Hey USA
This week began with a bittersweet ending in Kolkata. The Mother Teresa home is a quiet oasis in the middle of a bustling city. We’d go through a tight alley to reach the front door, admiring the calm blue hue of the outside walls accented with a dusty orange in the windows, metal gates shield every window with varying patters on a tetris-esque theme. At the door we are usually met by two sisters, smiling behind glasses and the classic Mother Teresa white habit outlined in dark navy blue. Inside a small plaza is nestled between high pale blue walls, greenery grows from large pots, and through a door behind a welcome mat lays Mother Teresa’s white marble tomb always joined by a sister, a guest, a prayer. Through the plaza we enter a small breakfast room and enjoy the company of volunteers from all over the world, as well as bananas, white bread and chai. Some stand out friends became Angela and Teresa, a pair of maybe 60 something women from Ireland who came alone with inspiration from their sons who had come together and a juggling traveler Hiroshi from Japan.
Our volunteering experience with the Mother Teresa home cannot be described with words, all I can muster is simply thank god for Mother Teresa, thank god for the beauty of humanity to find light in the dark.
After volunteering each day Kolkata gave us incredible adventures. We used packed smelly buses, the clean and fast metro and Tuk Tuks brimming with lights and sound systems to venture out into the city.
Durga wowed us with beautiful make shift temples, like giant geometric flowers filled with incredible models of Khali and other important hindu gods and goddesses.
A khali temple on the last day of Durga made us admittedly a little frightened, but nonetheless excited, as we entered a maze of a line similar to the line for Indiana Jones at Disneyland and into a dark and chaotic temple, people yelling, bells ringing, sacrificed goats blood staining our feet, incenses filling our nostrils, fire burning our eyes, hands everywhere pushing, pushing and pushing.
An all night train brought us to our new destination, and we couldn’t be happier. This week finished with a new beginning; ladies and gentlemen, we’ve left the hot plains and found ourselves in the beautiful and cool mountains of Sikkim, a place “more beautiful than Switzerland” 😛
Thank you for bringing us here, we’ll talk again soon!
SHANTI
And an answer: No… apparently Buddha doesn’t share his tea.