The Home for the Dying and Dispensary at Sealdah

The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. It all started with Sunday after I had just gotten over another spell with Indian food, I was to lead a group of 25 to Nabo Jibon. Most days at Nabo Jibon we only have four or five volunteers but on Sundays we bathe, bandage and feed about 40 street children from the neighborhood in the area, Kadamtala. The street kids, surprise suprise, have alot more energy than the mentally and physically handicapped children we work with there on a daily basis. One kid would want up on my shoulders while the next would come and take my hands as if to say "entertain me." So I'd swing him around in a circle for a while, not getting dizzy at all, and put him down. Next thing you know 6 more kids showed up right by my side wanting to enjoy the same sensation! Mike ended up spinning so many kids that he felt nauseated after a while. There was another group of kids wanting me to throw them up in the air as high as I could...over and over and over again! It ended up being a bit of a tiring morning.

It being our last full week in Kolkatta, Mike and I decided to try and pick up a few more afternoon shifts. These days have been long and exhausting, but definitely worth every minute! Working the afternoon shifts ended up bringing me to an MC house known as Kalighat (the home for the seriously injured and dying) as well as a dispensary near the Sealdah train station wrapping wounds for people who otherwise could not afford medical care.

Kalighat in the afternoon is pretty low-key compared to the morning shift as most of the wound care takes place in the morning. So I visited with the patients, did some of their laundry, and fed one of the seriously ill patients. He can barely move and is almost on the verge of needing a feeding tube so the sisters blend up all of his food and serve it in more of a paste form. Apparently over the last few days he had still had a real problem eating this "mush" and tended to cough it up over the person feeding him. He ended up coughing up a bit at first but then another volunteer from Canada came over to help me feed him just to be with him as he struggled and prop him up a bit. It took us an hour and a half to feed him but at least this time he was consistently downing the food that we gave him. Thankfully, no blended rice and curry ended up in my face!

Yesterday Mike and I were at the Sealdah dispensary dressing wounds with a few medical students. Mike had worked here before so he guided me through the first few patients for 45 minutes until he had to leave. Here we are, a poly sci and engineering major cleaning and wrapping wounds from car accidents to dog bites to who knows what else. Many of the patients weren't able to communicate to us how they came to have gaping wounds but just came in with large amounts of skin missing, looking for us to change out their bandages.

The first patient I worked on was definitely the most difficult of the day. The back of his heel was badly disfigured. He had an open wound that looked to be healing up rather nicely but also had a black infected ball of fluid buried underneath a callus. I was told my one of the medial students that the goal is to let the fluid release as soon as possible so I scrapped away at the callus for some time, all the while making the patient reel in pain. Being my first patient, the obvious pain I was inflicting was a little hard to take but it had to be done so I just kept on going. It ended up getting to the point where he couldn't take it anymore so I wrapped the rest of his foot up and sent him on his way. On Monday he'll have to come back so the volunteers can have another go at it.

Today I worked another afternoon shift at Kalighat which ended up being a bit more difficult than the first time around. When it came time for food, I was helping out a one of the patients who had obvious trauma to his head. He's not there at all and apparently has a problem with people feeding him. I put one bite in his mouth and he proceeded to just let the food sit there, not chewing at all. After a few seconds he decided he'd had enough of my help and got up from his chair and went straight over to the table where one of the volunteers was distributing the pills. I ended up having to forcefully sit him back down in his chair multiple times while he had a mouthful of food. He was getting more and more angry with me so one of the other volunteers tried to spend some time with him and calm him down. Some other volunteers needed help elsewhere for a while so I left for I bit and found out a little later that this patient had physically went after one of the volunteers and Mike had to wrestle him off. We ended up heading out at a little after 5 with the patient still not having finished his food.

Tomorrow will be my second to last day volunteering with the MCs in Kolcatta. In the afternoon I'll head out to get my haircut which will come with a head massage for a few extra rupee! The whole thing, haircut and massage won't cost any more than 50 rupees, or just over $1.

Kyle

Leprosy Center

Thursday we headed up to Titagarh which is Mother Teresa's leper colony. They make the MC sister's sarris as well as wooden chairs for the mentally and physically handicapped patients at Nabo Jibon where I work. I was actually expecting it to be a bit more of a shock than it actually was. I had previously seen "The Human Experience" which captures a few scenes of a leper colony in Africa with seemingly horrible cases. Today at Titagarh I came to find out that leprosy, if diagnosed correctly and early, is curable. Because of that along with the fact that they are very well taken care of, most of the people that we met didn't seem to have that severe of cases, which was nice to see.

The rest of the morning was a bit crazy as our bus was held up in a traffic jam, which we later came to find out was partially due to a political rally. There were tons of people on the streets! Because it was taking so long, we ended up getting off the bus to walk back to our hotel. Luckily it was monsooning at the time! It took us a while to get back as the many of the side streets were flooded! A few Indian kids saw us taking pictures on the way back so we have a few snapshots of little Indian children in the flooded streets of Kolkatta.

Peace,

Kyle

Kolkata

Its been a little over two weeks since taking on the contrasting city of Kolkata. I say contrasting because I'll be walking down the unsanitary street with butcher shops getting ready for their next slaughter on a wood stump right out in the open air for everyone to see. A friend of his is sitting next to him on his cell phone (possibly making orders for more livestock shipments?)

It is definitely an Indian thing to throw trash everywhere. You'll walk down the street and have to go out of your way to dodge the latest pile of litter that had been swept up by wooden and straw brooms. It'll be hauled away...the question is...when?

I've been sick for the last few days so I've had some time to think about the city and the experience I've been having in being a volunteer. I have been working at Nabo Jibon (a center run by the missionary of charity brothers for the mentally and physically handicapped). Because we don't speak Hindi or Bengali and none of the patients there speak English all we can really do is hang out with them. At first this was difficult and a little arduous as if I wasn't doing anything for them. It seemed like we were there for a little over 3 hours and left without making much of an impact in their lives. I started to notice how "the little things" went a very long way with them after about a week when many of them started to remember my face and would come up to me and just want to hang out. I'm reminded of what Mother Theresa said "But we can do small things with great love." Apparently the brothers have seen that I have been doing all that I can for the kids because today one of the brothers talked me through a whole set of excercises that he would like me to help out with on Friday for a few of the Cerebral Pulsey patients! It should be a little more difficult volunteering as the kids usually cry or scream while going through therapy.

Tomorrow it will be off to the leprosy center where the lepers make the Sarris (traditional Indians womens' clothing) for the MCs. It was a bit of a mad rush by the volunteers for spots on the tour so I'm thinking it will be an awesome experience!

Take care and God Bless,

Kyle

The Accident!

I was actually planning on telling my parents about this in August but over the phone Dad blatantly asked "have you had an illnesses over there." Seeing as I'm volunteering with the MC's lying seemed out of the question. Now the word spread from Dad to Mom (go figure), why not tell everyone...

Here goes:

It was last Sunday morning when I woke up in our hotel in Gaya, India, to use the bathroom at 6am. Up until that part of the trip my digestion of the seemingly inedible Indian food had been going well. This morning my stomach was tossing and I figured I'd use the bathroom, take some Cippro, then go back to bed. I used to bathroom then got up to wash my hands when I started feeling incredibly dizzy and reached for something to stabilize myself. After that I found myself on the floor. Apparently Mike had woken up from my nose breaking my fall and came in to see me lying face down in a small pool of blood (my nose was cut) besides a few other minor things to clean up...

Mike, being a great friend and the son of two paramedics, helped me up, got some water, bandaged up my nose (which may or may not have been broken) and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, which happened to a 30 to 40 minute ride by auto back to Bodhagaya. There was also a medical facility just down the road from our hotel, but that one opened up at 10am (apparently these workers need their 8 hrs). I ended up deciding to go to the clinic in Bodhagaya, which made us miss our train at 9:30am which we had already paid for.

The auto driver we found (Gupta) couldn't have been better! He not only did he take me slowly to the clinic (over all the potholes), but he also stayed with me all day while I was there. Its funny looking back on it. On the way there, he slowed down and stopped and said to us "just one minute." I was thinking is he going to get some food or something. I soon found out that he was praying to a Hindu god whose shrine was on the side of the road while my dehydrated self was hanging out it back.

We made it to the clinic where I remember a shot in my nose as well as some stitching and a shot in the backside (I'm thinking was for a the concussion). I remember the doctor saying that I should go get some rest. Part of me thought that I shouldn't sleep after the concussion, but he drove a hard bargain as I was exhausted. I got some sleep on a metal table in the clinic as IV packets ran through me. As I slept Mike figured everything out for the next 24 hours; he left with Gupta to purchase new train tickets for that night. We stayed at the clinic and until around 4pm. and Gupta graciously took us back to our hotel.

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Meanwhile 6 days later I have not had any major problems. Today I volunteered with a nurse from Spain who took out the stitches for me. He then told me that they were put in wrong (perpendicular to how they should have been). He took them out without a problem and the cut is healing up nicely so I'm not worried.

Hope you all enjoyed the story.

Take it easy and God Bless,

Kyle

Kolcutta and the 4th

Hey!

We arrived to Kolcutta (in English Calcutta) yesterday morning and had no problem finding the place we'll be staying at for roughly the next month! The room isn't much (we're paying 200 rupee or the equivalent of 4.5 USD/night for Mike and I), but its good enough for a good backpacker's room! A lot of volunteers have stayed here over the years and theirs a good amount of graffiti on the walls. Unlike what you would expect, much of it actually very uplifting creative and enjoyable. Although there are other poems and phrases that you can tell have been written by people high as a kite on something! Its interesting.

Yesterday we went to orientation to start volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity (MOC) at Shishu Bhavan (the charity orphanage). So many volunteers showed up that we can each only work one shift/day (either a morning or afternoon). It was neat to sit around and socialize with all the volunteers who are from all over the world. There's a substantial amount of Spaniards so its great to be able to practice my Spanish again! After orientation we hit up McDonald's with a few friends from the US to celebrate the 4th of July! Then went out to a western rooftop restaurant for a drink or two.

Today was the first day of actual volunteering! We woke up at 5am so we could be ready to walk down to Mother House for daily mass at 6am, a little breakfast and socializing and went out for the day to our respective locations. I decided to work with in Nabo Jibon which is a house for the mentally and physically handicapped. It took an hour to get there, two buses and a short walk to get there. Its run by the Brothers of Charity who are mainly all Indian nationals. We hang out with them, wheel them around in their chairs if they can't walk, sometimes dance if they're up for it, and play cricket (or try to). Lunch seems like it will be a daily adventure as some have better skills than others when it comes to feeding themselves. Some who can eat on their own try to help out the others who can't, which is a sight to see in itself!

I have the morning shift so the afternoon has consisted of lunch with a bunch of other volunteers, catching up on some much needed laundry (by hand) and other odds and ends.