The rehabilitation centre for leprosy

A view from one of the adults.
First full day in Kolkata and what a day - sorry to say that over and over and over and over.... but today we had the most extraordinary train ride.

We were up at 5am to be ready down stairs at 5.30am to walk to Mother House for mass at 6am. Very nice walking through relatively calm streets in the near dark. Relatively dark as only half of Kolkata was up cleaning, cleaning cars, beginning work on any number of possibilities. Mass is mainly the sisters but any volunteers and any others including us. We then caught the bus to catch the train to take us out to Titigargh - a self sustaining rehabilitation centre set up by Mother Teresa in 1957 for leprosy sufferers. It has turned into something rather big - the healed basically run it and it includes a garden, several fishponds weaving industry, prosethetic business, shoe making. There are also a number of houses for the families of any sick who are in the ward part. It's very exciting to see such centres because they are about dealing to the fundamental problem of leprosy in particular (driven still by fear here, families cast out from villages etc) and poverty in general. It is overlooked/seen by the Brothers of Charity (a man answer to the Sisters of Charity) but is not missionary in any direct way - I think there was a place for hindu worship in the complex as well as mass being said and the Brothers live in the Muslim quarter of Titgargh. We were taken round by Bother Henry who was very chatty. The land the centre is on is on either side of the railway line and was not wanted by the government. Mother Teresa was clearly very persuasive. In her first visits there 50 years ago, she met under a tree. Not so now - all in place. These are the kinds of centres that she established and to which volunteers go everyday. Not this one - it is staffed by ex patients. Today we saw all kinds of leprosy deformities including a ward of blind people. We walked though singing (the National Anthem, Te Aroha and Silent Night) and also saw former sufferers with missing limbs (including hands) nursing and dressing the wounds of currently sufferers.


It was a hot morning but very inspiring if you are bummed out about the state of things here and the impossibility of it all. A train then stopped on the tracks and to get round it we had to walk into Titigagh itself to cross the over bridge. Then the excitement began. The first train arrived and Marty had primed us to force our way on together with all the other people also trying to get on (and what you have to remember here is this is a train where people are already handing off the side - I kid you not). The trains stop for max 30 seconds if that. Our first attempt was a debacle with a couple of people making it on and then being pushed and pulled off. We we were all rather taken aback at the job in hand and I had visions of us taking all day to get on the train. The second train duly arrived and by this stage we were more strategic, breaking into smaller groups. We surged onto the train and by this imagine pushing your way into a ruby scrum where people are pushing you from behind and the people in the scrum are pushing you out. There is equality in the sexes here when it comes to pushing and shoving - oh my god. With no idea who had got on (in fact forgot to say, first try, Sam Moffit got on and rode the distance on his own - a panic in itself but a gorgeous boy who got off at the right place and sat and waited), Jan, Bernie and I with Caleb, Fraser and Hamish and Courtenay and Georgina made it though the door. The train set off as we were still making it on and away we went. We had instructions to get off at Dum Dum, which was five stations away. So you have an extremely full train and at each of the four stops before Dum Dum about 10 people got on each time. You have to keep your passport and money stuff safe so we are huddled together protecting the girls and trying not to pee yourself (this from a person who doesn't close the toilet door). The boys were brilliant in holding their ground because we couldn't afford to get too far from the door - getting on the train is one thing but then we had to get off and remember train stops for 30 max - but actually it's more like 15 seconds - I am not joking. It was stressful so having sung all morning we started another round of singing. It went down a treat but made no extra room. The other groups in the other carriages heard us and couldn't believe we were singin. Meanwhile, Kyle had got Rosemary on to the Women's Only Carriage and was abused the whole way by the front row forward Indian women (not in size but in brute force). All you could really do was laugh as we were all groped, pushed, lifted up (I could not put my left foot down the whole way). What a riot. When we got off, amazingly every one had made it and there was Sam - much to everyone's relief.