1/11

Life so far moves at a very different pace here. Everywhere you go people serve you coffee, which ends up taking quite a bit of time. The coffee is instant and usually contains a large spoonful of brown sugar. You stay until you have consumed the entire cup of coffee. This practice makes life seem slower, and more focused around people. In contrast, when you are in a car, taxi, rickshaw, auto, bus, bicycle or motorbike, time is of the essence. It seems to be important to go fast, weave around others, and make as much noise with you horn as possible. Driving is an act of faith in India, and an example of life moving very quickly. There is also a lot of downtime for me. Father is very busy, and so today for instance; I had time to myself from 1-4, 6-8 and 9 until bedtime. I spent most of the time from 1-4 writing lesson plans and typing this, but I also read. In the evenings I write in my journal, shower, and read. I think I will start a stretching routine for the evenings. I hope that as time progresses Father will let me help on projects for SWI, so that I can be helpful. But he has also told me that my first lesson in India is to relax, and slow down.
I went to mass this morning. I work up at 6:45 and mass was at 7am. I was amazed that I woke up on my own at that time, but I guess that is what happens when you go to bed at 10pm. The mass is in a room about the size of a dorm room, with a table up front acting as an alter. Everyone sits on the floor, women on the left side of the room and men on the right (which I admittedly messed up the first time I walked into the room, when I sat on the men’s side, then I noticed it, left the room, asked someone outside who didn’t understand me, and then went and sat next to one of the woman). You take your shoes off outside. The priests do the talking, but two nuns from the back of the room began all of the songs. The singing was beautiful, and I hummed along. There is standing, kneeling and sitting. People keep their heads bowed during most of the service. I don’t understand Bengali, so I can’t be completely sure as to what was happening, but I seemed to recognize a few elements of the mass: the peace, the Nicene creed, the homily, and the communion. I understood two words in Bengali, first was Christo, which I assume means Christ, and second John, which I think was talking about John the Baptist. For the peace you hold you palms together over your heart and bow at people, for communion the women walk up first and then the men. After mass I talked with a man who was very nice, and then with a younger man who told me a lot about how schools work in India. It is neat being able to meet new people and I feel I have been decently outgoing.
I went to DDC today, which is also known as the training center. I don’t know who lives there (besides the nuns), but it is a large compound with dogs, chickens, pigs, cows, and lots of vegetables and other crops growing. At one point in time the sister who was showing us around mentioned a snake being there last week, and I have to admit I was officially freaked out from that point on. I also visited the Missionaries of Charity; they work with children who are sick and/or orphaned. Fr. Puthumai was taking a dog from DDC to the MC’s so they could breed the dog with one of theirs. We stayed there for coffee and to see that the dogs were introduced to each other. We also stopped by St. Xavier School, which is a school for wealthy children. I was introduced to quite a few men, who I assume were priests. The school was very large, and the priests were nice.
My favorite meal so far is breakfast. For breakfast we get to use silverware and there are noodles, which I very much so enjoy. There is also toast and hard-boiled eggs. At breakfast today I tried a potato like vegetable, tapioca. It was very starchy, but tasted fine. Lunch today was rice, dal, what looked like peas cooked in something spicy, potatoes that were very good, small Indian bananas, mandarins with lots of seeds and fried fish. I ate the rice with my hand, and let me tell you that is harder than it looks. You use your four fingers as a spoon and then your thumb to scoop/push the food into your mouth. The Fathers made fun of me, because I was not very good at it. I have not been eating very much, but I am not very hungry. The Fathers comment at every meal about the things that I don’t eat or the amounts of the things that I do eat. It is a little strange being served, and none of the servers seem to speak English, so I can’t communicate with them. It is also different eating with 3 Fathers, although conversation seems to flow relatively smoothly. At dinner we watch the news while we eat. We take a coffee break at 4pm, and today Father had one of the servants go buy somosas from a street vendor. Everyone was laughing, speaking Bengali and looking at me. I asked Father what was in them before I ate one. It was wheat and pulses in the shell and potatoes and spices on the inside. They were spicy, but very good.
This evening we went shopping. Father and a woman who used to work for the SWI walked me down the street to buy two Indian outfits and shoes for the shower. One of the outfits is blue and the other is salmon. The blue one is cotton and premade, it has black stitching patterned into the fabric to look like flowers. The salmon one is chiffon and we took it to a tailor to be made, it also had gold sparkles on it. The woman who used to work at the SWI (and whose name started with an m) was very nice, she took me to the tailor and on the walk home we stopped and had tea and a hard-boiled egg from a street vendor.
The weather here has surprised me. When I stepped out of the airplane I began sweating almost immediately. The first night in Kolkata I thought I was going to sweat through my clothes. On the train up I was still warm. But in Raiganj it is cold. The temperature itself is pretty warm, but there is so much moisture in the air, that it makes your bones feel cold; especially at night and in the mornings. It was foggy this morning, and a few people from mass said that is normal.