WHAT I CAME HERE TO DO...

Friday, March 15th

First Day

At the start of each day there is a Mass at 6am at Mother House.  This is the headquarters of The Missionaries of Charity, the order that Mother Teresa formed. Her grave is on the ground floor. At 7am, they offer breakfast for the volunteers (white bread, bananas and tea).  I went for breakfast today.  There was a very attractive and nice young British couple, Robert and Emma, there that I had met at the orientation.  We had an enjoyable morning soaking it all in.  Robert is an artist, so the Sister that checked us in at orientation told him there was a sculpture of Mother Teresa that needed repainting and asked if he would do it.  I actually had to write down "unemployed" for the first time on my sheet!  It was very weird.  The Sister asked me what I did before being unemployed and I told her I worked in advertising... she didn't have a special job for me.

The sisters lead everyone in a prayer and then brief announcements were made.  And for those for whom it was their last day volunteering, they sang them a song and they were given some small token for their service.  After that people headed out in groups to the various locations.  A healthy pack of us headed down the street to hop on a local bus to take us to Kalighat. You have to act fast when the crowded bus shows up and jump on quickly.  A guy comes around to collect the 7 rupees for the 30 minute ride (approximately 13 cents).

I jumped right in upon arrival.  Most of us started with washing clothes in four large, square tubs.  It's basically soaking in plain water, soaking in soapy water, scrubbing and rinsing in clean water. There are stacks of soiled clothes and linens and about 20 people doing this for at least 90 minutes straight.  I got a blister on my hand the first day from wringing out so many clothes!  For a good portion of the time I was working along side a 22 year old guy named Zack from Alabama.  He was with a group of 14 Christian missionaries.  He was a smart, handsome and very personable guy.  He was mostly interested in hearing about my relationship with Christ and God and was super sweet and open when I told him I was gay and how I'm not particularly religious but I do think of myself as a spiritual person.  He related my being gay, which he believes is a sin, to his own sinning ways and a problem he had with pornography.  Lets just say it was an interesting conversation and part of what I look forward to as part of this experience.  We then went on to change the clothes of a few men that wet themselves - taking off the wet clothes, cleaning him up, putting on clean clothes and changing the sheets- bathing a very old man that couldn't do it on his own...side by side...doing what we came here to do.  And always with a smile.

There are 50 men here, mostly very old but a few that are younger that have both mental and physical disabilities.  You can't help but love each one.  It's terrible to say, but I have a few favorites already.  

Other tasks of the day include helping to dispense medication, clipping finger and toe nails, shaving i was very nervous doing this as I have trouble shaving myself!), distributing meals (some of the men can't feed themselves, so I've been asked to feed some of them and keep getting asked to do that, so I guess I'm doing it well), and carrying men back to their beds from the clinic or the room where they sit when the beds are being changed.  And a big part of the job is to sit and talk with the men, hold their hands, rub their heads or backs.  I'd say 98% of the men don't speak a word of English and my Hindi is non existent, so the conversations are pretty interesting, to say the least! 

The work day consists of two parts, a morning shift from 8am - 12 noon and an afternoon shift from 3-5:30pm.  And Thursday is the only day off.  

I thought I would walk back to my apartment between shifts but got totally lost and ended up just walking around for three hours, which was totally fascinating!   The afternoon shift consisted of cleaning up some of the men who wet themselves, distributing more medication and serving dinner.  

It proved to be an exhausting yet thrillingly emotional and exciting first day.  I couldn't be happier.