(Day 3 in Kolkata and the group still doesn't know I wasn't suppose to be here.....shhhhh)

       Third day in Kolkata and this is the second day of service at our respective sites. I'm at Nabo Jibon, which is a long (feels like forever) but beautiful journey near the section of Kolkata called Hadwah. This journey is where you see the true lives of those living in Kolkata. In the city it's crowded people, cars, bike, and over 10 modes of transportation, the best being the tuk tuk (rickshaws). But in the outskirts where Nabo Jibon is, it has less cars, people and a more toned down lifestyle. Nabo Jibon is a house that welcomes handicapped and mentally ill men 16 and up mostly those who "graduated" from Daya Dan, which the house for young boys under 16. What Tyler, Liam, Ben (our Australian friend), Cole I(our from from Vanderbilt), and I do is simply play and hangout with them like our family. We message their feet, backs, and hands, play soccer, or simply walk around or wheel them around. Some guy already wants me to buy him a watch, he really wants a watch.  He's very persistent about that watch, like we drew a picture of a watch in my hand and a paper of what a watch looks like and wrote in Bengali (which is yet to be translated) the specific watch he wants. 

      Houses such as Nabo Jibon are what Mother Teresa wanted to build for those who were shunned by family and kicked and had no placce to go. What the brothers there
 do and what we do as volunteers is take care of them and love them for being people and not not people who simply "lucked out". This being the third day, we learned so much in so little time. During our voyage between the inner city and the outer "borough", we get to see those who are truly impoverished. They don't live like the poor who makes ends meet by selling all types of things or food in the city where mother house and all the other houses are located. No, they can be categorized
as what is known as the untouchables.

       These people live in clay or mud huts that are almost the size of a bathroom and there are hundreds of thousands of huts there. During the morning hours of our bus ride there we see people burning trash, drinking dirty water, collecting trash bags full of metal, bottles, and cans. This is just to make the means to eat, let alone eat for the next day if possible. This is a 30 minute glimpse of extreme poverty that occurs during a day-to-day basis for these people. This 3rd day in Kolkata was an eye opener; and you literally open your eyes because you're just baffled by how much is going on, the craziness of the buses and street life, and how we don't know where we're going so one 

little distraction can make us lose our step  and be lost. So we have got to keep our eyes open for our stop.

       I have a lot to write because we're just chillin' for the night and it's a lot to take in here. But Kolkata is the city of never ending car horns and "beautiful chaos." Just three days and everyone
 loves this city already (including Allison even though this is her fourth time here). Mohamed out.

-Mohamed