Hey Everyone!
Thanks for following our blog! Today I'm writing my first post which seems a little crazy since we've already been here for almost two weeks. Time is flying. I have spent all of my time thus far at Kaligaht, the home for the destitute and dying. My first few days there were quite challenging, but I've since gotten into a pretty steady routine. All of you who know me will not be surprised to hear that two little old ladies have stolen my heart. There are close to 60 women living in the women's ward at Kaligaht. Some of them are elderly women, others are young girls with severe wounds and many are severely malnourished. Maya and Agnes have beds right next to one another and I have built some pretty great relationships with them considering they both speak hindi and not a word of english. Maya is a sweetheart, she's probably in her 70's and I've been helping her walk to get exercise. She also likes to have me sit down on her bed and hold her hand. Then she will take my hand kiss it multiple times and pull it to her heart. We have a system of hand gestures and faces that allow us to communicate. Agnes is a riot, when I'm sitting with Maya, she will start tugging on my apron strings. She also likes to stick her tongue out at me and laughs when I make faces back at her. Seeing her big toothless smile makes my day. Wednesday she started playfully biting (gumming really) my arm. Sadly she has severe breast cancer, she has an open wound in her side that the tumor sticks out of. They clean it daily and Agnes hardly flinches, she is so strong. Today I sat and held her hand while they did it and I wanted to cry for her. As soon as it's over she's back to her usual jokes again. She is a truly amazing woman. I think the wound care is the hardest thing for me. I've never personally done it, I could never, but some of the women wail so loudly that I really hurt with them.

Kaligaht is not all sad. There are a few younger girls that have pretty intense wounds, but are doing really well. I have no doubt that they will leave Kaligaht at some point. That gives me hope. It's also nice to know that the older women I am so found of are being taken care of. I try to look at the positive side of things... though they are at a place where they will one day die, it's better that they have a roof, a bed and 3 meals a day than to be out on the street alone. I also like that I can help to put a smile on their face or make them laugh. I tend to be a pretty clumsy person, it makes for some good laughs for the women. Two days ago a slipped on what I hope was water and fell right in front of a woman's bed. She was a tiny little thing, skin and bones really and she let out the loudest laugh I've heard in awhile. Today I accidentally stepped on a bed pan (luckily it hadn't been used) and startled Maya and Agnes with all the clatter, but then they both laughed at me. I kind of felt like Patch Adams when he's walking down the hospital ward with the bed pans on for shoes.

One more story, I don't want to make this too long. Earlier in the week one of the sister's was yanking an elastic out of a woman's hair. She got impatient and said "You, come here and do this." So i went over and tried to pull the rubber band out as gently as I could. It wasn't a hair elastic, just a regular rubberband and had already been broken and retied twice. When I finally got it out it had quite a bit of hair stuck in it. I brushed her hair for her and put it back up. The next day I brought a real hair elastic for her, showed her and put it in her hair. She was beaming when I gave it to her. You would have thought I'd given her some great gift. The last few days she's called me over and taken my hand everytime I come in. It really struck me how greatful she was for something as small as a hair tie. She is one of the women that gives me hope. She's probably mid thirties and is missing her middle finger. It must have been cut off. Her whole hand is bandaged, but she seems to be doing really well. That in a nutshell describes part of my time spent at Kalighat.

I should also mention on a completely different note that we went out dancing Wednesday night for Rachael's birthday. We went to a club called the Underground. We arrived around 11 which apparently is really early. I invited a few Asian volunteers that come to Kalighat with us in the morning and they said they might come out. I didn't think they would, but i gave them my room number and told them to come by at 10. Six of them came out with us, we were 17 total. We had a really fun night rocking out to Spice Girls, Lady Ga Ga, Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber among others. Dancing in India was quite an experience, there are still those creepy guys that are in every club, but because India's culture is more reserved they all danced a few feet behind us and never actually touched/tried to dance with us. We also had a few guys in the group that were good about watching out for all of us. Surprisingly none of the girls got hit on... the only person who did was Derek. He didn't seem impressed. I'll leave it at that. : )
Hope all is well at home.
Love,
Heather