From Amritsar to Sonagachi

By Lindsay

Hello blogosphere! 

I haven’t written a blog post of my own since September, so I thought it was about time I give you an update. Right now, life in India is great! There is so much I want to tell you I’m not sure where to start...

Since I last wrote we have seen and experienced many amazing things. Here are a few of them:

The Victoria Memorial

Durga Puja Festival

Our kitty

A Canadian style pancake breakfast with all the women from Destiny Reflection

Participating in the first ever Relief Society meeting in Kolkata

The Dakshineswar Kali Temple

Really really really good chocolate!

The overnight train

The view from our hotel in Varanasi

Rowing a boat down the Ganges River in Varanasi

Cows

 

Good food

The Taj Mahal

A snake charmer in Jaipur

The Golden Temple in Amritsar

The Sun Temple in Konark

The Bay of Bengal 

The village of Raghurajpur

The Jagannath Temple in Puri

And that only scratches the surface of the awesome things we have been so blessed to experience in India! 

I also had my first experience with food poisoning when we were in Jaipur. We ate at a really nice restaurant full of tourists located at the City Palace, but I still ended up almost vomiting on the platform at the train station in Jaipur. I did end up eventually getting sick, and I spent 14 hours on the train from Jaipur to Amritsar in the nasty train bathroom vomiting.  By the time we arrived in Amritsar I was feeling much better, so I decided to go to the border closing ceremony at the India/Pakistan border that evening. However, on the way there I got hungry and decided to eat a bag of chips. Let’s just say I am now regretting that decision. I ended up throwing up in a parking lot full of cars and people at the India/Pakistan border. Looking back, it’s actually quite an entertaining story, but at the time it was most unpleasant.

On Friday we went to visit Freeset, which is another organization like Destiny Reflection. It is located in Sonagachi – Kolkata’s largest red-light district – and employs 180 women who were previously sexually exploited. They specialize in making t-shirts and jute bags. It was incredible being there! They grew from an organization of 20 women to 180 women in just 10 years, and it really showed me the potential that Destiny Reflection has to grow! With approximately 9000 women working in Sonagachi, there is a lot of work still to be done!