Anarchy Hotel
Moved into our fourth Calcutta hotel room today, and are optimistic about getting our first good night's sleep in too many days. Last week we found the Paragon Hotel, with sunny and cheap rooftop rooms. As a patriotic expat American, I wasn't sure about the large sickle and hammer signs outside, promoting Bengal's active Communist party, and inside I wasn't sure about all the posted rules: no outside visitors, no washing laundry in the shower, no cooking. But each night it was clear that anarchy was the reigning ideology, and the rules, especially the ones about visitors, drugs, and noisy parties, weren't enforced.
Having the hub of the city's backpackers' party scene on the rooftop just outside our door wouldn't be such a bad thing if we were just passing through, but after almost two months of traveling, Hannah and I both hoped to live more quietly and prayerfully while working here. We're still working on that. Most mornings we drag ourselves across town to 6 a.m. mass with the Sisters of Charity at the Mother House. It's not a walk I look forward to, but it is the only time that streets here aren't packed, and it's better to pass through the meat bazaar before things really get choppin'. After mass we share breakfast with thirty or forty other volunteers and walk to the place where we work.
Prem Dan, or Gift of Love, is a walled compound in the slums run by the Missionaries of Charity. Inside are Sisters, orderlies, volunteers in the mornings, a hundred men and women with mental and physical disabilities, palm trees and a garden. We wash dishes and laundry and bodies, make beds and massage legs. Not too many of the patients are verbally active, even fewer in English, but we find ways to interact.
For the last few nights Hannah's headphones and Over the Rhine CD have helped me regain a little serenity in this noisy city. Same goes for Thursday afternoon ultimate frisbee with other volunteers, and retreats to air-conditioned Starbucksian coffee shops. The cliche is that life is played out on the streets here, and I'm not inclined to argue with it.
Having the hub of the city's backpackers' party scene on the rooftop just outside our door wouldn't be such a bad thing if we were just passing through, but after almost two months of traveling, Hannah and I both hoped to live more quietly and prayerfully while working here. We're still working on that. Most mornings we drag ourselves across town to 6 a.m. mass with the Sisters of Charity at the Mother House. It's not a walk I look forward to, but it is the only time that streets here aren't packed, and it's better to pass through the meat bazaar before things really get choppin'. After mass we share breakfast with thirty or forty other volunteers and walk to the place where we work.
Prem Dan, or Gift of Love, is a walled compound in the slums run by the Missionaries of Charity. Inside are Sisters, orderlies, volunteers in the mornings, a hundred men and women with mental and physical disabilities, palm trees and a garden. We wash dishes and laundry and bodies, make beds and massage legs. Not too many of the patients are verbally active, even fewer in English, but we find ways to interact.
For the last few nights Hannah's headphones and Over the Rhine CD have helped me regain a little serenity in this noisy city. Same goes for Thursday afternoon ultimate frisbee with other volunteers, and retreats to air-conditioned Starbucksian coffee shops. The cliche is that life is played out on the streets here, and I'm not inclined to argue with it.
posted by Jonathan Hiskes at 3:04 PM
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