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Global Urban Trek 2006
I was scammed todayJune 28
I was scammed today. Most of us were. We arrived last night at the B.M.S. Guest House, so today was our first real day walking around the streets of Calcutta. Our small goal for the morning was to buy a cake of laundry soap from Entali Market, which was about a twenty minute walk from the guest house. In spaced-out groups of four, we headed off with our first rupees. There's so much to take in; the wet heat, the very distinct smells. The moderately wide sidewalks outside the guest house looks newly laid, but garbage and liquid sludge surrounds the base of every tree and hugs most corners. People are tucked everywhere; some sitting on the sidewalk in a circle playing cards, some sleeping, or begging, and lots of people cooking and selling food under a tarp or canvas. We were staring at everything, and it felt like everything was staring back at us.
As Karen, Jenny, Corey, and I walked through the market, a young woman came up to me and held up her crying baby; "please, he's hungry. Please, so hungry." She followed me throughout the market and I talked with her, but every few sentences she reminded me "please, hungry—needs milk." We stopped at a stall and I bought her some powdered milk. She asked for two containers, but I only had rupees for one, and even then I didn't have quite enough. The vendor finally just waved his hand and said "no problem" to the short-change. The woman took the milk and left. I was crying a little when we stepped back out on the street.
On the walk back to the guest house, a very thin little girl (maybe six years old?) ran up to us and grabbed Jenny and Corey's hands. Corey said later that holding the little girl's hand reminded her of all the kids in her class back home, and it broke her heart to see the girl bare-foot and begging for food.
Again we eventually stopped at a stand and the girl, who's name we learned was Uskouni, asked for milk. After Corey bought her the milk, she continued to walk with us, one hand in Corey's and the other wrapped around the milk box. I felt pretty uncomfortable with this. As Corey put it, we had become "Santa People," and like a walking advertisement, we were now heading down the street with a little friend who had obviously gotten something out of us through her friendship. Before we reached the guest house, Corey knelt down and told the little girl goodbye. We came back having spent the majority of our money, and not feeling very good about any of it.
As Jenny, Karen, Corey and I sat on a bed in their room discussing what had just happened, the other groups started coming back and telling about their experiences. Kaitlin and Amanda's group said, "we met this woman with a baby in the market, she said her baby was hungry and was asking for milk…"
As it turns out, "Milk, please" is one of the most basic scams that exists in Calcutta. Because it is a fairly expensive product, people like the woman from the market and little Uskouni can sell it back to the same vendor we bought it from for slightly less money. Both vendor and beggar make a small profit. And in Uskouni's case, the money is probably given to an older kid or adult who has recruited her to beg money from foreigners.
Later that day, Hillary and I were out exploring the other side of the city when we passed two little boys crouching by a tin and tarp shelter. The older one held up his middle finger to us. We walked by, and a few seconds later I said, "Were we just flipped-off by a 5 year old?" "Yah," she said, "Does he even know what that means?"
During dinner that night, while our whole group was eating at a restaurant, there was another bunch of young boys standing outside the restaurant's doorway. They were laughing and waving their middle fingers at us. I nudged Hillary, "I think they do know what that means." The same group of boys swarmed us as soon as we left the restaurant: "Hello Auntie! Hello Auntie!" They were more than half the size of Kaitlin and Lynn, and grabbed at their bags, poked them with a stick they were carrying, and hung off all of our arms.
Only some of the group had made it across the street, but the girls decided that it would be best if Stephen waited for the rest of our group while we fled. One boy yelled "F—you!" as I broke free and walked quickly away. I hoped the children wouldn't eat Stephen for dinner. They didn't, but later he said they did pat his pockets for coins.
It is difficult for me to stay soft-hearted in the face of this kind of abusive poverty. But although that poverty seems to be the loudest in Calcutta, it is not the most pervasive. I have also seen the silent, heart-breaking poverty of men with missing limbs crawling on the sidewalk, women with skin diseases, babies with crusty heads, families that never hold out their hands living without a roof, rickshaw pullers sleeping upright with their spindly arms tangled in their carts to hold them up, and rows and rows of sleepers out on the open road or in abandoned buildings.
Joel has encouraged us to not block out any of it; whether loud or quiet poverty. He gave us the visual image of "breathing deeply" as we walk through the streets. If we were to take his advice literally, I'm sure that it would kill us. Calcutta is quite fragrant, and the smells often vary dramatically from one step to the next.
I find myself holding my breath as I walk through something particularly foul. In the figurative sense it's easy to do the same thing as I move throughout the day. I create buffers, whether humor, self-preoccupation, or avoidance, that keep me from taking-in every part of the city. But the goal is to take it all in, even if I have no idea what to do with little children who know the F-word.
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