Varanasi

28 March 2010

I’ll start by saying I recovered in Varanasi. I drank 5+ liters of water each day and I “gorged” on non-Indian food. There are so many tourists that many restaurants have menus with sections: Israeli food, Japanese food, Korean food, etc. But I did lose a lot of weight after Bodhgaya and have yet to find the full appetite to gain it all back.

Varanasi is magical. It is a busy city where most of the life exists within the “old city,” resulting in narrow, winding alleyways filled with shops, traffic, cows, and children’s cricket games. The ghats are most alive in the morning and evening with pilgrims and locals entering the Ganges to bathe and pray. Every evening there is a magnificent prayer set up with live musicians, a full sound system, and over ten small stages each with a priest performing the ganga aarti. This all occurs on the main ghat, Dasaswamedh Ghat, in the middle of the city and everyone comes out to watch and participate, filling in the cement stairs leading to the river. The top of the stairs are lined with beggars, a constant presence at any important religious venue. They provide the opportunity to improve one’s own karma with spare change. Pilgrims and tourists hire row boats to cruise the river observing the scene from the water, adding another hundred or so spectators to the aarti.

In every corner of the city, at any time there is worship occurring in some form. Men and woman wait in multiple lines that wrap around blocks, through the alleyways, to enter the main temple in the heart of Varanasi. They each hold a string of flowers, prasad (sweets), or a red clay vase full of milk and rose petals as an offering to Shiva, the god of dedication for Vishwanath Temple. The lines are lengthy and grow as everyone waits for the doors to be opened in the afternoon. Security is high here because of communal tensions between religions. Bags, cameras, and phones must be left in lockers and non-Hindus are not permitted inside the temple. On the ghats in the afternoon sit the holy-men, drinking chai and meditating despite the heat. Cows roam freely, often blocking the way of motorcycles and people in the narrow alleys. They shit anywhere and everywhere and you must be diligently aware of your steps to avoid catastrophe. The cows wear leis of marigold flowers, gifted by a devotee, some sport dhikas (colored powder/paint on the forehead). The cows are holy, and despite many being diseased, starving, or limping they are allowed free access to the city. Women occasionally take a minute to bless a passing cow and then themselves by lifting the filthy tail to touch their own forehead. Children play in the slow flowing Ganges river, the same river that raw sewage and city waste drains into, the same river that the remains of cremated bodies are put into; it is both the holiest and one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Varanasi is magical, full of prayer and devotion and completely indiscreet. The contrast of colors and filth, life and death, prayer and play form a chaotic scene that captivates many travelers.

Varanasi, once Benares, has probably existed like this for hundreds of years. It is one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities as well as one of the holiest places in India, so it is not surprising that it is crowded, chaotic, dirty, and wonderful. Varanasi is a microcosm of India, everything a traveler encounters on a trip through India will also be found in several days in Varanasi.

My first day in Varanasi I met a wonderful traveller my age, Megan. We began talking over lunch and I instantly felt a great appreciation towards her amazing outlook on traveling, India, and her excellent listening skills. She asked me questions about my trip through SE Asia, and after so much time alone I found myself eager to share stories. Megan was headed to visit the main cremation ghat and invited me to join her. I had read about the cremation ghats in my Lonely Planet and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go. It sounded extremely personal and vivid and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. But I did know that if I would see the cremation ghats, an experience that was unique to visiting Varanasi, I would rather do it with a friend then on my own. I felt comfortable enough with Megan to tell her about my mother and my concern in visiting the ghats and she was very understanding. I decided to go with her and so my first experience in Varanasi was walking along the ghats with her towards the cremation ghat, discussing India and taking pictures.

I was so engrossed in our conversation that I was surprised when we had suddenly arrived at the cremation ghat. I didn’t know how I would handle it but I approached slowly with Megan, walking up the steps to get a view of the terrace by the river where piles of wood were being stacked for individual cremations. When my eyes fell on a fire I froze and when my eyes focused on the outline of the body, charred, black, and withering in the flames I immediately began to cry. I turned sharply away from the scene and sat down with my face in my hands. In seconds Megan was next to me, her arms around me in a warm hug. It didn’t feel like the hug of someone I met about an hour before, but like a hug from a close and dear friend. We sat there for a little while discussing grief, but were forced to walk away when a group of insensitive young Indian men refused to stop hitting on us with stupid questions. (Where are you from? Is it your birthday? Today is my birthday. Do you want to come to my birthday party? What is your name? What is your name? What is your name?)

What I found most interesting about the cremation ghats were how matter-of-fact the cremation process seemed to be. Men, born into a dalit caste designed for this position, spend their life carrying incredibly heavy logs of wood to and from the cremation ghat and then the bodies. They weigh each piece of wood on a giant scale to determine the price of the cremation. Some types of wood are more expensive, though more holy. It is a fine balance to use just enough wood to completely cremate the body, but not more than necessary to keep the cost down. What surprised me was how incredibly public the cremations are. People stand around watching, tourists and locals, but I didn’t see anyone I would have guessed was family of the deceased. There were no women present and no formally dressed men. Cremation is an important part of the Hindu life-cycle and dying in Varanasi is considered particularly auspicious because it is said to ensure moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirth), where were the families of these people that were so fortunate to be cremated on expensive piles of wood, in Varanasi, and then given to the Ganges? I guess I would have to talk to a family to understand the process here. Even though it is so spiritually important that the body be cremated, it doesn’t seem to be appropriate for the family to accompany the body through this last stage. Or the other possibility is that the men around the ghat were family members but showing no signs of external grief or emotion, and with no community around them.

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The next day I met up with Dina in the morning at her hotel. It was very exciting to see her again and hear about her experiences in India. She described some of what she found challenging in India and I began to try to explain India and its diversity. I realized, as I was speaking, that my perspective and understanding of India has changed dramatically from my first trip and over the course of my time in India so far. My understanding of India is in a constant flux, altering with each new experience and encounter, strengthening and weakening with each frustration and amusement. That evening I wrote in my journal during dinner. I thought I had had some type of awakening, some new comprehension of India. I tried to explain it later in the night on the phone to Atish, but already that comprehension was waining and by the morning I wasn’t really sure about it anymore. It comes and goes, this understanding of life here, how people survive and thrive in one of the densest populations in the world. I like India, I love the people, I know I will continue to come back here, but this doesn’t mean I get it.

India is a mosaic. Myriad, diverse, dense, chaotic. There is more than 1 explanation for everything, every issue, ritual, tradition, and symbol. It didn’t make sense to me the first time. Keith (my UW program leader on my 1st trip) tried to tell me. For most India is simply crazy. What doesn’t make sense to us isn’t supposed to make sense, people just ignore the sense. Now I see that the “sense” we look for is there, but “sense” isn’t ours (non-Indian), it’s theirs. And you need to open your mind in a new way, a way not comprehended in the western world. I’m just learning how… Live & let live in a whole other way is how India works. Tolerance is huge here. I saw the problems before, now I see their solutions. The solutions are FAR from perfect. Tensions and frustrations are bound to rise. India has continued to be repressed under different empires for thousands of years. People found control in the caste system. Boiling points are reached throughout history with wars and riots. From the scale of state to slum there are outbursts of violence. But from day to day, the reality is that Indians live with a greater tolerance than we know. The challenges and frustrations westerners (NRIs and tourists alike) face when they visit India demonstrate our lack of tolerance in their world…

This was what I scribbled in my journal that night, some of it doesn’t make much sense to me anymore. The next night at a restaurant a talkative middle-aged Italian traveler said to Megan and I, “We travel to see other parts of the world. Asia, Africa, America are other parts of our world. But India, India is a different world. It’s not a part of our world, it is its own place.”

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Dina, a girl she was rooming with (Donna), and I went for a sunset boat ride along the river one night. It was a beautiful way to see the city and everyone offering prayers at the water’s edge. We learned something fascinating from our boat rower/guide… I had been curious when I arrived in Varanasi about the lack of development on the “other” side of the river. Varanasi is entirely built on one side of the river and the other side is just an open river bank, sand for a long way and eventually some trees in the distance. Other river-side cities in India I have visited are built up on both sides of the river equally. Our guide informed us that if you die in Varanasi you go to “heaven.” You escape reincarnation and are a free soul. But did we know what happened if you die on the “other” side of the Ganga? You are reincarnated as a donkey! No wonder no one wanted to live on the other side. I wonder how far the “donkey-zone” extends?

The rest of my time in Varanasi was really fun. I took two private dance classes with Megan. We learned the North Indian traditional style of dance- Kathak. We had a wonderful teacher and it was so neat that Megan and I were able to keep up with each other in the class, the similarity in our dance background was unexpected but allowed us to have a lot of fun and learn a lot together in the classes. We filmed the dances we learned and practiced in my room the next day, watching the videos on my computer. Learning the basics of Kathak was definitely a highlight from my time in Varanasi. And exploring the city with Megan during the day was wonderfully entertaining.

I left Varanasi after 4 nights. I left feeling a lot stronger than when I had arrived and headed off for my last stop before finally getting to Delhi. I felt optimistic, energetic, and excited. Atish would be arriving in India in 10 days and I couldn’t wait to share all of it with him.

Sarnath

24 March 2010

In Bodhgaya I began to feel ill. After a day of walking around in the sun and heat I was developing a sore throat, always my first signal that my immune system is down. I picked up some multi-vitamins, vitamin-c tablets, ORS (oral rehydration salts, electorlytes), and throat lozenges from a small pharmacy and left by train for Varanasi. I decided that despite arriving in Varanasi at night I would head directly to Sarnath, 25km away. I didn’t want to have to find a hotel in Varanasi and put up with the noise and pollution. It seemed the small town of Sarnath would be a better place to rest and relax. In Sarnath I found a welcoming small guesthouse run by a warm Jain family.

There’s not much to tell about Sarnath. I came down with a proper cold there and spent most of my time in bed, drinking water, and it turned out that Sarnath was not the right place to be sick. It is a very small town. Its only facilities exist to serve the tourists that come to visit the ruins of the monastery built by Emperor Ashoka to commemorate the location where Buddha delivered his first lesson to his first disciples. It is low tourist season and the few restaurants couldn’t make me most of what was on their menu. The food I did have was unappetizing. It’s surprisingly easy for Indian cuisine to be poorly prepared. It can either be so good, or so bad. Something I ate there also made my stomach upset and I began a round of anti-bioitics. There was also no hospital for me to go to in Sarnath if it would be necessary and every morning that I woke up feeling ill (I stayed 3 nights) I had to decide if I should wrangle the strength to get to Varanasi in case I would need a doctor.

I wasn’t eating enough, I had no appetite. Every time I left my guesthouse it was in order to force myself to eat a “meal.” Being sick in India, possibly/probably getting sick from Indian food, is an effective way of developing a taste-aversion to Indian food. I was craving food from home, something simple and nourishing. It was a surprisingly emotional experience when I found a restaurant that had pizza on the menu but then they informed me that they couldn’t make pizza. Then I saw 3 huge plates of French fries being brought to a tour group at the neighboring table. I waved over the waiter and asked him for a plate of French fries. That would be so so so good. He took my order but came back 5 minutes later to inform me that they had used the last of the potatoes on the tour group! I nearly cried.

My feelings of weakness would come and go. Sometimes I was sure I wasn’t that sick at all and found the strength to get out and walk a bit, other times I thought I needed to head to a hospital to be diagnosed. Perhaps I had a parasite? A travel bug? Malaria? My mind created all sorts of situations since I was on my own. One morning I was so frustrated that I couldn’t figure out what my illness was I decided to take my own temperature to see if I had a fever. In my homemade first-aid kit I had a traditional mercury thermometer that was my mother’s. It reads from 93 to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. I couldn’t find the bottom of the reading on the line, but I put in in my mouth and obediently waited 5 minutes to read it. Still there was no clear reading. It seemed to me that the mercury was risen all the past 106 at the top. Perhaps all the traveling and fluctuations in temperature that my pack had been through had messed up the calibration of the mercury? I probably didn’t have a fever anyway… or did I? I just couldn’t shake the weakness I was feeling. That evening I went to a cyber café. My lunchtime walk had been exceptionally hot and out of curiosity I google`d the weather for nearby Varanasi. Google returned: “Daily high of 108 F.” Oh. That would explain why my thermometer was reading past the 106 mark. I had no idea that over the course of my travels I had reached such high temperatures. I wasn’t even sure when it had gotten so hot since my whole trip has been me progressing into hotter climates and seasons. But 108 is really really hot. It’s unhealthy-hot and it reassured me that I was actually just weak and sick from the heat and stress of traveling. I made plans to leave for Varanasi the next day, perhaps I’d find some western food there, and I would continue to rest. Plus, I found out that Dina was also headed up to Varanasi! Amazingly our paths would meet again during our trips. It would be good to know someone.

Bodhgaya

22 March 2010

Since I have a little extra time now that I’m not going to Bangladesh I’ve added two more stops in my route to Delhi. Instead of only the Hindu pilgrimage sites of Varanasi and Ayodhya, I’ve decided to include the Buddhist towns of Bodhgaya and Sarnath. I never intended for this trip to take on any form of spirituality or pilgrimage, but I clearly forgot how impossible it is to separate religion from culture in this part of the world.

Bodhgaya is a small, dusty town in the poor and corrupt state of Bihar. It is home to the most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in the world, Mahabodhi Temple. The temple marks the place where, in the 6th century BC, Prince Siddartha Guatama meditated under the Bodhi Tree and became Buddha. The great Emperor Ashoka (who converted India temporarily to a Buddhist empire, 2nd century BC) laid a stone slab at the location of Buddha’s enlightenment and cared passionately for the Bodhi tree. Legend says that one of Ashoka’s wives became extremely jealous of the tree and the attention he doted on it so she killed it. Luckily, Ashoka had sent his daughter to Sri Lanka to plant a cutting of the Bodhi tree, and so a new cutting of the offspring was replanted in Bodhgaya. This close descendent and 2,000+ year old tree is said to be the Bodhi tree that now is protected next to a tall temple in Bodhgaya.

I arrived in Bodhgaya with no expectations, only curious to observe such a holy place for Buddhism after having traveled through 4 Buddhist countries. It hadn’t occurred to me during my trip that I would be ending my journey in the country of the origin of Buddhism. For me India is so heavily connected to Hinduism, and somewhat to Islam, that I had completely forgotten it is also the mother of another world religion, until I read my Lonely Planet.

There are two ways to pass your time in Bodhgaya. You may spend time at the main temple and Bodhi tree or you can visit the numerous international monasteries. I visited the main temple complex 3 times to take in the scene at different times over 2 days. The temple is surrounded by a pleasant garden with several parallel paths that guide visitors around the complex. There are small grass lawns, grassy hills, and trees filled with birds. To the untrained eye, the eye of someone unfamiliar with India, this “garden” would seem unremarkable, crowded, and noisy. But with some perspective the area easily becomes a peaceful place, a place with nature, pilgrims, and prayer. Having only been in India for about 1 week I think I felt somewhere in between. I sensed the uniqueness of the place but was disappointed by the lack of quiet. However, by my 3rd visit, my appreciation had grown and I was sad to have to leave Bodhgaya.

I particularly enjoyed sitting near the Bodhi Tree, watching people interact with it. The tree was certainly the most beautiful part of Bodhgaya for me. The idea of “worshipping” a tree as sacred because it provided the shelter and companionship for Buddha when he formulated his philosophy of life seems more appropriate than the huge temple to me. The temple is beautiful and houses a large Buddha statue, but the tree is given much stronger devotion. The tree is large and old and its enormous stretching branches are held above the ground with crutches to support their weight and keep them out of people’s reach. The base of the tree is enclosed by a large wall, protecting the trunk and root system from overzealous devotion and the thousands of people that visit every day. People offer flowers at the base of the tree, and if you peer through the gated wall you can see chipmunks munching away at those flowers and carrying them up into the tree for a snack. One side of the tree is shaded by the towering temple, the other side is where everyone sits to pray, meditate, or study. Here I watched as young Tibetan monks, boys no older than 10, skip around to catch the leaves of the Bodhi Tree. Across from the Bodhi Tree are two large trees of the same species, and so the many leaves on the ground are impossible to distinguish as a genuine Bodhi Tree leaf or from a close cousin tree. The young monks, under the instruction of their elders, wait for a breeze to pass through the garden and then follow the leaves from the branches to the ground, jumping to catch them or rushing to collect them before another eager hand snatches them up. They fill their cloth bags with the leaves to take home. I managed to collect 2 leaves, which I am still fondly carrying around pressed inside my journal.
Bodhgaya was a little disorienting for me. There are monasteries built by Buddhist nations, like religious embassies, scattered around the town. Bangladesh, China, Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam are all represented by their respective temples and stupas. Visiting each temple taught me a little about each culture’s architecture and religious values. The different temples also transported me back into memories from my trip, comparing the similarities and differences between the religious cultures. And not only the buildings were diverse, but the people as well. Bodhgaya receives a surprising amount of international tourism. Somehow, people that would normally not visit India find their way into the heart of India to stay in Bodhgaya and soak up the spirituality of Buddha’s transformation. At the main temple there are beautiful Vietnamese women monks dressed in grey starched robes with shaved heads; they find private shade to meditate under. There are groups of Japanese tourists/pilgrims dressed in all white cotton with cameras around their necks listening to their guides. There are Tibetan monks, young boys and old men, dressed in orange robes. There are Indian families visiting the temple, which is significant to Hindus for its spiritual importance as well, they bring a rainbow of colors to the garden. And then there are two groups of Westerners visiting Bodhgaya, tourists including Bodhgaya in their list of sights and those seeking spirituality. My mother would have been amongst the latter, meditating with everyone else, contemplating the knowledge of the Bodhi Tree, and performing endless prostrations on the prayer boards facing the temple. I, again, consider myself somewhere in-between, though certainly more on the tourist side. I was there to observe and witness, not to participate; I still don’t know how.

And so it was with this international group and mix of temples that I found myself inside the Thai temple thoroughly confused. I had just passed some monks on the way in, walking down the green path. Teenage boys who reminded me strongly of the young monks in Luang Probang, Laos. Inside the temple I felt transported back to Bangkok, with the gold guild banisters and statues and bright mosaic decorations. Then a white man, dressed as a monk, a monk who was an American white male, approached me to ask if I needed help finding something, or was I just looking around? Just looking around, thanks, I replied. He left me alone and as I walked out of the temple I found a small water-lily filled pond and I heard my brain ask myself, “where are you again?” I’m not kidding. I actually had to backtrack and fast forward through my trip: Vietnam (check), Laos (check), Cambodia (check), Thailand (check), and now I’m… in…. India? Yes, I was in Kolkata, that was definitely India. And if I walk back out of this complex, the dusty road outside has a chai vendor on the side. Definitely India. Ok, I’m in India. Certain about my location once more I headed to find lunch. I ended up in Siam Thai, ordering green curry and rice.

My time in Bodhgaya was an unintended conclusion to my trip through SE-Asia. I reflected on the cultures and societies I had observed and the evolution of Buddhism in each nation, adapted to each culture. I still know very little about Buddhism, but I am impressed by its ability to transcend cultures, spreading its message without altering people’s cultural identification.

Catching up!!

17 April 2010

I’m nearly 1 month behind on my journal/blog now and I deeply regret it. I fell behind when I left Kolkata because I became sick with a cold, and then sick with a stomach bug, and then sick with the flu, and then sick with a cough. All due, I’m sure, to the inevitable stress of traveling alone that I allowed to finally catch up to me as I was approaching “the end” of my trip. The beginning of April represented, for me, the end of my journey through SE-Asia to India in several ways. While I was only about one half of the way through my total 4.5 months when I left Kolkata the countdown had begun in my head until the day I would reach Delhi. There I would have a home to stay in with my dear friend, Niharika. I would be able to unload my pack and relax for 1 week. I would be working with the NGO Swechha, adding some much needed significance to my trip. And all while I waited for the real goal I have been traveling to reach, Atish joining me in India.

I’m struggling to unpack the individual memories of the past 3 weeks from my jumble of stories I have been sharing haphazardly with Atish recently. New adventures and 2 month old conversations are easily confused, but I do have some notes in my journal to guide me. I’m going to attempt to catch up with my writing in the next several days but everything will surely be abbreviated. I’m sorry for the delay and if you have been reading my blog I want to say thank you! It’s really only because I hear from you, that you are enjoying my blog, that I’ve been writing as much as I have and that I’m now tackling the missing weeks.

I will jump ahead to today to share that Atish is now in India, for his first time, and we are traveling through Gujarat state together. I’m not sure how long it will take me to get to the present in my writing so I think a current update is needed, but I don’t want to spoil the stories, because we have some good ones!

We have been together for about 10 days now and I’m really proud of how well he is doing here. After 10 days we are nearly equals in terms of communicating here. In fact, Atish’s strengths from his knowledge of Gujarati/Hindi are becoming increasingly apparent and useful and I’m quickly running out of things to teach him. Since his arrival we have taught children from a slum community music/dance with Swechha (a blog entry), sight-see’d in Delhi (a blog entry), flew to Ahmedbad, had very firsthand experience with just how kind and hospitable Gujarati’s are (a blog entry!), escaped to Portugal and back (a blog entry), safari’d in Africa (a blog entry), we pilgrimaged with Hindus (a blog entry), and I taught Atish how to do his laundry by hand (a blog entry?). Wish me luck as I try to sort through all of this, plus the 2 weeks before Atish’s arrival, and capture it in writing!

Mother Teresa

Friday March 19, 2010

Calcutta was home to Mother Teresa for most of her life. It was where she established the Mother Charity missions that now exist in many cities around the world to help the very poorest “destitute and dying,” as well as orphans. It was important to me to visit the sights of Mother Teresa’s life and work because they are an example of excellent mission charity work and because Mother Teresa was my mother’s namesake.

I was surprised to learn that the mission openly accepts any foreign volunteers who show up at their door. They will put you to work the next day, after a brief orientation session, at one of their various locations in the city. I was interested in volunteering but I don’t really believe that a volunteer can do good work if he/she is only around long enough to learn the ropes. I wouldn’t have more than a day or two to spend, and honestly, I discovered the work was far too personal and intense for me.

I’ve never been to an orphanage before. I’ve always highly considered adopting if/when I decide I want children. The mission’s orphanage was exactly the scene I had always imagined a well-run orphanage would be. With an older Indian couple (who I think were interested in adopting) I was shown several rooms of the complex.

A nun dressed in white cotton robes took us first to the top floor, where in a bright, colorful room there were about 25 beds with low bars and an open space where equally as many children ranging from 4-10 years old were interacting and being cared for by busy volunteers and nuns. These children were all physically and/or mentally handicapped from birth or accidents in some way. They were shy but smiling, clinging to the women for guidance and love. One volunteer was soothing a trembling, blind 4 year old boy after some recent incident. In an accent I would place from Southern Spain she cooed, “Mi monito, no llores, no llores, estoy aqui.” Just then a young boy, who may have had cerebral palsy, fell to the ground and let out a cry. Calmly she stood the blind boy on his feet and anchored him to the side of the bed by wrapping his hand around the bar, “esperame,” and rushed to comfort the fallen boy.

Aside from these occasional tears the children seemed happy and busy either with each other or the women. They were drawing, playing, eating or sleeping. They seemed remarkably healthy. I was more concerned about the nuns and volunteers who were clearly exerting everything to care for these children. And yet they still had time to smile at us and ask us if we needed anything as we observed their work! I thought about the parents who had to give up these beautiful children because they couldn’t care for their special needs, or perhaps the parents who abandoned them because of their differences. Would these children ever know which the case was for them? Would they live their whole childhood in the orphanage? What would happen to them as adults? Was there any movement to adopt special needs children in India?

As we were about to leave the room I noticed the Indian woman looked as though she was about to cry, and so was I.

We headed downstairs with the melody of “row, row, row your boat…” growing louder. We were led into a smaller room with 20 cribs instead of beds and 20 toddlers playing in a pile on the floor with an assortment of toys and recorded children’s music filling the room. Again, they looked happy and healthy. But here there was only a single woman watching them, monitoring the fair sharing of the popular toys, and food and toilet needs. As soon as we stepped over the fence into the room each I, the husband, and the wife had 3-4 toddlers at our feet, hugging out legs, smiling bashfully at us, begging us to hold them. I sat on the floor and in seconds someone had claimed into my lap, a little girl with the biggest eyes and little black pigtails. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t show me anything, and she didn’t demand anything. She just looked up at me with the biggest smile as though I had just given her a huge ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles, what a delight to be on my lap! I played with her for a bit but there was a queue for my lap quickly forming, girls and boys (though the ratio reflects the societal preference in India for sons, 3:1 of girls to boys) vying for my attention. After a couple more hugs I couldn’t take it anymore and we left that room as well. The married woman was holding an infant girl and looking completely overwhelmed. The young children were just what I would expect orphans to be. They were simply and mostly in need of physical affection. I asked the nun that was guiding us through the building if these children were all up for adoption. “Yes, adoption office open tomorrow morning, 8am. You come tomorrow?” No, I’m not adopting, not yet, definitely not yet, I tried to tell her. She smiled kindly and sadly. I learned that Mother’s orphanage is home to over 200 children at the moment. When my visit was over I headed to the Mother House to visit Mother Teresa’s tomb feeling emotional and hormonal.

Mother Teresa’s main personal mission had been to care for the poorest of the poor, the destitute and dying. Near the main Kali Temple of Kolkata is Mother Teresa’s original home for the sick and dying. I visited the temple briefly and waited half-an-hour for the “home” to open it’s doors at 3pm for visitors. I tentatively entered, not at all sure what to expect. Just beyond the door I was in a room with about 30 cots, each occupied by an old, fragile man. Some were sitting, some sleeping, some eating. Volunteers moved between them checking comfort and needs. I hadn’t expected to walk straight into the facility. The lonely planet said the home was, “surprisingly small.” I didn’t realize that meant it lacked any type of lobby or hallway. A young Canadian woman came up to me and asked what she could do for me. I told her I had just stopped by to visit, but I wasn’t sure what that entailed. She swept me with her along her rounds in the next room where all the woman lay. She was cheery and conversational. Asking me many question about my travels. She was a nurse in Canada and had come to Kolkata specifically to volunteer at Mother Teresa’s home for the sick and dying for 1 month. I asked some questions about the woman and the operations of the home but I was quickly overwhelmed watching the patients and the minimal conditions and supplies available. The Canadian woman told me that some of the people come to the home themselves; some are found in the slums and brought there. If they had no one to care for them they would rest here until they passed away. I barely looked at the patients, focusing on my conversation with the woman, not allowing myself to connect to the place. I left not 10 minutes after I arrived, avoiding the emotions and memories I knew would flood in if I remained there longer.