I’m so sad to be saying goodbye to the guy who’s been my boss at work. I’m just holding on to the fact that in heaven I get to live next door to everyone.

I have no idea if I’ll be coming back and if so when or how long for. And I don’t know what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be living when I get home. I guess to some of you it seems lazy or irresponsible of me not to have made plans. But this time God doesn’t mean me to know what’s round the corner. It’s exciting and I’m going to trust Him, but it’s lonely.

Jack came into the room where his mum Susan and I were sitting,
”I just cleared up LOADS of blood,” he said, dramatically.
”Where was that honey? Is everyone ok?” asked Susan.
”You know that big Indian kid, the tall one? Well he cut his head real bad and it was real deep and bleeding everywhere. Someone pushed him over but he’s fine now, they put a really HUGE bandage on his head. He was really brave, he didn’t hardly cry at hardly all, but I thought it looked pretty bad so I said ‘Can I help?’ and the nurse said I could clean up the floor.”

His mum thanked him for offering to help like that and told him it was very good of him she was proud of him. She checked that he had been wearing gloves, reminded him to be careful with dealing with blood, especially in countries like this one, then told him she was proud of him all over again.

I’ve been thinking about it over the last few days and I reckon God loves it and is proud of us wen we have the attitude that Jack had. When we see people hurting and simply ask God, ‘Can I help?’.

When I leave my room at 10 past 9, I’m met by a wall of heat. I lock the door behind me and by the time I’ve gone down the flight of stairs to the water filter to fill up my litre bottle, I can feel sweat on the back of my neck. The humidity means the sweat never evaporates so you stay feeling damp and hot.

I give my key in to the guards at the gate and they do the Indian head nod and smile in a friendly way as they open the gates.

The gate opens onto the pavement of a dual carriageway, and I turn right and try to keep to the shade. I pass the family who lives on the street just there. The parents are awake at this time, but the baby and the toddler are sleeping just a little longer while the morning sun still affords some shade.

I take the first right onto Elliot Road where I sometimes pop into the small supermarket to buy a cereal bar, some chewing gum or a yoghurt drink called a lassee. Sometimes I will walk but often I take an autorickshaw for this first bit of the journey. I cross the road to where one of these small yellow vehicles is usually waiting, and get in the back. I say to the driver “Royd Road?” And when the rickshaw is full of passengers we move off. Autos are driven a bit like a motorbike or a quadbike and arent that much bigger. They have a roof and space for three people in the back. Often two guys will squeeze in the front next to the driver, but it’s not the done thing for a lady to ride in the front. I’m used to the crazy driving in Calcutta now, but at first it seemed mad. We overtake trams with taxis coming straight at us, horns are beeping and honking everywhere and no effort is made to be gentle with the brakes! Elliot Road turns into Royd Road and soon it’s time for me to get out. I say ‘Ekanne please’ (’here please’) and hand over 6 Rupees (about 6 pence) for the ride which saves me 15-20 minutes of walking in the heat.

I turn left and head for the big Vodafone sign on the corner of Park Street. As I walk along Park Street I pass a McDonalds, a coffee shop, Oxford Book Stores, The Moulin Rouge Restraunt, The Roll shop (fast food), and the Singer Sewing Store. I look down the street where I know my young friends Pooja and Pooja live on the street, and look out fot them although I know they will be in school. I sometimes stop to buy a green mango from a street vendor. He slices up the fruit and puts it in a bag, offering me some ‘nun’ (salt). It has the same texture as apple and isn’t very sweet but has a vague taste of mango. The beggars on the pavement call out ‘auntie!’ and make motions to their mouths. I remember that most of them on this stretch have owners somewhere watching them, but I vowe that next time I will buy two mangoes and give one away.

I turn left at the end of Park Street and soon I am at the entrance to the underground Metro station. I open my bag for inspection by the security guards. It’s always the lady who looks in my bag, the man will look in guys’ bags. I get out my 40-day pass, head through the ticket barriers and to the platform for the train to ‘DumDum’. There are fans on the platform and TV screens that sometimes play Indian pop videos and sometimes Attenbrough nature programs. When the train pulls in, I look to see where the ladies’ compartment is and have to be quite forceful to get past the people onto the train. I stand holding the overhead hand rail, careful not to meet the gaze of any of the men staring from the neighbouring compatment at the white girl. I meet the ladies’ stares with a friendly smile that is usually reciprocated. I read the station names to practice my Bengali reading and get off four stops later at Girish Park. Where I work isn’t far from there. On the way I pass a litter of puppies that I’ve seen grow up since I got here, street vendors selling jewellery and ‘Pushkar emporium’ which sells the buckets all bathrooms have in, used for washing clothes and onesself. Often I pop to the market to buy some tomatoes, spring onions and a green pepper to make a salad at lunch, or some brown bread or a plantain.
And that is my jouney to work! Needless to say, by the time I arrive at 10am, I am thouroughly sweaty and I have drunk at least half a litre of water.

School difficulties

The first time I tried to teach comparatives and superlatives (bigger biggest, louder loudest, slower slowest) I couldn’t get across the concept at all, even though I’d learnt the Bengali words. It felt like a waste of the lesson. And as the kids only have one lesson a day, I felt like I’d messed up a whole day of their education! The next time, I changed my method and we sat in a circle on the floor and I drew on the floor with chalk different sized circles, different sized animals, vehicles of different speeds, animals which make the quietest or loudest noises. And that worked.

In the heat, I find it really hard not to get flustered and snap at the kids. For example, if I’m sitting down showing one girl how to makea friendship bracelet, I’ll have three kids climbing on me, pushing down on my back, a couple trying to get my attention and loads sitting right up to me. Being street kids, they aren’t gentle when they play so I get my face prodded or my arm pinched all the time. I find it hard not to get cross with them. What’s worse is that when they are all climbing on me I’ll say ‘Auntie is feeling very hot now, don’t touch her’ (in Bengali) but then when 3 year old Taposh wants a cuddle I’ll let him sit on my lap, and then I’ll realize my double standards and my temper.

There’s one little girl who always has nits, and so I find it hard to be as affectionate with her as with the others, even though I know most of them probably have nits sometimes!

School joys

The two highlights of my trip so far have been two occasions at school.
One day Bhangra music started playing from the stereo system in a nearby house, and at that moment it also started raining. It wasn’t raining heavily but there was theexciting feel of a storm in the air, a dark sky and some thunder. It was probably time to have lunch but five or six kids were running around wildly outside, enjoying the music. I took the little one I was holding outside and started dancing with him on my hip, and soon all the kids were dancing and singing! The teachers stood in the doorway laughing and swaying along with the music, clearly pleased the kids were having so much fun. It was very Indian because of the music and the dancing and being barefoot. One of the five year old boys started crying so I picked him up instead and danced with him, our hands out dramatically as if we were going to tango, my face up against his. Soon he was laughing and I kept dancing ,laughing with some of the older girls, little ones balanced on their hips.

The other highlight was at the end of Hatibegan’s term. My class can now all read two letters together (this took a suprisingly long time to achieve, and much repetition), and most of the can do three leter words. So on the board we went through the word ‘hat’ and the word ‘bag’, starting by revising the single letters, then two letters togeher,then three. And then I wrote ‘Hatibtagan’ one letter at a time and we read it together. When they realized what they had just read, they were so happy. They were shouting ‘Oh! Hatibegan! Eh-school! Eh-school! Hatibegan!’ and laughing. They were so pleased to be able to read the name of their school and all wanted to write it in their exercise books.

Sudder Street is where lots of the Western travellers, backbackers and volunteers stay, and where pretty much all of them go at least once a week to a cafe or to ‘the shop’.
The shop sells clothes, jewellery, journals and elephants (ornaments unfortunately, not real ones,sorry Katie!). Everything in there has a very hippy feel and customers sit on the soft sheets on the floor as the owners Sanjay and Akash get Tshirts or scarves down off the shelves for them. Sanjay and Akash are two brothers who have become great friends of mine. I dont remember the last time I actually bought something from them, but Ive been to see them every other day for the past month. Westerners are always coming in and out and every hour or so Akash will say ’sit down, we can have chai!’. So I get free tea and chat away. When my camera broke, Sanjay took it to the repairs shop for me, he always knows ‘a man who can’. They are a great help when it comes to questions about the city like ‘how much should I pay for a taxi from here to there’ or ‘where can I get such and such’. It’s a safe haven from the relentless sales pushing of other vendors and the unwelcome stares of many Indian men Its a great place to meet other Westerners. And it’s open 9am-10pm everyday so I always know where I can find a friend.

One Sunday evening Atlanta and I were invited to Sumita’s house, out near Daspara. It was about an hours bus ride. When we’d seen her family’s shop, we went and had chai (its always time for chai tea!) at her home above the store. It was so nice to be in a home with a family and pets… boy does she have pets! She has young kitten, an old wise cat, and a heavily pregnant cat. She has a small white fluffy dog which is a rare sight, firstly because all the dogs here are scruffy mongrels and secondly because nothing stays white in this city for long! And then there was the parrot. It’s a ring-necked Indian something or other parrot, small green and cheeky! It sat on my shoulder demanding to be fed on either my digestive biscuit or else my ear!

It was by our standards a very meager house. One small living space, a bathroom and two bedrooms. Mostly unpainted sort of concrete/plaster- looking walls and staircase but it’s one of the nicer buildings I’ve seen in or around Calcutta, and that’s including the doctor’s surgery,

God has provided so many different people for me while I’ve been here. People to travel with, people to eat with, people to make sense of the whole experience with. Some of them show me parts of the city that are new to me, and some of them need showing where the supermarket is or where to get a rickshaw from.

David and his 14 year old son Corbin came to BMS from New Zealand. I’ve learnt that Kiwis are the best DIY handymen, and these two didn’t disappoint. We spent many happy, extremely sweaty days together, fitting electrical conduit into a new room, fixing screws up in the rafters and knocking down walls. Construction work is so satisfying because the results of your hard work are visible and physical.

Twice, I took Corbin along to school where the kids basically treated him like a climbing frame! And after school I took him to the Spanish Cafe on Sudder Street. What a rich education for him, at age 14, to be face to face with street kids and trafficked women, and putting in whole hard day;s work to make a difference.

Tees Mar Khan.

This was a comedy although without subtitles we were playing ‘guess the plot’ and most of the humour was lost on us. Consequently, we gave up after about 2 hours, having learnt the following:

Bollywood films are long!

The actor who played Tees Mar Khan is a famous comedian and heart throb

subtiitles are useful

Yet all of the kids at school know one song from this film. ‘my name is Sheila, Sheila’ It is so catchy, I’d call it infectious, but for these street kids to know the song and dance, I think some of their families must have seen it I think.

This and the fact that every playtime the boys at school play cricket makes me sure that Shilpi and Paul’s recent comment is true: ‘India runs on two things, Bollywood and Cricket’. And that it is true from the richest to the poorest. and I’d be interested to find out how remote a village you would have to visit to find boys who didnt play cricket or girls who Don’t know ‘Sheila, Shelia’.

The celebrations after India beat Pakistan in the cricket semi finals went on well into the night and included fireworks. I hope ‘we’ win on Saturday, but I won’t expect much sleep if we do!