shanti dan

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Oh, Shanti Dan. There is not a place in India that has worked its way into my heart quite like Shanti Dan. Every morning except Thursday and Sunday, I work from about 8-12 at this home for “mentally challenged” women. I arrive and am immediately greeted by multiple shouts of “Auntie!!! Good morning!!! How are you I am fine!” The women call all of the volunteers “auntie”. I help make all the beds, and then until 10, my job is essentially to give the women as much attention as I possibly can. And they will take every bit of attention they can get. Sometimes I cut and paint their nails, sometimes I color with them, sometimes I sing to/with them, sometimes we just “chat”. Whatever they are interested in at the time.

There’s one little old granny who can count to ten in English. That’s pretty much the basis of our relationship- she sees me and launches into a display of her counting prowess. The best part is when she gets to the end: “eight, nine, ten…ZERO!!!!” For some reason, “zero” has become the celebration that comes after ten. It’s so great that I won’t even consider correcting it.

There’s another lady who likes to steal other womens’ coloring pages. I watch her steathily sidle over, and then she grabs their paper and runs. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I always have to grab the paper back and then physically hold her back while I get her a new page for her. She only colors on her own pages for about 30 seconds before losing interest- I think she likes the thrill of the snatch more than the actual coloring. The funniest part about this lady is that she always forgets the word “auntie” and follows me around saying, “Monkey. Monkey.” So now before I give her a new coloring page, we have this little vocab lesson:

Me: (holding the paper behind my back and dodging her attempts to grab it from me) “A mar nam ki?” (What is my name?)

Her: “Ummm…ummm…ummm…Monkey.”

Me: “Na. A mar nam Auntie. A mar nam ki?” (No. My name is Auntie. What is my name?)

Her: “Tu mar nam Auntie.” (Your name is Auntie.)

Me: “Palo! Palo!” (Good! Good!)

Then I give her the paper, and she walks away with it, often saying, “Monkey. Monkey.” Ha.

After a usually very entertaining couple of hours, I have a tea break, and then I have English lessons with Julie. Julie was brought to the home as an orphan when she was 10. She has lived there her whole life- she is now 23. She has no disabilities; she simply has nowhere else to go. She helps around the home- with cleaning and dispensing medicines and dressing wounds. We work on her English for about an hour every day. Her spoken English is very good- we practice her reading and writing. She is incredibly smart, and I love our time. In return, she is teaching me a little Bengali, which is the only reason why I’m able to have any sort of exchange like the “what is my name?” conversation above. She teaches me the basics, like “what is your name?”, counting to ten, please and thank you, and she also teaches me important phrases for Shanti Dan like, “you have to wait”, which is invaluable when I have 7 women crowding around, putting their hands in my face to get their nails painted, or “you have to come with me”, for when they try to make a break for it or sneak into the volunteer room. I’m not as good of a student as Julie is, but I’m learning a lot, and it’s really fun (not to mention helpful) to know when I’m out and about in the city. During all of our lessons, another lady doodles in a notepad and interrupts sporadically to show me her “work”. Does it get more endearing than this? This same lady has taken to smacking me on the butt whenever she walks by me. I’m not sure what the deal is with that, but I’m trying to put a stop to it…

So those are my sweet mornings. It’s a very optimistic picture of it- in addition to the obvious joys, there have been a lot of difficulties about the home that I will be processing for a long time. But overall, I have loved these ladies and have had a really fun time with them.

Details on Kalighat soon…

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