Life is getting to be a bit of a blur, so I apologize if I mix up the order of things in this blog. I am sitting on a plane right now with no access to the internet, and I have cut back on my technology to my little laptop, so I can’t look at the blog off line. Ok, I will quit making excuses and start writing.
The last time I had an internet connection and any time to blog was Aizawl, city on the edge. I had no connection in Kolkutta, and by the time I hit London, I had internet but no brain. Hope the emails I sent out made sense. The 3 hours I spent conscious with my family last night, I did not want to spend on the computer, so no blog then, either....Ok, I promise I will start writing something useful-ish now. (Perhaps my editor will just cut all this preliminary rambling out).
Kolcutta. What can I say? We finished our work in the countryside a day early and hoped to get back home a day early. It was not to be, but at least we spent the day in Kolkutta, not Aizawl. One never knows if you will get out of Aizawl because of the mudslides on the way to the airport and the cloud at the airport. We had rain every afternoon, and if it socks in they don’t fly. At all. Period. Once I was over the disappointment of not getting home a day early, I was able to take in what Kolkutta has to offer: heat, humidity, garbage, and the crush of people all trying to make a living for their families. I don’t think there is much of a safety net, so it is be successful, or die.
We stayed in a small hotel (5 rooms) on the 4th floor of a shopping complex. You could get there by elevator--the smallest I have ever seen--or 4 flights of uneven stairs. I felt safer on the stairs. The up-side was that the rooms were clean and not bug infested like the rooms in Champhai. As a bonus, they had A/C of sorts! This is a good thing, because I think I would have evaporated without it. At one point during the taxi ride, I had to ask Dr. Ray if a person could die just sitting in the heat of the cab. He didn’t answer, but the smell indicated that perhaps a recent customer had.
We went shopping in the medical supply district. Getting there was a 1.5 hour negotiation followed by a 1 hour cab ride. I am not sure we would ever have made it had we not met an English speaking teacher who knew the area. He instructed the cab driver, then came most of the way with us. This was a great example of a symbiotic relationship. We got were we needed to go with pleasant conversation, and he got a free cab ride instead of having to take the bus.
Dr. Ray was like a kid in the candy store, and I was like my wife in a model airplane store. It was fun watching him barter. He may cheaper than I, but he could still use a few pointers. We found some great shops, including one that has an on-line store. On the streets outside, the human crush carries on. Venders selling food, coffee, or seeds. Beggars sitting on the sidewalk, and disabled people on the street trying to get something, anything, from passersby. It is quite a contrast to be in a store selling portable ultrasound machines and 4 feet further, on the street outside the door, see a woman sliding along the street on her bum, holding up her leg with her foot on backwards. That is Kulcutta in a nutshell, the definition of contrast.
We had a little fun on the flight back to Canada. Dr. Ray wanted to learn how to do video editing. With nine hours to kill, and the Air Canada back-of -the-seat entertainment system not working -again – I thought, "Why not? School is in." We were not able to download his camera, but I had a few video clips of Corine playing soccer in Bolivia to work with. We were in the very last row, so the flight attendants were hanging around behind us. One asked what we were doing and I said that Ray was producing his first movie. Somehow they thought he was a real movie producer, and all of a sudden the service improved for us. Things got clarified later in the flight, but we had a good 5 hours of fun before. It does say something about societal values when you consider that the flight attendant was much more interested in meeting a first time movie producer than a doctor doing humanitarian work. Oh well, we weren’t in the backwaters of India to impress a flight attendant anyway.
Thanks to Dr. Ray for yet another amazing experience.
I was home for fewer hours than my London layover, but it was really good to see most of my family. It is amazing how much laundry you can get done between 6PM and 2:30 AM. I lightened my load a bit for the second half of this journey: fewer clothes, only one computer, you know, nothing but the essentials. (Yes, that is a joke!) It was very hard to say goodbye this morning, I feel very lonely sitting on this plane by myself, very lonely indeed.
I am looking forward to coming home and going to the coast with my son, his first trip to the ocean. This year off is not going as I had planned. New wrinkles, new challenges, new directions. As I look back over my life, though, I realize that it has never gone as I had planned. Perhaps it is a little too much like the road to Aizawl. I have always tended to steer away from the safe back roads like my birthplace, Saskatchewan, and tended to steer towards the road to Aizawl. It may never be dull for me, but it can be difficult to sit next to someone through the twists and turns, the ups and downs, the rough patches, the washed out bits and the reconstruction. I look forward to some of my kids buckling up beside me at some point this year. The road is best shared with others."Every valley shall be filled in, every
mountain and hill made low.The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth." (Luke 3:5)
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