India so far

I may not have much time, so I'm just going to jump right in rather than sharing the many details I probably could.

Kolkata is chaos. It certainly has some beautiful parts like the produce markets, the flower market, the Victoria Memorial, and the Howrah Bridge to name a few, but it is still chaos. Practically anarchy. Going for a stroll through the neighborhood is exhausting and potentially deadly since you are constantly having to dodge crazy cab drivers, rickshaws, buses, and pedicabs. They will just run right over you... and they don't care.

For volunteer work I chose to work at Kalighat, the original house for the destitute and dying. It's intense. On my first day there, I helped clean up and change an old man who'd peed himself as he lay on his cot. I could tell he had a bad fever and his eyes were rolling back. He didn't make it more than a few hours longer. Primarily at Kalighat, we care for people with leporisy, injuries sustained out on the street that have become horribly infected, and all kinds of other gnarly life threatening wounds.

I must admit that after my first day here, I got really scared. Scared that I wouldn't make it here. Scared that I was in over my head. Afraid I wouldn't last. That night I prayed for God to change me, work on my heart, allow me to see these people through his eyes and to give me the strength to handle what I could only see as gross. What happened next blew me away...

The next day at Kalighat I started cutting the fingernails and toenails of all the male patients. If you have ever seen what leporisy can do to a hand or foot let me tell you, it is not pretty. There was a patient there named Cedric who had recently suffered a stoke and as I was cutting the second patients fingernails he spoke to me in English (one of the few who can). It was like he was channeling God's voice straight to me. He began to speak about how great it is to work for the poorest of the poor, to be around their beautiful spirits, to serve someone who has nothing and has never been served himself. How each little act I did to them was actually being done to God itself. Needless to say, this changed my approach to the simple task of cutting their nails. I started to take time with each one of them, hold their hands, and pray over a few of them, etc. It was awesome!

The interesting thing about leporisy is that it affects the body, but not the mind. That means inside each mangled, barely functioning body is a totally coherent, sentient person aware of his or her predicament (and the fact that they were once not like this). At Kalighat there is a young man about my age with leporisy and when I interact with him I can see the intense frustration in his eyes. He can barely control the movements of what is left of his arms and legs. I can tell he just wants to be normal again. To walk around, hang out with friends, chase after cute girls, etc. It especially sucks because he has so much life left ahead of him and now he will always need someone else's help to get by. When I looked over and saw the anger and sorrow in his eyes... my heart broke. And it hasn't stopped.

I had prayed for God to change my heart, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Each day now I grow closer to the patients I work with and it just keeps getting easier and better. I'm not saying it isn't disgusting cleaning up after a grown man who just crapped his pants (several times daily), but even that isn't so hard anymore when you can view them and their situation with compassion.

I give all the credit to God. If he hadn't of helped me I probably would have freaked out and left by now. I knew going into this that this would be intense, but holy cow, this is beyond intense!

On a lighter note, the food here is incredible! I look forward to eating here each day. Somosas, Malai Kofta, Vegetable Spring Rolls, Tibetan Bread with honey, Vegetable Curry on rice, fresh Mango juice, Nan bread, I could go on like this forever. It's awesome...

Anyway, for those of you wondering how things have been there's a small update. I hope you all keep up with me while I'm away, it's really excited to get messages from friends back home. Hint, hint...

I love you all!

Take care.

Jeremiah