Impressions

By first impression I guessed work would get less shocking and easier after a while. My first impression was highly stupid.

Yesterday at work I was asked to feed a woman upstairs who I had only seen before, never talked to. I was scared of her. She is one of our most intense medical cases in the ward. She is a burn victim, apparently intentionally burned by her husband and then brought to Prem Dan. She can't sit up straight or even stand and walk for that matter. Her arms were so badly burned, the skin on her forearms fused to her biceps and her hands have healed, contorted in at least six different directions. Her face is very scared as well. You can hardly make out the shape of her face and her right eye is hanging out of the socket, resting on her check. When I was I asked to feed her, I literally got sick to my stomach. With fear...?

I don't know what I was afraid of. Certainly I wasn't being asked to preform any sort of medical procedures on her. I was just feeding her--something I had done a dozen times with other women. I think I was just scared of her appearance, which made me feel so guilty. I sat there and feed her the rice and lentils and I felt guilty. I felt so guilty for being timid with her and so guilty for walking past her bed so many times before. Half way through slowly, gingerly feeding her with the spoon, she yelled at me in a loud grunt. I don't know exactly what she said...I took it as, "Why the hell are you feeding me so slow!? I'm not a baby!" I left feeling sad and incapable of genuinely erasing any sort of fear while at work here. I secretly hoped the Sisters wouldn't ask me to feed her again.

Today I was asked to feed her again.

It went much smoother today. I told myself the mere fact that on two separate occasions I was deemed the volunteer that could handle this job should give me the motivation to handle it better. I think I did do better. I fed her faster, sat closer to her, actually looked at her and spoke with her. I'm glad I'm being forced into these sort of situations. I shouldn't be scared.

Matt and Marco left yesterday...another piece of evidence that I will become a veteran at this place faster than I suspected. We hugged good bye and their shifts were filled by newbies--Canadians no less! Except I wasn't as fond of these ones. One of the boy volunteers told me at the end of the day that he, "...didn't enjoy work because it was an insanely disorganized organization that could be much more efficient with it's volunteers. I just sat there all day." I chuckled a little. Efficiency cannot be expected of these facilities... or better yet, these facility are immensely efficient relatively speaking in the big picture of Kolkata poverty. Errgh. I don't know what to think of his comments. I do know I left everything I ever learned in Managerial Business Operations back in the States and I'm better for it.

Joe and I had an amazing conversation last night about the volunteer community here. It still remains one of my favorite components of my work here. On large, everyone is so sweet and so eager to sit and talk all night on the roof top with you or simply walk up and ask you how you are doing. Most of my co-volunteers at Prem Dan are older. I'm the baby by far. Many of the women are 30-40+ and we have countless other volunteers at other homes in their sixties. The advice and parental love they give to us younger volunteers is so comforting. Joe and I wondered why all of these older volunteers are European, South American, Korean Chinese or Japanese... there don't seem to be many Americans willing to give up there two weeks of holiday to come here or spend most of their retirement here volunteering. It's funny.

Great news! 1) I'm eating lots of street food and have yet to get (too) sick. 2) Out walking by myself I have been mistaken as a boy at least seven times by Indian men! This is great news because to be a girl out walking alone is apparently not as safe. I've never loved my boy haircut and flat chest so much in my life! Woo hoo!