India: Not So Black and White

While India has had it's fair share of challenges, my time there was filled with the most incredible generosity and kindness. From the moment I landed in India I was met by this hospitality (the man who shared his food with us in the Chennai airport) and it just continued from there. 

There are two instances of this extraordinary goodness inherent in all Indians that I would like to share. First and foremost, you'd think the heat alone would make anyone and everyone terribly crabby and grouchy. This is not the case.

On one of our last few days, Kayla and I were on the bus into town. Kayla took out her wallet, paid for her bus fare, and set it back down on her seat. We sit, chatting during the twenty minutes or so it takes to get into town. Before we know it we've arrived at our stop and it's time to get off the bus that never exactly stops but just kind of comes to a crawl as you hop off. We start heading down the street and make it two or three minutes when Kayla stops. She bends down and starts searching through her bag. Apparently she couldn't find her phone. As she doing this a rickshaw driver comes up. I just kind of brush him off because rickshaw drivers are always hassling us to take their rickshaw, but this one is persistent. Finally I turn around. He looks down at Kayla, taps her and hands her her wallet - complete with 5000 rupees (about $100) and her debit card. She had left it on the bus and this man tracked us down to give it back to her. In a country where people's life savings are less than what she had in her wallet, it seemed a miracle that she got it back fully intact. When we were talking about it though, we realized it was no miracle, it was simply the inherent goodness in the Indian people that prevails through their culture despite the poverty. 

One of my favorite memories of India is of something that truly never would have happened back in the States. I was spending the day at a mental hospital, touring the grounds, meeting the patients, when suddenly, my shoe broke. Out of no where, this woman comes up to me and starts speaking to me in Tamil. I have absolutely no idea what she is saying when, just as quickly as she appeared, she takes off. I continue walking, attempting to make the best of my broken shoe when the woman reappears. She comes up to me and hands me a pair of bright pink, new sandals. The staff then proceeds to tell me that she is a patient there and that she had bought those shoes with her own limited funds and then retrieved them from her store of her possessions for me. I was so unbelievably touched. This woman, who has spent at least ten years in this mental institution (it was a facility for long term care), who has very little to call her own so quickly and selflessly offered up to a complete stranger her own shoes. 

This is India. 

This is the India I have come to know and love. It is full of the little things, the little details, which add up to so much. And India taught me a lot of little things, which have added up to a whole lot.

The following are a few snapshots of an incredibly diverse country. All of these were taken in my little corner of South Eastern India which barely even begins to touch all that India has to offer, but they begin to capture the uniqueness and beauty of this country.

She's Dead.

Kayla and I were nervous about our impending stay at St. Joseph's for

the Dying Destitute. We had heard from other volunteers that it could

be quite a lot to handle and, at times, appalling. So much was said

that Alixe actually decided to opt out.

Despite the negative feedback we tried to stay open minded. We knew

that it would be difficult, but we had no idea just how tough it would

be.

After an hour long drive to Dindigal, a little town more or less in

the middle of nowhere, we reached the hospice. As we drove in through

the gate I was pleasantly surprised. We were greeted by a beautiful wall of pink bougainvilleas

and could see yellow-orange, red, purple, and white flowers further

down the path. For a place so filled with death, I was amazed by how

much life blossomed here.

We then met the ever busy Sister who runs the place. She told us to

acquaint ourselves with the hospice and that she would catch up with

us. She never did come find us.

We began to walk around the grounds. I felt I had been fairly

forewarned. I foolishly thought to myself "if this is all, I can

handle it." While my heart broke for the people we passed who were

crippled with age, had deformities, or were just skin and bones, all

were up and moving around (some with the help of a walker) outside in

the sunlight.

Apparently, these were the patients in the downstairs ward. The

upstairs ward was home to others not as fortunate.

Now, we had arrived at right about noon, so our next order of business was to help serve

lunch. Kayla stayed downstairs while I was ushered upstairs to serve.

Nearly all the beds in the upstairs woman's ward were filled - about

fifty beds in total. And out of the roughly forty-five beds that were

occupied, only maybe five had full function of their legs. These women were imprisoned in their own bodies. They could not get up. They could not move around. Many lied around in their own filth all day long until their fellow patients put them in a wheelchair and wheeled them to their one daily “rinse” every morning. These women were alive, but they were not living.  

As I let myself adjust to this sight of women, young and old, almost

all who appeared emaciated and were on the brink of death, I

let myself get absorbed in the mindless task of ladling the sauce over the rice- trying to process it all.

Once all the spooning of rice and ladling of sauce was complete, I

went in to check that all the women had received a dish I saw that one

bed was lacking that telltale metal plate - the metal plates I came

to despise as they always put hot goods in them and everyone knows

that metal is a conductor of heat. I always got burned carrying those

damn metal plates. Childishly, this was what was running through

my mind as I was carrying one of those metal plates to the plate-less

bed.

I'm walking over to hand this burning hot plate to this one woman

when, from behind, I hear:

She's dead.

I stop. This can't be I'm looking at her frail body, draped in a

purple night gown and I can't wrap my mind around the fact that the

woman lying is front of me is no longer with us. All the patients

around her are engaged in devouring their meals, some are even chatting with the women in the beds next to them. None of them seemed phased by the dead woman lying a bed or two over

from them. This doesn’t seem real. 

I ask if we should put a blanket over her The "nurse" (she's twenty,

speaks minimal English - but is the only "English speaking" nurse) who

has not even finished her studies, puts a blanket in front of her bed.

Confused, I ask again: "Should we put a blanket over her?"

No response.

At this point, Kayla has finished serving downstairs and comes up in

search of me. The nurse, Michelle (who is an absolute sweetheart),

then enlists our help in something I never thought I would

do.

She motions us to help her pick up this woman's body and lay it down

on the blanket.

I took a step back. All I wanted to do at that moment was call my dad.

I was compelled to ask him "how do you do it?"

How do you do it?

I don't know how my dad does it, but I shut down. I cradled this

woman's head in my arms and, with Kayla and Michelle, we lowered her

down onto the blanket. Michelle wrapped the blanket around her and

handed us course string to tie the blanket around her body with.

One string at her neck, one at her elbows, one at her stomach, one at

her knees, one at her ankles.

Just tie.

Hidden by the blanket, it looked like the body of a child - so small,

so fragile, almost nonexistent.

We went out to get the cart to bring her outside to the "cemetery."

Down the ramp we went - empty handed. Back up the ramp we went - up to

retrieve her body. Back down the ramp we went. Down with her body

catching its last glimpse of sunlight before it would be sealed away

behind concrete wall.

We stopped under the shade of a tree. Michelle went to fetch the

father to say a final prayer for the woman.

As we were standing under that tree, a single, silent tear rolled down my cheek.

As the other nurses gathered around and the father prayed a final

prayer, one of the patients went and gathered some flowers. He secured

them right under her hands - one final act of love.

Those same pink bougainvilleas that I thought were so full of life were

now her parting gift in death.

Kayla and I watched as they slid her into that concrete mausoleum. And

we watched as they sealed it. And we watched as they walked away.

We mourned for this woman. We mourned for this woman that we never even met. And we mourned a little for ourselves, for the change that comes within when you carry, tie and watch a dead body disappear. 

This was all within the first hour of being at the hospice. And while

death is hard to watch, spending the next few days watching the dying...there's no way to

describe the impact that has.

In my short time at the hospice for the dying destitute, so much

happened. Things I cannot express with words, stories and emotions

that can only be conveyed with body language and even tears. And then

there are some experiences which I will never be able to share -

experiences which will always be wholly mine.

While some experiences I truly can't write out, there is one more from

the hospice I would like to share. Later.

For now, each country has taught me a different unique lesson that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. South Africa taught me Ubuntu - I am because we are. Peru: Poroy - for today.

In India, more specifically at the hospice, being spending so much time around death and around people who are struggling to live, I've learned that it's not enough to just value life, you must value living.