Kolkata, India

After some consideration I decided to start writing in English. Mostly because everything I do here, and all the people I hang out with, is expressed in English, and I find it so difficult to change to Swedish when I write about all the things I experience every day... (and also that the Swedish letters don't exist here).

Anyhow, the last days have (once again) been quite overwhelming.

It all started the day before yesterday when we went to see a Bollywood movie - it was all in hindi and I must say it is amazing how much you get of the movie even though you can't understand a word! It was really really funny, and the dancing was good (but I was a bit disappointed since there were only three songs/dances and I expected a lot more).

Then yesterday I went together with the other volunteers to the Indoor clinic as usual. We were approximately 9 persons who were ready to go work in the outdoor clinic - when they come and say "o nonono, only 2 volunteers can come with us today". This place is so incredibly disorganized! If we had known, some of us could have taken the day off or plan to do something else. Instead people just had to hang around at the Indoor clinic without having anything to do...

Anyhow I went with a new finnish girl to the outdoor clinic in Keadah, which was a very rural remote place in the countryside without electricity. It was extremely hot and the air stood totally still - luckily we didn't have too many patients and we could go home after 2 hours of work. The work was just as usual to give injections, make dressings to wounds and skin infections and to measure blood pressure.

In the evening we decided to go out clubbing, since the care taker was out of the house (and when he is home we always have to be back in the house before 11 pm). We first tried to find this good restaurant described in my Rough Guide, but after one hour of searching we gave up (I really wanted to have some good bengali cuisine!). We had dinner in another restaurant which was OK and then we went to South City Mall for a disco - they had danceable music and great drinks so we had a lot of fun. Almost all the volunteers came so we were approximately 20 people dancing together trying to do Bollywood dancing moves and just having fun :)

The night ended a bit less good though. First of all they charged some of the drinks double, and some people started to argue with the bartender (also they closed the club at 00.30 am, really early). Second was that we all started to walk home together. Since the night air was fresh and none of us were tired we decided to walk home (it takes 20 minutes)... Which all was fine until we started to encounter a lot of dogs. In the beginning there were only small groups of dogs and we were not so scared - we just stuck together in the group and didn't show the dogs that we payed them any intention. However, 5 minutes before reaching home the number of dogs multiplied and they became more and more aggressive! We stayed together in the group and Johnny (a huge guy from Kanada, really strong and protective) told us to not look at them, stay calm and just keep on walking - don't run! But the futher we walked the more dogs there were and they were all barking and aggressive. I counted maybe up to 20 dogs in front of us, and Johnny said there were about 20-30 dogs behind us. "don't panic!" johnny said, but I was sooooo scared. I held Francinses hand as tight as I could and we all walked really close together. By the road we noticed large sticks which we could use as weapons if the dogs attacked... Luckily we never needed to use them!!! We were lucky enough to turn right, and we were home, safe away from the dogs. We were all shaking and my heartbeat was well over hundred. Scary!

To explain I must tell that there are many stories of people getting attacked by stray dogs in the middle of the night. During the day they are harmless, but during night they gather together in groups and become very aggressive and territorial thinking, and they attack any strangers coming in their way. Some people get really badly bitten by them, ending up i hospital. A friend of mine went out just her and one other guy, and they had to use sticks to defend themselves only to a small group of dogs (and we had around 40-50 dogs surrounding us)...

Phuuu.... So what did I learn? Don't walk in the streets of India by night, not even if you are in a group and feel safe.

Finally today I went with my friend (volunteer) Anna to visit an Indian couple. We just met them in the street (first Anna when she was looking for the way to the mall and then me when the couple was looking for Anna) and they wanted us to come have lunch with them. So today we went at noon to their house, they lived with the wife's mother in a 3 room apartment, and they were so kind and friendly. However, it is really interesting to notice the big big difference in culture. They let us first in to sit in their bedroom on their bed (it seems that they thought it was the fanciest place in their apartment) and then after an hour they started cooking (the women) and the husband started showing us a lot of pictures from their hindu wedding (which was incredibly interesting!). Then food was ready - but they only made the table for 2 persons. "aren't you going to eat with us?" we asked, but they said No, they would have dinner later, this food was for us. Which was a little bit weird, they served us food and looked at us eating it but didn't sit with us or joined us. The food was delicious though, and I really enjoyed to get some real bengali home made cooking!

They were very very nice and insisted on driving us home (it was just a 3 minutes walk) and afterwards I got a text message saying "thank you so much for visiting us, we really enjoyed it, please come back soon!" Haha so yes, it was very pleasant, and very different.

Every day so many things happen, you experience so much, it's crazy. But I really think you also get a little bit wiser for every day here :)

Now it's time for dinner, one of the volunteers is celebrating his birthday today.

Ciao!