"It takes a village. Literally."

"It takes a village. Literally."

Namaste! Hola! Hello!

  My name is Jacqui and this is my first time blogging ever, so bare with me. It is the first of June (which is also my older brother Paul's 23rd birthday...happy birthday!) and Kolkata is just as hot as it was two weeks ago when we arrived. It is our last week volunteering at the Mother Teresa homes. Emily, Sunny and I are volunteering at Shanti Dan. Shanti Dan, which translates to "House of Peace." Here, there are girls and women with a range of mental and physical differences and disabilities. It has been a tough couple of weeks but it is also great to start making connections and start seeing smiles appear.

  Today was tough because Sunny and I were on unofficial "bathroom duty." We had to bring quite a few to use the bathroom, which means, for girls who are wheelchair bound, we have to physically pick them off the wheelchair and put them on the toilet seat. In the Kolkata heat, picking up and putting down people is a lot of work. 

The first girl we had to put on the toilet, C, spoke pretty good English and understood us pretty well. I must say, it was a comedy show for C to watch me and Sunny. We were dumbfounded and clueless at how to even begin. C was talking to us in Bengali, the one words which we know are "good", "hello", "beautiful" and "I think you are a good person". (Thanks Bean/Sumil!) She kept telling us things in her language while Sunny and I kept looking at each other, wide eyed like a deer in headlights. "Maybe if you grab her feet.nope not that foot the other.." "You get the left side..ok the right.." "How about we just get help?" At this time, after witnessing Sunny and I pretty being two of the Three Stooges, C started to laugh. At us. We realized as we were about to leave the bathroom to head back to the classroom that C was saying, "My shoe! My shoe!" In a fit of stress and confusion, us two volunteers realized we didn't put C's shoes back on. But she knew. And she laughed. "It takes a village" said Sunny, referencing to all the help from the mashi we got in order to get one girl to use the restroom.

 However, I feel that this saying could be used in a broader sense: that a community of help and support is essential to get the job done. Ranging from the needed bathroom trips, to doing two hours of laundry a day, to feeding and carrying girls into bed, the Mother Teresa homes rely on volunteers to help run them. Also, they rely on us volunteers for a good chuckle :)

     Jacqui