There’s a Mother Teresa home located on Kalighat, just down the road from New Light. Zack, one of the New Light volunteers, recently visited the home and discovered you could volunteer there. Zack and his sister Emmy, sadly just left to go on a backpacking trip through the Himalayas. But I now have the opportunity and privilege to volunteer here.
Mother Teresa opened this home in 1952, next to the famous Kalighat Kali Temple. She converted an abandoned building that was once a Hindu temple to the goddess Kali, the Hindu goddess of time and change, into the “Kalighat home for the destitute and dying”, a free hospice for the poor.
I never want to become unaffected by the poverty in Kolkata, the number of homeless men and women that line the streets. Walking through Kolkata the streets are filled with men crouching with their arms outstretched, with mother’s sleeping on the sidewalk with an arm around their child.
Children beggars will come up to you, pull on your arm and put their hand to their mouth. It’s always impossible to see and know there’s nothing I can do. Many times the local mafia will recruit homeless children to work for them, keep an eye on them and as soon as they collect any money, take it from them. You can never know what the child’s story is. Many times, by giving them money you’re simply generating income for those that take advantage of children who have no one to protect them or care for them. If no one gave to the children though, the mafia would lose interest in using the children this way.
Sometimes all you can do is give of yourself, smile, treat them respectfully and if I have extra food on me I’ll give it to them, nothing that can be resold though. Because sometimes, the children, the homeless, will simply resell the food to local street market vendors and that may pay for drugs or again, simply be funneled into the mafia’s pockets. Or someone may simply steal it from them and resell it themselves, benefiting no one.
New Light exists for the children of this community. I know some of them would be on the streets if it weren’t for New Light and the shelter and opportunities they provide. I'm very thankful for this.
And the free hospice Mother Teresa founded exists for the men and women of this community who are homeless, who are sick, who are dying. The nuns that run this free hospice are a part of an organization that will search the streets for people in desperate need of assistance. They find these men and women who have nowhere else to go, who have no one to care for them and sometimes, are at the end of their life. They all deserve to be cared for with compassion, be treated with respect and to have their dignity restored. This is what the free hospice hopes to accomplish.
Back home I work as a certified nursing assistant at St Joseph Mercy Hospital while I’m finishing up nursing school. The unit I work on, 11 East, cares for oncology and hospice patients. I have the privilege of caring for patients who are at an incredibly vulnerable place in their lives.
Working with patients, taking time to get to know them, really know them, helping them feel at least a little safer, a little calmer, a little brighter is what I genuinely enjoy. I have a deep belief in empathy, in letting it guide everything you do when caring for patients. I believe in speaking from a place of no ego, no judgment and with plenty of warmth. I understand if I had walked through life in my patient’s shoes I would be feeling exactly as they are-that may be with acceptance or it could be with frustration, bitterness, anger… Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, with respect. Everyone is worthy of compassionate care.
I’ve been working on 11East for the past three years. But I never want to become immune to what the patients and their family members are experiencing. Every time I care for a patient I like to consider how I would want my mother, my brother, my closest friend treated, and aim to provide that same level of care.
This is the kind of care I also hope to provide for the patients at Mother Teresa’s hospice.
I was able to start volunteering this morning and began by washing the female patients. Some of the patient’s are disoriented, confused or unconscious but you still treat with just as much care and consideration as if they were alert and awake. When I give them their baths I’ll still talk to them, I’ll let them know what I’m going to do before I do it, let them know before I turn them to wash their backs. I’ll gently raise and lower their arms and their legs, comb their hair back and softly wash around their eyes. They deserve to be treated gently.
Our role as volunteers is to help in whatever way we can. Some of the volunteers always begin their morning by doing the patient’s laundry or the patient’s dishes. On the female ward in the morning, female volunteers will help the women with their baths, with breakfast and lunch, by simply assisting them to the bathroom and with passing medication. Sometimes we may simply sit with the women, hold their hand and give them back and leg massages to help alleviate their pain.
The patients of this hospice are so fragile. Many of the women can no longer walk, are unable to sit up without assistance, feed themselves or simply speak. You can see how harsh their life has been. It's been etched into their hands, their skin, their eyes. These women carry a sense of detachment, a quiet sadness and you can see this in their eyes. They grab a hold of you. I don't think I'll ever forget what they look like - like they've lost the will to live.
Very grateful I get to spend my mornings here now and help bring some life back into these women's eyes and remind them they are cared for and cherished.
After four hours working at Mother Teresa’s hospice I was able to spend the rest of the afternoon with the children at New Light doing yoga with them and in the evening I was able to go to the Dalit Center, which serves as a multi-functional shelter for the children of the Dalit community located behind the crematorium in Keoratala, Kolkata.
The ‘dalits’ (meaning the oppressed in Hindi) of that area is comprised mainly of ‘Doms’, a caste that has traditionally been marked as `untouchables' because they take care of burning the dead bodies. Those born into this caste hold professions that are considered highly undesirable and are looked down upon. In the rigid caste hierarchy, these individuals are never expected to hold any other profession other than that assigned to their caste. Even though un-touchability as a practice was abolished almost a century ago, people belonging to the ‘dalit’ community of India still continue to be subjected to stigma and discrimination. The children born into this community live no less precarious and violent lives than those of sex workers. The Dalit Center was established with the aim of challenging the status quo and changing the lives of the little ones in this small population located at Keoratala.
Today, more than three dozen children receive education, healthcare and nutritional support through the support of teachers and care givers.
The Dalit Center was founded in July 2003 and so tonight they were celebrating their 13th anniversary! All the young girls were dressed up in colorful saris-reds, oranges, yellows with some purples, blues and pinks. All of the boys had their faces painted and all of the children performed dances they had been practicing for weeks, which I was able to get videos of. Children crowded the windows, parents and family members filled the doorways and students were running all over the place. The energy in the room was infectious.
After beginning my day at the Mother Teresa hospice it was wonderful to end my day with a celebration honoring the children of the Dalit community. It's a privilege to bring some life, some joy, some comfort into the hospice in the morning. Being at the Dalit Center tonight gives me more joy and laughter that I can bring with me in the morning to the hospice.