Kolkata

July 29, 2013

Kolkata. http://www.calcuttaweb.com

Today ran the full gamut of emotions.  We began by visiting the 150 year old Loreta Day School which is dedicated to a mission of service.  Half of its 1400 students do not pay fees because they cannot afford to.  We bought handicrafts made by mothers to support some of the tuition costs.  It is also a school with a full-time social worker running a separate school within the school called the Rainbow School.  The children are brought in from the streets or when freed from captivity in someone's home as a servant.  They are brought in from homes where they've been physically or sexually abused.  The police work with the staff to bring these children in.  The Loreta Day School students peer tutor these students as part of their service.  The homeless children sleep upstairs and their parents can come once a month for a family day.  The homeless children will be oriented to their new surroundings.  Those with English skills or the potential will be enrolled in the Loreta school.  Those with local Bengali language skills or other vernacular will be placed at government schools.  Of course the best opportunities come with a grasp of Hindu and English, but both offer a hand up. The poorest of the English language students get jobs at call centers.  These are not considered good jobs.  I for one will breathe more deeply and be a lot kinder when I get outsourced to these people for service.  

In the Rainbow School photos you will see the "quarantined children" lying on the window sill of the same room with everyone else.  I went over to a girl who was feverish.  Hard not to draw the connection with my own sick day at the Oberoi and this girls situation.

A young woman, and graduate of the Loreta School spoke to us about her work with ChildLine.  It is a safety hotline for children needing rescue, healthcare etc. throughout India.  She is basically a type of social worker now and goes with the police into homes to save children.  It is dangerous, but she said she must do it.

After that we had a presentation on the migrant children and families of brickworkers.  Little children making bricks in the hot beating sun.  NGOs have attempted education in these migrant areas, but funds have dried up, probably for political reasons.

You can only pretend or repress the reality around you for so long.  Life is really hell on earth for so many here.  Suddenly your brain recalls the flutter of tiny fingertips on your elbow twenty times a day and then the tiny outstretched hands that you turn away from with a "neh".  The young women on the streets begging, probably with a trafficked baby for their cause....I cracked. I was sitting there and tears flowed uncontrollably and sobs wracked my body.  I don't think any of us, man or woman, is tough enough to take this.  Tomorrow we go to Mother Theresa's House, definitely a Saint.

Then we change gears and are at the U.S. Consulate Generals Office playing Secretary of State on the official podium and enjoying traditional scroll art made by the Patua's of West Bengal.  This was wonderful. These long scrolls are unrolled and their stories from the Ramayana were sung in Bengali.  We also enjoyed Manipuri dancing.  My favorite dance was the story of little Lord Krishna who liked butter and when his mother was away he broke and ate all of the butter.  Then the Mama came home!

We then had a reception.  Twelve American teachers are leaving for home tomorrow after five weeks of living at the Oberoi Hotel and teaching in a local school.  Twelve newly graduated university students just arrived to teach English for eight months.  None of them are education majors.  I visited with a Kolkata couple whose sons were educated at MIT, Princeton and Yale.  They were recently in Seattle.  They loved it and told me I should come to India at Christmas time when it is cool.  By the way Christmas is a big deal here and lasts for days.  It is celebrated by the Hindus and the Muslims.  The couple own an international business like Fed Ex and were very humble about that.  The wife does not work for the company.  She started her own NGO to train local girls hygiene and how to do Henna.  She says they can make 250 rupees a day with that and rise out of poverty.  She said many Bengali married women and girls cannot leave their homes, but they can come to her school for training.  She trains the housewives to do beadwork so that they can sell purses to make a hundred rupees a day while taking care of their household tasks.  Rich and middle class people do not turn a blind eye to the conditions around them though they too walk away from the beggars.  They are actively involved in NGO work and as part of their religious communities.  

On the way home our guide and bus driver gave us an impromptu tour of Kolkata by night.  We drove around seeing the Victoria Memorial and a new local bridge rockin' out to Bengali pop tunes.  Cities come to life In India at night.  That's a whole subculture for someone other than me to observe.

K