Hi Guys
I am writing from a room full of travellers and computers in Kolkata (Calcutta, India)… I will write a more-detailed version later but I wanted to send something…
India is wild, poor, sad, broken, beautiful. Beyond words. I am here with a group of 20, mostly musicians but also my sister emily and my girlfriend trisha. We are working with an organziation called Apne Aap and also The Emancipation Network – our group has been teaching art, music and dance at two different centers this week. Beyond that, we’re just spending time with kids, playing games, singing songs, laughing so much as these kids are incredible. We have also been restoring and painting several rooms at one of the centers. The Anberlin guys are quite the painting team.
Yesterday we spent the afternoon with a group of 30 girls, at a center an hour from where we’re staying… The girls have been rescued from slavery, mostly sex trade. Oldest was 17. Youngest was 8. There was a nine year-old with a baby. There are a couple girls with physical ailments from having sex before their bodies could handle it – one girl couldn’t walk.
It’s easy to get lost in imagining their pasts and all they carry – all of us (on the team) are wrestling with that, and will continue to – but the good news is that these girls have been rescued and represent what is possible, the work that’s being done, the hope for new life.
Yesterday hit Trisha and others very hard but somehow today was when everything changed for me. We visited a red light district tonight in Kidderpore (Kolkata). Visited a shelter there run by Apne Aap, the org we’re working with. Shelter is surrounded by brothels. 10 little girls live there as either their mothers are prostitutes or dead… There are 700-800 prostitutes in this one neighborhood which is approx 1 square mile. We were told there are 20,000 prostitutes working in “city center”.
Heavy beyond words. i wanted to cry, scream, fight… one of the little girls, her mom was working as a prostitute literally in front of the shelter. i was saying goodbye to the little girl and noticed this woman (a prostitute) looking our way and, after we left, someone told me that she was the girl’s mother.
The children are amazing. So beautiful and kind and full of joy. There is one, Pinky, she is tiny. Eight years old. Her mom is the one I mentioned. We’ve all fallen in love with Pinky. She is a cartoon character, always in fifth gear, running around and laughing and talking constantly. I wonder what hell she’s known, and will known, and yet she is a picture of joy. The most wonderful smile.
In what was an incredible privilege and surprise, i met a guy named Geoffrey Pyett today – Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy (in india). He was visiting Apne Aap and addressing the press in Kolkata today. Our group had been invited to send one representative so I was the lucky one. (Picture the Indian press, big news cameras and microphones, guys in suits, and then me in a black Hurley shirt with a handheld camera – why do these things always happen to me?) I learned that the US government donated $8 million in 2006 and plans to do the same in 2007 – to fight trafficking in india. 2 million of which goes to NGO’s (essentially nonprofits), $400k of which goes to Apne Aap, which was great to hear.
Tomorrow is our last day with the kids. It will be difficult to say goodbye. This is a complex tragedy in a complex land. I hope you’ll join me in this conversation as I believe it’s one of the most signifigant on the planet.
Thank you for your prayers.
Much love to you.
jamie
ps: For more, please visit [url2]http://www.missiontocalcutta.com[/url2]