Day 42

After six long and revelatory weeks, our work in Kolkata has come to a close.

When first we discussed the idea of travelling to India, all the way back in Inveraray in our little white box room by the George Hotel, we maintained firmly that any extended trip to the subcontinent should not be without a period of voluntary work. We wanted expressly to witness and engage with people who endure the kind of poverty we'd only ever seen on TV screens or described in articles and books and we wanted to remain in the midst of it for long enough so that we might gain some sense of its enduring actuality.

After this relatively short length of time, I feel that we've achieved as much as is possible. We've certainly learned that, despite the best of intentions, our limitations have loomed large over our efforts.

Before we began work with the Missionaries of Charity, I attended an orientation session. Something said (or at least paraphrased from Mother Theresa) by one of the sisters, a Polish, thick-set woman of forty-odd, has stuck with me all throughout and I believe it to be true. She said, "You and I are not really needed here. If we were to leave tomorrow, the work would still continue. Unless you are a doctor or a nurse, the work that you can do is very limited. If we are honest, we come here for ourselves. We come here to see poverty with our own eyes, see its human face and so ultimately recognise the poor person in ourselves'.

This then, through the passage of recognition and compassion brings a person, if they so believe, closer to God or at least, to a godless man like myself, a more humanistic aspect to his perception of the world. I agree with it in principle but have found that the possibility of really relating to the people we've worked with and the lives that they've lead is scuppered without a couple of essential qualities.

The first is communication. Of course one can convey the basics without the spoken word: 'hello', 'goodbye', 'yes', 'no', etc. and as many an idealist may be wont to suggest, 'A smile can speak a thousand words!'. But in all honesty, it doesn't. If a man is squirming in agony because of a swollen, pus-soaked injury to his leg or if another is sat deeply contemplating the inconceivable difficulty and hardship of a life spent struggling on the streets for survival, another smile from the fifteenth white-faced stranger this week is only going to go so far.

I must say I only speak for myself in this instance. Lucy has found the women to be far more affectionate and tactile and consequently has been able to adopt something of a maternal role which is, I imagine, far easier to adopt without having to resort to language. The men however, tend typically to be proud and solitary in a way that doesn't exactly invite you to start stroking their hand or singing softly into their ear.

Communication therefore can only really occur, or at least with the men I've worked with, through actually sharing a spoken language; through speaking to these people, one can elicit the detail of their thoughts. This will not only relieve them of the onus of their memories but also help you to come to understand them better- to recognise, as the sister said, the lives that they've lead. This is most evident when watching a couple of the longer-term volunteers. An Australian man in his sixties, lean and robust, is fluent in Bengali and specifically the street Bengali that is spoken by most of the men. The reaction that he stirs, even from an exchange of a few sentences, can do far more than an entire afternoon's worth of bedside smiles. Recognition then, without the aid of shared language, ever only really scratches surface-deep.

The second limitation comes in the form of what we can offer the people we're expected to help. The effective work that an unskilled volunteer can actually do is really restricted to cleaning, mopping, massaging, serving food and, as stated above, smiling. The number of volunteers at any one of the centres we visited was always in excess of that which was required and so consequently, when paired with the uncertainty of the role you're expected to play, people can often be found tentatively ambling between the beds looking for things to do. I am impatient at the best of times but this sense of superfluousness I found difficult to bear (maybe there was a lesson there somewhere). The work was therefore, for the most part, rather frustrating and dull.

I don't man to suggest that the work was pointless or wasteful- I've learned a great deal from it and feel as if I've gained something vital but, if ever I decide to do anything similar again in my life, I'll know (and I think Lucy would agree) it will be imperative to firstly learn at least a little of the language and secondly, to arrive with a useful, necessary and applicable skill.

Good. On now to the selfish pusuit of pottering.