"All Aboard."

After spending a final night in the busy streets of the Indian capital, we boarded a 21 hour train ride to exchange the hot, dusty, auto rickshaw crazed busy streets of Delhi for the even hotter, humid-er, taxi crazed streets of Kolkata. The Muslim influence is much more obvious here, reminding me of Cairo on many occasions. Even the streets, much smaller than in Delhi, remind me of Cairo as there are more taxis than rickshaws and the streets are much narrower making there seem like even more traffic. Kolkata, the second most populated city in India, is obviously known for Mother Theresa and the work she accomplished here. But this is to the grave dismay of many Kolkatans (and Indians alike), as Kolkata represents the art and culture metropolis of India, and was the capital under Imperial British rule. Kolkatans feel Mother Theresa, although doing great things, further underlined and emphasized the worst part of Kolkata to the world, leading to the very one-sided international view of Kolkata that exists today.

But enough history...

Our train ride was long. and hot. and long. Very long. My only relief was opening up the train door as we barreled along allowing more breeze to enter the train car and cabin. The Indians taught me how, so it must be safe... Along the way we met a family from Bangladesh who helped us a find a good hotel in Kolkata for one night before we spent a lot of time looking for a permanent place to stay. We also met an Israeli woman traveling alone who we had dinner with. It was very interesting to talk with her about her knowledge of the latest incident between Turkey and Israel and how much different her account was of the situation than what we believed it to be through an American news source. Later in the day we found a very nice place which we will stay at for the next three weeks.

This afternoon we were also able to locate the "Mother House" - where we will need to register at to begin our work at the "Missionaries of Charity" for the next three weeks. We start tomorrow morning at 06:00 with mass and breakfast. I have no idea what to expect, but I am hoping to find a very rewarding experience (and no doubt will).

CM