This morning at Mother Teresa’s free hospice one woman in particular stands out in my memory. She had such sad eyes and she couldn’t stop crying she was in so much pain. We had already given her, her prescribed pain meds. Sometimes all you can do is hold their hand, stroke their arm, their back and stay by their side. I’m sure she didn’t understand what I was telling her, but I still wanted to keep my voice calm and reassuring. Give her something to focus on besides the pain and remind her she wasn’t alone.
It's always difficult to leave these women.
After spending the morning at the free hospice I spent the afternoon with the kids of New Light. We did yoga together and I’ve been learning all their favorite games, what they’re drawn to, what they love. Getting to know each and every one of them is a complete and utter joy.
And I spent my evening at the Dalit Center. On my way there Kalighat Road was completely flooded again, which meant I had to roll up my pants and take my shoes off to wade down the sidewalk:)
And there are these gorgeous arches and carvings leading up to the Dalit Center. The last arch is the entrance to the burning ghat where they’ll burn the bodies. Just beyond the last arch is the Dalit Center.
At the Dalit Center tonight I was able to create a self-esteem, empowerment discussion with the children along with a discussion on positive interaction. And I want to thank Sichetha for being my translator tonight, I couldn’t have done this without her help.
Again, the ‘dalits’ (meaning the oppressed in Hindi) of that area are comprised mainly of ‘Doms’, a caste that has traditionally been marked as `untouchables' because they take care of burning the dead bodies. And the children born into this community live no less precarious and violent lives than those of sex workers.
I had everyone toss around a ball to start and share what their name was and what they loved doing. And it helped that I had been there the previous evening, so the kids had a better sense of who I was and felt more comfortable with me. Initially some of the kids may be shy. But you start tickling them, you ask them their name and have them teach you Bengali. I love it, I’ll always make mistakes as I’m learning and this never fails to make the kids laugh. And soon the kids aren’t quite so shy anymore.
Just like I’d done at Soma Home and Sonar Tori I wanted to help these kids recognize how much they have to be proud of, how each of them are special in their own way and how much they’re capable of.
We wrote and drew what we were proud of, what our dreams were and what we hoped to become and later shared with everyone else. It is always a gift to see these children acknowledging how special they are and to see them opening up.
I also wanted to address positive interaction with the children. These boys and girls grow up in an environment where women are often treated like property, where men treat women with little regard for their feelings or their opinion.
I wanted to stress how gender is socially and culturally built. It plays a role in how men and women act and the different opportunities that are offered. Since India is a patriarcal society in which men are seen as superior to women they many times have opportunities women don’t have. But if women are given a chance they are capable of everything that men are.
And in the end we’re all human beings and every human being requires love and deserves to be treated with respect.
I wanted to share with the boys there what it means to respect women and for the women to know what their rights are and how they deserve to be treated.