned to my teammates with pain in their eyes matching the pain in my heart and mind as we walked away from the kids, and suddenly I realized that this was going to be what got to me. 

Kolkata, I hope you break my heart. You’ve already begun to tear into my mind, and I’m ready to go find the hardest task I can in the hardest city I’ve ever stepped foot into.