A DAY IN SERAMPORE

Tamrah Schaller O’Neil can be contacted directly regarding Pathways to Children.



Our day starts at 5:15 a.m. when we head over to “Mother House” to go to mass. We leave our shoes at the door. The nuns sit on the floor in prayer or reading their bible while we wait for the priests to enter and lead 6 a.m. mass. A crow outside the open window interrupts my thoughts with its relentless call. During the homily, horns drown out the voice of the priest from time to time. It is a good sermon nonetheless. We head back to the hotel for breakfast in the traffic which is packed with trucks, buses, rickshaws, mini-taxi’s called autos, bikes, dogs, goats and many pedestrians.

Wall of manureAfter breakfast we drive to a small village called Serampore. I try not to pay attention to passing cars because our life seems to be in jeopardy every few minutes. I have prayed a lot while in Kolkata. We arrive safely, and walk to the school we are going to visit. We pass a home where one wall is made of manure patties – probably very insulating and free but it doesn’t have a great perfume.

We enter the school and are greeted with flowers from the children. This is a Calcutta Mercy Hospital-sponsored school called “Monimala: childcare and non-formal education and counseling center for underprivileged children.” It has three classrooms for sixty or so students ages 2-17. They teach English and Bengali and also teach the older students vocational skills such as sewing, knitting and computers. We are entertained by children’s songs and clapping.

FIRST LESSON LEARNED

Posted by DrewBenton on March 10th 2009 in Organizations Edit

It seems like yesterday I stepped onto the property of SafeHouse Outreach (SHO) and was totally freaked out at the sight of several hundred homeless men and women. Being a middle class suburban kid I had never been exposed to such a sight.

At first, I was not sure how to respond. I did not know if I should go up and talk to people or keep to myself. To be honest, I think I was on homeless people overload. I felt as though I had stepped into a third world country. The poverty these people were living in was too much for me to bear.

My background in the suburbs had taught me these people were lazy, crazy, or addicted. Much of my impression of “homeless people” had been shaped by television and pop culture. These thoughts and others raced through my head as I began to walk across the parking lot of SHO and began looking into the faces of these people.

About that time I heard someone shout out at me, “Young man!” I turned and saw a man sitting in a chair wearing layered clothing and a sock hat, holding a cane. I went over to the man and introduced myself. He told me his name was Marlon and he could tell I was new.

Marlon and I had a good laugh at the fact that I looked totally freaked out. We then talked about all kinds of different topics. We talked about God, family, life, and more. His insight was incredible. The more we talked the more we began to connect. The more we began to connect the more I forgot I was talking to a “homeless” man.

Why I am a humanitarian aid worker

This article was cross-posted from The Road to the Horizon.

They ask "So what do you do for a living?", cocktail drink in hand. When I answer "I am an aid worker", there are two kinds of people: Those that roll their eyes and those that say "Really?".

For the first, I don't do an effort to go any further. Either they are not interested or it goes beyond their level of imagination. For those that look me in the eye, I know I will have a hard time to explain what exactly I do. And why.

Over the years, luckily many people has asked me why I do the work I do, far fewer have rolled their eyes.. So what do I answer?

Well, let me tell you a story. Quite a time-appropriate story actually, as it is related to events that happened exactly ten years ago, in the Balkans.

It is a slightly reworked version of the shortstory "Scene of War", published in my eBook.