p57

"Occasionally, on those nights when we were all reading together, a train would thunder by, shaking the house and rattling the windows. The noise was thunderous, but after we'd been there a while, we didn't even hear it."

- Jeannette Walls, from "The Glass Castle"

A Prayer.

Lord, sow joy where there is none. In places of indescribable darkness and despair, shine Your light.. Lord, give them the peace only You can give.


Tell them I miss them. 
Tell them I wish I could go back sooner. 
But it's not me that they need, it's You. 
Always more of You. 


Prabhu Yeshu, Lord Jesus, only You have victory over sin, illness, pain, sorrow, selfishness, greed, hatred. You alone are Shristi ke Swaami, Destroyer of Evil. 


Jai jai Yeshu, jai jai ho!
(Victory, victory be to Jesus, victory, victory!) 

Miss Anderson, I miss you.

sesame toast and chai! 

How to make Indian Chai

as learned from Mary Anderson, honorary chai-wallah 

of Dui Number Rail Gate, Dum Dum Cantonment, Kolkata 

1. Bring to boil equal parts milk and water
2. Add a few cloves, cinnamon sticks and cardamom
3. Add 2-3 handfuls of tea and 2 handfuls of sugar 
4. Strain before the tea gets bitter 

"And so they compel me now, 
my heart-thoughts, to try for myself
the high seas, the tossing salt streams;
my heart's desire urges my spirit
time and time again to travel, so that I might seek far from here a foreign land."
"The Seafarer", Exeter Book Elegies 

Remain

I fondly remember how shocked many of my friends and family were when I told them about the packing requirements for the Trek, which consisted of the following:

My faithful travelling companions: these bags have taken me from Italy to India! 

Speaking of faithful travelling companions, I haven't introduced you to my placement partner, Thomas Bell.

During our time in India we traveled in pairs (or in Paige, Oliver and Vanessa's case, a trio!) to our placements every day. Thomas is from Texas, and had recently graduated; his coming to India was a long and  grace-filled process that I don't think he expected. But nevertheless, I am certain that it wasn't a mistake and that God brought him there for reasons none of us might understand.

Left to right: Mary, Leah, Thomas, Vanessa, me! On the roof of our apartment. 

When Thomas and I said our goodbyes to the children and youth of the Promod Nagher slum they had bought us both goodbye gifts- they were these beautiful framed coloured glass pictures that had a layer of glitter behind the image, and sealed in a plastic frame with a cardboard backing. The one they gave me was an image of a vase of flowers, and Thomas was given one of the Taj Mahal, considered a lasting monument of love. 

When we were packing, nether of us thought to pack it in our carry-ons...and to our dismay when we opened our bags at debrief in LA, both the frames had shattered into little pieces, and the glitter now lined both of our bags.

I kept a few pieces of the glass and cleaned out the glitter as much as I could after that.
I've used that backpack a couple times after Kolkata, and still, despite my efforts, there lie traces of glitter lingering on the lining of my bag.

It's gotten to the point at which I pull a shirt out of my bag, and I'll be wearing glittery clothing all day.

I used to be annoyed at the fact that I would be constantly shiny (Leah, this reminds me of that time you asked all of us whether we'd prefer to have flowers or glitter come out whenever we farted! Ahahahaha)
but now I appreciate the glitter, because it reminds me not to forget that I went to Kolkata and met those wonderful children that gave me that gift.

As the weeks go by and schoolwork piles up, Kolkata starts to seem like a far off and hazy dream. During a Skype conversation last week, Thomas mentioned that sometimes it feels like we never went. The thought terrifies me, but sometimes it does feel like that. And I don't want it to.

But then, as I'm sitting in my ergonomically-designed chair, one of 500 others, in the air-conditioned lecture hall listening to my professor talk about Anglo-Saxon culture and the analysis of Medieval poetry, my mind drifts and I begin to see Kolkata again. I can feel the sticky heat, smell the exhaust, and taste the chai again. I see the traffic congesting into a mass of swirling, chaotic vehicles, and can hear the ever-present honking. I feel the floor of our apartment rumble as the train blows by, and the taste of the dhaal and rice Supriya made for us.

I miss these three like crazy. Keah, Jaya, and Beena. 

I'm reminded of the grace and love our Indian friends showed us endlessly, and the children I played Stella-Ella-Olla with roughly a hundred times. My heart aches as I remember and wonder when I'll go back.

Equilibrium

Left to it's own devices, a yam after 6 weeks. 

My dear friends, it is time for me to introduce you to my now close acquaintance, Reverse Culture Shock. Like his brother Culture Shock, RCS finds extreme pleasure in plaguing those who have spent significant amounts of time away from their home environment. His favourite pastimes include inducing baffling feelings of apathy and passion, spontaneous fits of hysterical sobbing, and an overwhelming sense of helplessnes.

At debrief in Los Angeles, one of my teammates Megan had purchased some henna and we were all furiously applying it all over our bodies the night before we would return home. I think in part we did it just because it was fun, but also because we wanted something to show for, a physical marker, (because in actuality we really hadn't changed much physically over the 6 weeks except maybe partial weight gain on my part) for our time in Kolkata.

Care of Megan McFeeley!  It means "trust" in Bengali. 

As I returned home and time passed, the henna on my arm and hands faded with each shower. I was terrified, because I thought it represented the fading away of my experiences in India. I didn't want to forget. And so as my henna faded I tried desperately to hold on to anything that reminded me of Kolkata. I started doing my laundry in a bucket again and hanging it to dry secretly in my room. I steeped myself in Indian-inspired films and music. I started eating the same breakfast we had every day in Kolkata: buttered toast with bananas (which, by the way is actually delicious).

First-class breakfast, right here. 

When you come back from a culture that is vastly different from your home culture, things that used to seem normal will have become alien. Things like that stack of clean, freshly laundered towels sitting in the bathroom start to seem ridiculous (who on earth needs more than one really?), and the sheer variety and quantity of the food available in your fridge is just mind-boggling.

You try to reconcile what you've experienced and seen with what you used to consider mundane, and Reverse Culture Shock's sneakiest partner in crime, Guilt, comes crawling up to settle in your lap for an extended (and unwelcome) stay. You start to feel guilty for the strangest things-- a closet full of clean clothes, multiple taps in your house that give you clean, safe water with a simple turn of a knob...I came back and stared down everything in my bedroom with noncommittal, dismissive eyes. I felt no sense of ownership to anything in my room after living with 15 others and sharing everything together.

But I've learned that guilt can only get you so far when it comes to motivating someone to take action for the injustice they might've seen halfway across the world. Beating yourself up doesn't ever have a positive outcome. You end up beind a sullen killjoy who refuses to partake in any part of our "indulgent, excessive livestyle" and though at first friends will sympathize and listen, eventually you'll just have to move on.

And I don't mean move on in the sense that you forget. Don't ever forget what you saw, who you talked to, drank chai with, how you ate with your hands and wiped with your left, and sweated buckets the first two weeks you were in Kolkata. Remember how faithful God was despite everything. I write this in part for myself, for my friends that prayed for me back home, and those of you who I cried with and lived with for 6 weeks. Please don't forget.

"Out on the farthest edge, 
there in the silence, You were there.
My faith was torn to shreds,
heart in the balance, and You were there.
Always faithful, always good. 
You still have me, 
              You still have my heart completely."


-Gungor "You Have Me"

Not pretty.

Women's cart on the train. Sardines, anyone?

Once, our director Joel told us, that there is hardly anything to "like" about the city, but that there is so much to love about it. I never really understood what he meant by that until I left India.

Kolkata is not a pretty city. 

There are some parts of it, to be sure, that are pleasing to the eye, pleasant to smell (though not often), and delicious to consume (Bengali cuisine is incredible. Seriously.), but I realized after I left that there is little that I actually "like" about the city. I didn't like how sweaty and crowded the women's cart was. I didn't like how I was virtually ignored in conversation whenever there was a man present. I didn't like the unwanted attention, the stares that I received as a foreigner. I didn't like how it rained every single day without fail (if it hasn't rained before 3pm, it WILL rain!). 

There are lots of things I don't "like" about Kolkata. 

But there are so many things I fiercely love about the city. 

I love how, on the women's cart, I can walk-- or more like shoved-- on, and sit across an Indian woman and sit unnoticed for roughly 2 minutes before they actually realize I'm a foreigner. Due to my dark(ish) skin, dark hair/eyes, and the fact that all the women on my team wore saalwars, I didn't stick out as much as my fair-skinned and blue-eyed teammates (which, by the second day in Kolkata, certainly was an immense blessing). 

I loved the fact that because I was ignored I could sit back and listen, truly listen, to what was being said. And when I did say something it meant more due to the fact that I'd thought about it more. 

I loved that when it poured rain and I'd forgotten my umbrella, I could just enjoy the fact that it wasn't sweltering hot, and just enjoy the rain drenching my thin cotton saalwar top and hair. 

You can't do anything half-heartedly in Kolkata. 

It just isn't possible. You have to put everything into every step, every sentence, every movement, because if you don't, you'll be swept away (both figuratively and literally). 

It's a city that is fierce, relentless, overpowering and determined. 

You can't help but feel this never-ending energy that runs through the city. 

At turns hospitable and rude, charming and shocking, jumbled, noisy and crowded...it is a city of paradox. 

But Lord, it is Your city. Though so many things about it break Your heart, You still oversee and have a plan for each individual, each person in the teeming 18 million that make up Kolkata-- Lord You see each of them and love them with a love that we'll never understand or truly comprehend.