India. Wow. Ok so let me paint you a picture. Men fashion is like from the 60s with mustaches and bell-bottom jeans…oh and some skirts. Women fashion is from like the 1500s, with a few jeans or sweaters thrown in. We have to keep covered. The rule of thumb is cover the butt twice and the boobs twice. So lots of scarves and long tunics. In order to fit in, us girls on the team went to a fabric store and picked out pieces to make salwars. The boys refuse to fit in. Bell-bottom jeans just aren’t doing it for them I guess. We also are all getting accustomed to head-bobbling and sitting on the floor…and sleeping on the floor…as the furniture trend never really hit India.
We live on the outskirts of Kolkata, so we see farms out to the right and walk on cobblestone roads. You would think we live in a different time period as you watch people create houses with muddy bricks and using those community fountain things. But then they pull out their cell-phones…Oh and roads are totally communal. Cows, pedestrians, cars, bikes, trucks, weird-wooden-cart-bike taxies all share the road. When we went into town, we piled onto one of these taxies. Five of us on each little wooden square thing. I felt for the biker’s legs as he pushed up some of those hills. Also, a given, but we are practically famous here. Everyone stops and stares. It’s pretty interesting stuff.
And now for the good stuff. The orphanage is full of little boys. They are all so different. I’ll name a few to just give you an idea. Salem is the oldest at age 14. He wants to be a missionary when he grows up. He likes to draw and sing, and his favorite class is computer science. He also fixes random things in his free time.
Samu is around 6 years old and is the intelligent little school boy. He speaks English very well for his age as well as 4 other languages. Oh the orphanage is like the Tower of Babel. Everyone speaks different languages. The boys generally either were abandoned or ran away from their situation usually from tribes where the cast system still has a stronghold. They all have different languages unique to the tribe or state. Some of the children speak Bengali, some Hindi. Everyone speaks at least 4 languages. It’s craziness. Ok so Soul is this crazy kid with the smile like a monkey. He copies us and runs and laughs and climbs. There are so many and I can’t wait to share them all with you. But alas, I do not have much time or space.
I will leave you with this adorable picture. Every night that we leave to go back to our house to sleep, all the kids lean out their window and say ‘good night’ over and over again until we are out of sight.
