Brother Xavier's

So this is my first blog of the trip.

Today was a fun day for all of us. Mother Teresa's different houses can sometimes be depressing but today we were given some hope for the children of Kolkata.

We all took a wild ride in an ambulance through the streets of Kolkata to the outskirts of town to Brother Xavier's orphanage, Missionaries of the World. The orphanage is located outside of Kolkata's center city. The orphanage was surrounded with lush green, basically we were in the center of a jungle! We were greeted by a ton of smiling screaming children, ages 3 - 16, both boys and girls. As all the women on the trip walked in they boys greeted them with smiles and handshakes. I walked in last and was recieved with screaming, jumping, and some tackling!

We gave all the children beanie babies, bubbles, and dum dums. It was a little chaotic because everyone wanted one, but then we saw older kids passing toys to the youngins and the children trading lollipops mid licks...Then we played and sweat, you can imagine playing soccer in 100 degree weather. I think all of us could agree that we had a lot of fun. I without camera but all of the women on the trip let the children run around and take pictures of everything. Some of them took some funny self portraits.

The Brother Xavier gave us all a tour of the place. I was blown away. He has been working on an amazing garden and grows most of his own food. He recently purchased four buffalo so he now produces his own milk. He is extremley progressive, and teaches the children many languages, has them do yoga every morning. He even has a child psychologist on the grounds to listen to the children. I know all of you seen it, Slumdog Millionaire, well all the children there have seen it too. He felt it was important for the kids there to see the movie.

Afterwards he walked us around the surrounding village which is hidden underneath an array of giant palmtrees. It was calm and serene very different from our Sudder Street circus...I think you would all fall in love with this place.

We then took the ambulence home and some how ended up in the middle of a wedding procession. We were waving and throwing thumbs up to everyone around.

One great thing about this trip has been conversations. I have been meeting people from all over the world. Japan, Spain, Nepal, and various parts of India. Slow conversation is the way of life. Fun scenario today, Julia and I were on the roof of the hotel and we met a family from North East India. They were very kind and invited us to some grape and juice and a snack...but the snack was dried whole fish (eyes and all) and yes I ate them probablly too many. We will see where my digestive system takes me in the next few days.

Well that is all for me, I am going to go outside and enjoy the rain of India, its finally somewhat cool... I hope you are all doing well in the US.

Take care
Derek