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Navigating
6/25/09
This week, we have been learning how to navigate the city, ourselves, each other, and God.
Navigation of the city means splitting into teams to complete lists of tasks: cross the Hooghli River by bus and ferry, buy food at the market, find St. James’ Cathedral, drink coffee at the historic coffee shop on College Street. We’ve encountered concrete and metal, the smells of incense and dead fish, chai and exhaust, and lots of people.
In figuring out where we are going, how we are going to get there, and managing all the interactions those require, we encounter our own limitations. The gender dynamics here have been very challenging for me. Men and women are not supposed to make physical contact, and there are separate ladies’ sections on cars and trains. For our placements, we divide into groups with both boys and girls.
Living together in one place and sharing meals, joys, and challenges, we can’t help but learn to get along. (It doesn’t hurt that this is pretty much an awesome group of people.) We have a common budget for food and transportation and a focus on simplicity and building community, which so far means playing lots of Hot Seat (the "truth" part of "Truth or Dare"). In smaller groups, we challenge each other to think more seriously about Jesus and the Kingdom of God and how we interact with the world.
It is hard to see poverty and experience injustice, but we are trying to remember our roles in challenging structures of oppression and recognizing the power of God’s love to change even deeply entrenched systems. Poverty is in your face here, and you might walk past shanties and beggars to buy mangos at the market or get to a bus. The intensity was shocking for some of us at first.
It feels really good to be in Kolkata, however, and we are learning a lot. One of us describes the city as “a living paradox, beautiful and terrible at the same time.” Another notes its “haunting beauty” and the visible contradictions of its colonial past.
The temperature is near 100 degrees, and the only time we feel cool is when we're taking showers! Even the long-time residents are sweating – they say it has never been so hot for so long. The monsoon will bring relief from the heat, but also floods and a new set of problems. People and dogs lie on the sidewalk, panting in the heat and waiting for respite.
“But to the poor, O Lord, you are a refuge from the storm. To the needy in distress, you are a shelter from the rain and the heat. For the oppressive acts of ruthless people are like a storm beating against a wall, or like the relentless heat of the desert. But you…cool the land with the shade of a cloud. So the boastful songs of ruthless people are stilled.” (Isaiah 25.4-5)
Beautiful.
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