kalighat

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Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, I leave Shanti Dan, grab lunch, and head over to Kalighat (or Nirmal Hriday, Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying and Destitutes) to volunteer from 3-5-ish.  Kalighat is a very different experience than Shanti Dan.

In India, many people get sick and waste away on the street until they die there. Mother Teresa opened Kalighat in order to give these people a place to come where they could be loved and die with dignity. Some people get well and are able to leave, but for many, this is not the case. Everyone at Kalighat is very sick. Our job as volunteers is to love them as best we can. The conditions there seem pretty grim when compared to the nursing homes and hospitals that westerners are used to, but in comparison to dying on the street or in the public hospitals, Kalighat is an amazing refuge of mercy for these people.

Kalighat is separated into two parts- one for men and one for women. There are about 50 beds in each area. We have tasks that we do every day- laundry, handing out medicine, serving dinner, and washing dishes. For the laundry, we dunk piles of clothes into vats of disinfectant and water, then we climb into the vats and stomp around on the clothes to get them clean. We rinse them, wring them out, and carry them to the roof to hang them to dry.

For dinner, many of the ladies can feed themselves, but there are a handful who cannot. I usually end up feeding one of these ladies. It is so difficult for them to eat even just a little, and it is such a slow process. But they are so painfully thin that it’s worth sitting there for an hour just to get even half a plate of food into them. There was one woman, Paro, who had refused to eat for three days. I had to sit with her and a Sister and literally fight to get her to eat- her medication was so strong that if she wasn’t eating, it would kill her. It was awful.

Between these tasks, we just walk around and try to do whatever we can to make the ladies more comfortable- spreading blankets, passing out/cleaning up bed pans, giving massages and lotion. There is one blind woman who is severely depressed- Malory. I spend a lot of time singing to her.  

There is another woman named Saraswoti who is paralyzed on one side of her body, and she’s not allowed in her bed during the day because she will sleep the entire time. She yells at everyone who walks by to put her in her bed. I always stop, and we have a little argument about the fact that she has to wait until after dinner. She is so funny- she never smiles, and she always yells in this gruff, angry voice. But if you stop and talk to her a little, you realize that she’s not yelling- she always talks like that. I ask her what her name is; she yells, “Saraswoti!” I ask her how she’s doing; she yells, “Bad!” (Sometimes she yells good, but usually bad, because I won’t put her in her bed).  She’s been learning my name. I always ask her what my name is, and she makes up something different every day. I tell her that my name is Megan, and she repeats it (still yelling, of course). I come back and ask her again a few minutes later, and some days she remembers. Now sometimes she stops me when I walk by just to hold my hand for a minute. But our exchanges always end with, “Put me in my bed!” “No! After dinner!”

Kalighat is difficult for many different reasons. It’s hard to see people so sick, and often from something that could have been prevented or treated early on with the resources and education that is simply unavailable to them. It’s also really hard to have these women so clearly in pain and to be unable to understand what they’re asking of me. They’re looking intently at me, squeezing my hand, asking me for something in Bengali, and I just can’t understand. And often I think that even if I could understand, the relief they’re looking for is probably more than I’m able to give. It’s hard to be there to help and to look around and have so little that I can actually do. But I’m learning (slowly, because I’m hard-headed) that just sitting and hugging and singing to people can be the best thing I can do. Sometimes sitting and talking with them is just what they need, even if you speak different languages. Most of all, I’m reminded constantly that the best thing I can do is be in prayer for them, which I often forget until I have absolutely nothing else to give.

So we love and we hug and we sing and we pray. And we wash dishes and clothes and bed pans. And we trust that doing these things for the “least of these” is something of great importance.

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