Mass at the motherhouse & our return to Udayan
Today started with an 5am wakeup call, not in preparation for our return to Udayan, but to join the Missionaries of Charity for mass at the Motherhouse – the headquarters for Mother Teresa’s sisters. Deacon Liam was able to celebrate mass alongside Fr Peter a Jesuit priest from Kolkata. After mass, we spoke with some of the other volunteers who were keen to learn of what had brought us to Kolkata and they shared what their service to the poorest of the poor entailed. We also visited a small museum about Mother Teresa’s life and saw her room before spending some time in the presence of her tomb.
After mass we went back to the hotel to pack up our bags before saying goodbye to the hotel luxuries we have enjoyed the past few days ahead of our return to Udayan. We have all enjoyed our time in the city and The Elgin Fairlawn Hotel but there is no place like home – Udayan, and the whole group were starting to miss the children. Everyone went out for one last explore of the City of Joy (Kolkata) taking in the street stalls, supermarket, Kolkata’s Starbucks but sadly no one got a second visit to the beautiful indoor market due to puja. We just had enough time to squeeze in a lovely hotel lunch ahead of Basir and Ganesh arriving to pick us up to drive us back.
The traffic at the weekends in Kolkata is far easier to navigate than during the week and it took us just over an hour to get back to Udayan. As soon as we arrived, we were greeted with huge smiles and hugs from all the children. It was a lovely welcome back and it was great to be back for the remaining 5 days we have in Kolkata. We wasted no time in getting stuck in to life at Udayan with Amy, Charlotte, Emily and Eva having their hair braided by the girls once again whilst others talked and played games with the girls outside.
Gita, one of the house mothers at Udayan, helped the girls in making alterations to their saree blouses to ensure they fitted perfectly for our celebration on Wednesday evening. She used an old Singers sewing machine. Everyone enjoyed putting on our outfits and watching Gita work. Our thanks must go to both Adrija, for taking us shopping last week, and Gita, for her support this afternoon in tailoring them this afternoon.
Finally, we all gathered in the Dining Hall to finish off the day with a Bollywood movie whilst an intense plot and confusing at times, it extremely popular with all. After an early start and very long day we are all a little tired so we’re off to bed for a nice long sleep.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!