Sitting on a red plastic chair while a crow caws outside the open window

Saturday 28 May 2016
I Am Sitting On a Red Plastic Chair While I Hear a Crow Caw Outside the Open Window 

Knock, knock, knock.
Pause.
Knock, knock, knock. Knock...knock.
Doby, the laundry man, knocked on our door at precisely 6:55am.
"Hello, Good Morning, Do you need any laundry?"
He says this with a smile, and I immediately respond with one back to him.

          This is the typical scenario that occurs at the same time each morning in our room here at BMS (the place we are staying for those that may not know). While this interaction takes less than a minute, it is one of the countless interactions we have here each and every day. As we have become a bit more comfortable with our sites, the people we work with, navigating the streets, we have started to notice how most things in Kolkata are routine. They are crazy, zany, and wild - yes - but they are also quite comforting - and even rather special - at the same time.

• Toast with butter and jam, and the one single hard-boiled egg for breakfast. 
• Also, the servers switch off oatmeal & Corn Flakes in a "two-days-on-two-days-off" pattern.
• Taking the red bus to Howrah station with Liam and Mo as the money collector yells out "Howrah! Howrah!Howrah!" and we each pay him 8 rupees.
• Holding hands and walking the same paths through each room with the gentlemen Mo, Liam, and I work with at Nabo Jibon.
• The infamous "tea time" break at 10:20am sitting on those brown benches.
• Telling the tuk-tuk drivers "Elliot Corner" as we proceed to get in and whiz past a bike-rider, a taxi, a person-drawn tuk-tuk, a  and twenty-four other tuk-tuks. 
• Seeing the corn lady sell corn at the same exact corner sitting on the same exact tin bucket.
• Ending each night with group reflection at approximately 8:32pm sitting in Kelancey's (Kelsey, Andie, and CeCe's) room. 
• Looking over at someone, seeing them smile, and thinking "Life is Absolutely Beautiful."

For me, writing a blog post is something I have found unusually difficult and remarkably challenging to do. I only have a limited amount of words and phrases to summarize my thoughts and feelings in addition to the general summaries of our experiences here in Kolkata. I mean, I find myself capable of writing extensively about an array and assortment of different aspects about our days and what we are doing.

It is however, safe to say we have all been touched by countless moments. But I have started to appreciate is the magnitude of the moments varies greatly. Personally, I have found great beauty in the simple, ordinary actions, events, and conversations that take place over the course of our days.

I keep a journal, and I write in it any chance I get. There are thousands of little things that happen every minute, every hour, and every day here, and I want to be able to remember as any as I can. The small, ordinary details of our days are the things that tend to slip our long-term memory, but they are the moments that can touch us in the most unexpected ways. Life is not always made up of great, momentous events, but rather it's the small, every day actions and events that allow us to keep doing what we do.

I was flipping through my journal just now and stumbled upon a short passage of what I wrote four days a ago:
             "Every day you pick up a new, small detail that you never noticed before. It could be             something rather large and highly visible, or it could be something tiny and minute, a small fraction of a 'thing.' But either the case, it is something you never noticed before...But now you do, and that is pretty cool."


Till next time,
Tyler






,