culture shock

Ok so today I am having my bout of culture shock. This would include, me just wanting to go sleep and wanting to go hide in a room and re-fuel. I am suddenly overwhelmed by this freaking intense city. I'm still under the opinion now that everyone needs to experience this for at least a couple of weeks. This afternoon I am going to go to Prem Dan again for the 2nd time this week. I am excited about it because I haven't gotten to do momma t's like the past 2 weeks. Ummm, yea and tonight I will get to help the girls babysit the 2 girls.

The first picture is the hallway and kitchen of the house. I think that is quite obvious. The two guys in it are Imli and Alem. So both of those pictures are taken from the doorway to my room, but the first is just turning left. The door that you see in this picture leads to the bathroom which is a seperate little building. One small room for the squatty potty and one room for the shower. About the shower, I looked down the other night when showering and there was a good 'ole spider sitting on my foot. I proceeded to yell and fling my flip flop off in a violent manner. Yes, good times in India.

The second picture is of my room ... pretty self explanatory.

new home

Ok so I have moved away from beth, the servant team leader for word made flesh, and into a new home with 4 Indian guys from nagaland, a state of india that is east of bangladesh. They look Chinese or Korean, meaning squinty eyes and lighter skin. I am adjusting right now to living with them and trying to get settled in. It is in a much quieter place than beth's house. It is a little bit outside of the city so I have to take 30 minutes worth of auto rickshaw rides and then hop on the most southern metro station to go anywhere. I think this will be fine, and I hope that I get to live with these guys for the whole time I stay here. Their ages are 29, 25, 22, 21. They are basically missionaries here in kolkata and are doing bible studies and I think ministering to people in the slums. I will find out a lot more about this later. I am both excited and nervous about living with them. Anyways, they are basically some of the nicest guys ever and have made me feel at home already. They are very generous for sure.

Tomorrow is Sari Bari's 3rd birthday so they are taking all of the ladies (I think 28 of them) to a nice lunch and then we are going to the botanical gardens...which should be interesting. India is definitely a place exploding with culture.

I got to go back to Prem Dan today after missing out yesterday because of the move. I am really liking it more every time I go. There are so many ways to reach out to people. Many times non-Christian volunteers show up and they almost always ask me, "so what brought you to calcutta?" This really flings the door wide open to share about my love for Jesus with them. Really all of life should be lived with a heart that is continually ready to share about who Jesus is to you.

Yea so, at 3 a.m. tomorrow moring I will have been in kolkata for 2 weeks. I have already learned a ton and I know that God will teach me a lot more. I am thinking more and more that everyone needs to come and experience this place. The mix between the poverty that you see and serving at momma t's really will rock your world. My world has only begun the rocking lol. I'm sure God has a lot to come in the next 3 months.

need

Ok so, I have worked at Prem Dan for 5 days now and we have decided to stay there for a while (probably until April when it gets hot and less volunteers are in town). It has been great getting over the shock of first getting there and starting to get to know the faces of the place. There is such a massive need in this city, both physically and spiritually. There is poverty all over the place. You can't hide from it here. I don't have my camera with me today in the internet cafe (which is 30 minutes away from my current home) so I won't put up any pictures.

Um, yea though, I'm not a very good blogger and I think that has caused me to be a little less anxious to update this thing. My mind skips around like crazy. Prem dan the other day had a lady die. It is more of a nursing home than the home of the dying but there have still been two days where people were left outside the front door. There is a slum right next to the place, but there are also slums everywhere here that isn't that uncommon.

When I am going from place to place in the city, I use the metro and auto rickshaws mostly. This is the easiest and cheapest way of getting around. The cabs usually rip you off because you are a foreigner. I just got out of my 3rd language lesson and I'm learning that I will not be a very good bengali speaker by the end of the 4 months. Nevertheless, I'll put in a good amount of time studying because that will affect how well I can interact with the ladies at Sari Bari and in the gach. Gah, I'm just so overwhelmed by the need here. 10,000 ladies are in an area about the size of a super walmart in the middle of calcutta. 64,000 men are serviced by these prostitutes each day. This makes it really cool to meet Indian Christians and Indian pastors here. Going to church has been encouraging just because it shows that there are pockets of light in the middle of this dark Hindu/Muslim place. I really can't recall getting into an auto without it having a hindu God at the front.

Ok, I will leave it at that for now, hopefully I can put some pics up pretty soon.

Momma T's

So I served my first day at mother teresa's home of Prem Dan. It is not the home of the dying (Khalighat). The reason I served at Prem Dan is because Khalighat is currently full on volunteers. I'm going to switch in a week or so I am fairly confident.

I volunteered from 8-12 and that is what I will be doing all of the time. First we washed clothes for a while. Then we went outside and massaged and shaved and gave hair cuts to the people living there. This is not nearly as hardcore as Khalighat will be if I go there. I just gave men massages and shaved a couple (I wasn't so good at these tasks but I don't think it mattered). Then the volunteers stop for about 30 min. for tea time, we have some chai tea which is ridiculously good here and some cookie sort of things. Then we help take the food out to the people living there and then do the dishes after that. This is the general rotation of every day at Prem Dan.

Sorry not much time to update well right now. I hope to put up some pic's of the city later.

Hello my friends. 3 days out. Thought I would go ahead and create a blog because it seemed very economical for keeping up.

peace