India 2009!

What Katie forgot to mention about the cyclone situation is that when the power goes off in Kolkata there is no running water. For the Spada family members reading this out there or anyone who has ever heard the “We got scared!” story, it literally was like a flashback to Bermuda. We could not flush the toilet or shower, and we started getting worried about drinking water because the stores were all closed because of the cyclone. Since the situation was completely beyond our control though, we decided to just go to bed and hope for the best in the morning. Around 3 in the morning, I remember waking up, seeing the neighbor’s lights on, and screaming to Katie to go flush the toilet while the water was running. It was a beautiful five minutes with the fan running and the toilet flushing, but then the power went off again for the rest of the night.

When we woke up in the morning, Katie and I got all of our stuff together and starting packing. It was weird to be packing because we felt like we had just arrived in Kolkata the day before. I had a great conversation with Asim on the phone and we went over all kinds of logistical things for the train ride. I literally do not know what we would do without that family…they have been so helpful throughout this whole process.

After packing, we got to spend time with the little girl, Sumana, who lives in the apartment below ours. She is an amazing five year old girl with so much energy and it was nice to just play with her for a while. It was her birthday the day before, so we made her four different friendship bracelets that she was so excited to put on. While Katie finished packing, I took a rickshaw with Mayadidi to see if we could purchase a few more travelers checks with the American money we had brought with us. Purchasing travelers checks didn’t work out though, so I had a very serious conversation with Mayadidi about where to safely store the money while on the train. After a few minutes of discussion, we settled on the best option. Mayadidi and I both chuckled as I rolled up the stack of twenty dollar bills and shoved them down the front of my sports bra!

When we got back to the apartment, we started saying goodbye to everyone. It was actually very sad to leave, but the relationships we formed in Kolkata will not end just because we are leaving. It was amazing—we literally took pictures with everyone. I felt like I was leaving home all over again. We were truly blessed to enter into Mayadidi’s life and we still need to think of a way to repay the favor.

I’m going to quickly update everyone on the situation because we never have enough time to say everything we want to say. I will come back later and fill in the details, but it is currently Thursday night and we are sitting in our apartment in Kamal’s house in Allahabad and everything is good! We caught our train and arrived in Allahabad with no problems. We had a little difficulty finding Joy at the train station, but we eventually found each other. We have met with Joy and discussed everything, and I honestly have a lot of hope for our project with SOUP. And our living situation with Kamal is going well so far. She is taking great care of us and we even have air-conditioning! Okay, well I promise we will fill in all the details but the bottom line is that we are in Allahabad and we are safe!