Mother Teresa

Several friends had recommended that we spend some time at the 'Mother House' which just happens to be a few metres along the road from our accommodation at the BMS on AJC Bose Rd. So we dragged ourselves up while it was still dark (the call to prayer from the local mosque helped to wake us up) and went down for the mass at 6 am.

This lasted an hour, with an Advent challenge from the priest - to be reminded before Christmas of Christ's coming, of His second coming, and also of His coming to us daily in the poor and suffering. The service felt partly familiar to the Anglican liturgy we were used to in St Andrews in Brunei, although some of the responses were sung. The nuns were accompanied in their singing of hymns by a basic organ, which may actually have been a Bengali harmonium - I couldn't see.

After communion, we all went down to the courtyard below where breakfast was dished out - a large hunk of bread, a banana and sweet milky tea. We got given a pass to go and help at the Shishu Bhavan, again just down the road, the children's orphanage. We were sent to the toddler section and spent the morning playing with kids, helping hang out zillions of nappies and sheets on the rooftop, and then more playing with the kids and feeding them lunch before we were shooed away so the children could have their afternoon nap.

Roxanne coped admirably with being clambered over by heaps of kids at a time, and rescuing kids who had fallen over and banged their heads on the marble floors. The children themselves were mostly very alert and loved to be cuddled and played with. In spite of the institutional feel (keeping 120 kids under control is no mean feat) and what seemed to us at times quite abrupt treatment from the Bengali women in charge, the orphanage must be a vast improvement on being on the streets of Calcutta. In the area where the handicapped children were, there was nice music playing with decorations hanging from the ceiling. One of the Bengali women next to me feeding three kids lunch (rice, dhal and channa mashed up) was singing to them to encourage them to eat. Their ideas of kids being independent and fending for themselves contrasted sharply with ours, of course.

We also visited Mother Teresa's tomb and read her story and some of her writings round the walls. It seems appropriate to finish with her words - ' I am a little pencil in God's hand. He does the writing. He does the thinking. He does the moving. I am just the pencil.'