Friday, Sept. 4, 2009

So here I sit at the internet cafe - noon on Friday - and I'm hearing the Muslim call to prayer. It gets broadcast across the city how ever many times a day they are supposed to pray, I guess. I heard it earlier this morning, at 4 a.m. I took it as a good reminder to take the time to pray myself, as I was going to be getting up at 4:50 anyway. It's sort of a creepy feeling to hear that broadcast - don't know, I guess it reminds me of something futuristic where you're being watched and directed by "big-brother". I mentioned to Garrett and Laura that they should broadcast a reminder to pray the Divine Mercy at 3:00 too!!

Well, it has poured a couple of times today - first time was when we were walking to the Mother House for Mass. We left the hotel around 5:30 with ponchos on - a good thing as the bottom part of my pants (capri length) was absolutely soaked when I got there. But fear not, even with the rain it was still amazingly hot - fortunately I had my trusty bandana with me to totally wipe my face and neck of the sweat! Mass was great - just what I needed! After breakfast at the Blue Sky Cafe (the restaurant we have eaten at for all of our meals so far - my breakfast was a large bowl of yogurt with fresh pineapple and also two pieces of cinnamon toast and a liter of water all for $1.30), we went back to our room to sleep or read or whatever. At three we are going to the volunteer orientation - don't know how long that will take but it will let us be able to begin the work we came to do, tomorrow morning (so exciting!!). For those of you who don't know, Calcutta is 12 1/2 hours ahead of Oregon, so right now it is 12:15 in the afternoon on Friday here and it is about 11:45 at night on Thursday for you. Well, I guess we're heading out so I will end for now. Next time, I'll let you know how our first day of volunteering goes/went.