Final weeks in Kolk

We're leaving tomorrow and our days in Kolkata will be over. I'm not going to be very sad to say goodbye to the thick pollution that coats my skin with filth everyday, but I have grown familiar with living in Jodphur Park on and off for the last 2 months. It's been a blessing to be able to make the decision most mornings of whether I want to eat the brown 'sugar and spice' bread with peanut butter, or have banana and cornflakes. Sounds weird, but when it's not your own home, you have no choice but to buy off the street and eat something oily, or a curry.
We've had a quiet space, away from the noise to come home to at the end of each trip. There will be no more Amazon's or South Indian noodles, or seeing the dripping water pipe at the end of the road which was my landmark for coming home, or spending time with the kid downstairs, being crazy with him! No more metro trips into town to pickup various things, including the occasional strawberry pack (which we just discovered the other week), or even knowing where to buy the imported apples for a treat. I bought some last week to say goodbye to Wes and Darryl, and then forgot to cut them up...so we've been enjoying them this week, little by little.

Last week we arrived back from Serenga to find the entrance to our road blocked and the cement all dug up. Cool..and interesting, something going on. 2 weeks later, it's all finished. But the road no longer looks like a road. Instead of recementing, they've just tried to fill up the gaps with the old cement. Random bits lying all around. No concept of cleaning up after themselves.

We've been watching block of flats go up down the road, and yesterday as I walked past I just stopped and watched. The scaffolding is wood. Two men are standing on different levels doing the same job, covering the bricks with cement. There is someone down the bottom mixing cement, and a pully system with ropes and a bucket to send the cement up and down. Amazing.

Another building project is going on in the opposite direction. We have a mall bigger than marion going up so so quickly. Within 3 mins walking distance, if we stayed, we'd never have to spend money travelling to buy anything!! Although maybe that's not going to be true as last night Jona and I set out to buy something for dinner. We had two places to visit. After arriving at one major supermarket and finding that there is no refrigeration section selling meat and wasn't much more than a massive roadside stall with clothes added, we moved onto the next one and got taken to the wrong place and ended up in a market place. Where we walked past isles and isles of men selling fruit and vege, also managed to see some goats heads just sitting there, and a chicken being wrenched apart. Wasn't feeling so much like eating meat at the end of that, and was too exhausted to bother taking a taxi any further and the excursion took a total of 2 hours to get to 2 places. Was thinking of my Woolworths at home at the end of that exercise... just wanting to reach my hand into the freezer and pull out..... something different.

Although I can't really complain, the food isn't bad, and while in the flat we've been quite spoilt. I made a chicken pasta to bid goodbye to Wes before he flew to Bangladesh for the bw, and we've had banana caramel pie a few times, and also choc brownie, (c/o Dad).


Last week.

There are a few things best forgotten... and our trip to Serenga was horrific from start to finish. It began with the most hideous bus ride I've ever been through... closed my eyes for the majority of it, and held on. On the way back it was even worse, as the driver just put his hand on the horn and his foot on the brake, and only slowed down a fraction to let people jump off. So we grasped the chair in front and kept praying!!!
Arriving in Serenga, feeling like you'd just been on a show ride that you weren't allowed to get off, we were thinking it was going to be nice to have a rest, shower and then meet up with the bre and sisters, but we were escorted straight into their hall and began our fellowship with them. That evening we went to buy water, and then realised that this is the town that you can't buy any mineral water. They have no need, no tourists would go there, so they just don't supply any bottled drinks at all to the town. You can imagine how poor it is. The feel was awful as well. I've never walked through a town where I've felt uncomfortable or the people weren't friendly before.
So no water, no nice aura, then there was the food ordeal. The first night we had a dinner of biscuits, because our study went too late, and the shops were closed. Our one reprieve was the clean hotel rooms.
The ecclesia had quite a few issues to sort through.

While in the village it was the time of the rice harvest. It was a total education to me, how it all works without big machinery, and how it really is, in the sweat of your face eating bread. The rice had been dried by the time we got to it, and I helped with the threshing machines, blowing away the grain from the husks, and then moving the grains to the store house. This was all done once the classes were finished for the morning. They said they'd hire me for 40 rups a morning, which would've been cool, it's a lot more than payment for tutoring English.

I had my first piggyback ride on the back of a bicycle in Serenga. I just couldn't stay on... after about 50m I'd be jumping off to do some walking, and then getting back on, and off and on. Don't think I'll ever learn to keep my balance with my legs not being supported by anything, it's such bad posture for your back.

It was there that I found out the best way to transport goats from one place to another. Put them in bags and carry them on the handle bars of your bicycle. Amazing isn't it. There was a slaughter house in front of our hotel. And each day we'd see different goats tied up in the morning, and not there in the evening. The thing that I queried the most the first night was seeing a food joint being washed down for the evening, and then a man directing a goat inside to spend the evening there. We realised that it was being kept for milk, and that was just the easiest place to keep it!

We were glad to arrive back in Kolkata, even though it meant we had the serving brothers meeting to arrange for the weekend. We live in total luxury, compared to so many ppl in this world.