The Brickfields

The Brickfields

There are many different stories to tell from our three weeks here in India. Thanks to our leader, Allison Cleary and St. Michael’s long-time engagement with this part of the world we have met and participated directly with many different groups, from an organization finding alternative work for women who formerly worked in the sex industry (FreeSet Global); to a man who has developed a boarding school for more than 300 street children. Along the way we have played with children, cared for the dying and worked side by side with women who have changed their futures. And the nine of us all got to know each other better--students and teachers, fellow travelers and caring human beings. This is an amazing country, big and beautiful with a vibrancy and activity, along with the human suffering, that strikes you every day. And, as deep as the poverty is, there are people striving to change it. Here is the story of the Brickfields.

On a street in Kolkata today I passed a pile of bricks being carried on workers' heads into a building. The bricks were stamped with the word FRIEND. Bricks are used everywhere here, for houses, buildings, roads and walls. In the state of West Bengal the bricks are made by hand, south of the city in encampments called brick fields. A brick field consists of an owner, some managers and the workers—very poor people from small villages in northern India. These migrant laborers spend 8 months living on the brick field site before returning home during the monsoon. Crowded into low-slung buildings, the families work all day under baking sun to dig the mud, compress, stamp, fire and stack the bricks. The bricks are fired in tall kilns, their cylinder smoke stacks dotted eerily across the vast empty landscape . A family is paid by the number of bricks produced. Children work with their parents in the raging heat, carrying bricks and digging mud. Although child labor is against the law, the the owners explain that they pay the family, not the children.

Into this world steps the Kolkata Mary Ward Social Centre with a program to provide three hours of educational instruction for the children of the families – children that would never attend school. In the early morning, teachers from the area, found, chosen and trained by the Social Centre, instruct students. The goal is to give these kids enough “joyous education” that they can continue somewhere else as the families  can rarely return by choice to the same place.

The children meet with their teachers on a blanket under a tree or in a piece of shade. For our visit the kids were crowded into a small room to escape an early morning rainstorm. Parents joined the children in watching and clapping as children presented interactive songs. One young girl recited a poem, with her teachers beaming next to her. We sang “Itsy Bitsy Spider Climbed up the Water Spout,”  and led the packed and mixed group of students in a rousing session of Hokey  Pokey – “you stick your right arm in and you shake it all about….”

As we stuffed into this crowded room, sitting knee to knee with students, feeling the sweat of humidity and humanity, the hope that this glimpse of education can bring to these children was shining bright.

It’s been a great joy to be on this trip and witness this and other special moments with a fabulous group of students. Thanks to my fellow travelers, Saint Michael’s and Allison for the trip!

Staff assistant, Richard Watts

Kolkata, India

June 7, 2016

Wheelchair, brother!

After volunteering at Prem Dan for a week or so, and overcoming the awkward "I'm useless" phase, I developed a daily routine. First of course, was the laundry. I, along with the other various volunteers, would make my way to the roof where we would hang the clothes and bedsheets to dry. Without a doubt, something about the drying system would change from the previous day--mostly just so that the men in charge could tell you that you had done something incorrectly. Although unpredictable, even this was a part of the routine.

After laundry, I would head downstairs, and to the next building. Here, I would clean mattresses and dress the beds with fresh sheets. Of course, I had to be precise with my "French corners". Else, I would be told to start over.

Then came chai time for the residents. These men are serious about their chai, understandably so. I've even seen two of them argue a bit over who gets which cup. After distributing a few trays of chai, came the most important part of my day at Prem Dan.

"Brother! Wheelchair, brother!" Like clockwork, I would hear this from the small corner wall in the front of the sitting area. Every day, this resident would summon me to assist him, and I would happily oblige. Once I had grabbed the wheelchair (carefully selecting of course, because this gentleman is very particular about his wheelchairs), I would wheel it up to him on his left side, aligning the rightside footrest underneath his left leg. Despite my attempt to help him, this man persistently demonstrated his strength by getting settled in the chair by himself. I would put his blanket on his lap, and his two liter Sprite bottle--reused as a water bottle--after that. We'd go up the ramp into the main building, and into the bedroom. Then a left turn, a right turn, and we were at his small bed. He would place his blanket and water bottle underneath his pillow, while I removed his sandals (after learning he struggled doing this himself, I added it to my routine). Once he was ready, we'd continue on our way. His next stop was the shower, where he would need assistance reaching his back, and putting his tan, striped shirt back over his head. Once he was clean, we would head back outside to his small corner wall. After getting comfortably seated, he would say, "tea time, brother!", as if it were happening at a different time that day.

I would then head off to get my chai and biscuits, but the rest of my day isn't worth mentioning compared to my fifteen minutes with this man every day. I never learned his name, nor did he learn mine. But, we would exchange small, shy smiles upon my arrival and throughout the day. Through our simple interactions, I learned about a different kind of love, and that everyone deserves this basic human expression. It's not the kind of love that one has for family, partners, or even friends. It's the kind of love that says, "I care for your life, because I care for life itself."

Indeed, I have come to love this man.

--Nick

Procrastination at its finest

Well I began this post about FreeSet about a week ago but a rat ran by me while I was outside typing so I ran and never looked at the post again so take 2 on this post....

FreeSet is an amazing organization we get to work with during our time here in Kolkata. We got to tour around FreeSet bags and apparel and see the start of the new building they want to open. Freeset's mission is for women to live free. To do this they take women who work in the sex industry and give them jobs with FreeSet as long as they agree not to go back to the streets. They offer children day care so that the women have no reason to miss work.

FreeSet offers the women who work for them counciling on how to manage the money they earn and move on from there former lives. They encourage the women to stay where they live even after they leave the trade so that a new girl won't take her spot.

The new building they are opening is called the "incubator." The incubator is a place where people can start a new business. If a new business may not have the means to get their own workspace the incubator  will provide them space and materials to start there their company. They would also be able to hire the women who work in the bags and apparel section do to work for them. This incubator building is located on Sonagachi. Which is the biggest red light district in Kolkata.

Allison, Andie and I all got to see Sonagachi from the top of the building. When you walk by the street there is just a group of men sitting at the end trying to get other men to go down the road. There are prostitutes down the Main Street that we noticed walking to the metro. These women weren't all given the choice to work in this industry, they were forced to. Slavery is still a huge issue in the world and FreeSet is an amazing organization working to end this problem.

-Kelsey

A little bit of lotion

My Bengali is very limited.  I know some random words that are useful when riding in a tuk-tuk or carrying laundry to the hot and sunny roof to dry.  I know simple phrases that allow me to meet the women I work with at Prem Dan and learn their names.  But that is about it. I cannot hold conversations and for the most part cannot understand what many of the women try to tell me and the conversations they try to hold.

There are multiple women that I have come to know and that I greet every hot and humid morning with a "Shuprobat! Kamin achin?" (Good morning! How are you?): the woman that sits by the laundry sinks in the morning, the woman that likes to help us volunteers carry laundry buckets up the stairs everyday, the massis that joke with us and the one that told me my nose ring was on the wrong side of my nose (Indian women get the left nostril pierced, not the right).

But the women I know the best are those that ask me for lotion.  Most prefer for me to rub it on them, and a few just ask me to put some in their hand so they can do it themselves.  The two women who sit in the corner like me to rub lotion on their arms while they try to hold conversations with me and laugh and hold my hands.  The woman at the middle table with the long silver hair likes it on her arms, her back and her legs and tries to ask me questions everyday.  The woman with the walker that sits on the ledge on the side likes it on her rough-skinned feet and in between her toes.  Everyday she asks me the same question.  I answer them all with smiles, "yes"s, some head tilts, and a few "bhalo"s (good) here and there.  I desperately want to know what they are saying.  More than anything I would like to have conversations with these women and to not have to respond with my commonly used phrase "ammi Bangla janni naa".  I don't know Bengali.

The lotion is my small way of communicating. I can ask if someone wants any with one small Bengali word.  I try to put as much kindness as I can into massaging their frail limbs and dry skin.  I have discovered who likes lotion where and who just wants me to sit with them and listen to the Bengali I cannot understand while I massage their arms.  It is the most intimate thing I have done in the time I have spent with Mother Teresa's homes; more so than helping women get dressed or go the bathroom.  I try to imagine the stories they are telling me or the things they ask me.  I try to imagine their pasts and the paths their lives all took that led them to reside at Prem Dan. But for now, the lotion speaks for me.  It is the words of kindness I cannot speak and the thread that allows me to make silent connections with the lovely ladies of Prem Dan.

-Andie

P.S. I can't write this post without a shoutout to this incredible group for putting together the best 22nd birthday I could have asked for. Thanks for the chocolate cake, the card, the banner, the Taylor Swift, and the embarrassing tiara.  I love you all and I wouldn't have wanted to spend a night on a rooftop in Kolkata eating french fries with anyone else :)