Back in May before I started my Tour de Asia, I moved out of my NYC apartment. Actually, I moved out of NYC altogether. For the first time in nearly 6 years, I have no real address in the city listed under my name! Bizarre.

Anyways, since I was going to be gallivanting across the globe, I stashed most of my belongings at my parents’ house on Long Island. Now I’ve returned and am going through my apartment items as well as cleaning through my past. My childhood and adolescent memories are all here in this house.

I came across a t-shirt that I made when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. It was at a t-shirt making birthday party for Danielle M, who was my best friend in elementary school and who lived a few blocks away from me growing up. I remember all of us sitting around her patio table armed in our smocks and with our fabric squeeze paints. Most of the girls were drawing dogs and cats on their plain white tees or writing their names across the chest and adding embellishments of crowns and flowers. One girl, I still remember, wrote “princess” on her shirt, which I think made even my seven-year-old self cringe a bit.

I also remember thinking that if I were going to make a t-shirt, it was going to be a meaningful one (as if it were a tattoo or something, ha). One that I would wear proudly even when I was in 3rd or 4th grade! I’m not sure why I thought this since my mom and I did t-shirt painting rather frequently when I was a child. But I remember thinking really hard about what I wanted to put on my shirt because I ended up being the last girl to start her shirt and finish too. I was still at the table carefully squeezing my paint tubes while most of the girls were on the swings playing. And when Danielle’s mom came around to check on me, I remember her reaction. She expressed something along the lines of the design being an interesting choice or being different — I can’t quite remember — and then, I remember distinctly, she kind of bent down, squeezed my shoulders, laughed, and said, “Oh, Gabbie Tang, you are a special child.”

Haha.

Thank you, Mrs. M, I was and still am, I think.

I don’t think I ever ended up wearing it outside of gym class because I didn’t feel that I had time to really decorate it properly (and as an aspiring artist, I couldn’t possibly display an art piece that was unfinished or didn’t adequately represent me as an artist!). But I kept it and I’m glad I did! Seven-year-old Gabbie had ambitions that I hope present-to-future Gabbie can fulfill one day, haha.

 
(Brian just said to me, “Oh, Gabbie Tang, some things never change.”)

Though Kolkata was my last stop on my trip, it was the place where I felt least homesick. In fact, as I’m sitting here in the Kolkata airport waiting for my flight to Delhi, I’m not totally ecstatic to be leaving here. I really do hope that I can return soon — whatever soon may mean — but in the mean time, I need a coping mechanism.

Being sick the last three days of the trip (high fever and intense nausea) has been helpful in me wanting to go home, I guess, but I’ve found that negative thoughts aren’t the best way to overcome things. So let’s go to something positive.

 
When people find out that Kolkata is my end destination before my return to New York, they tend to ask me what I’m looking most forward to. Initially I had a tough time answering that because I try not to “long” for home whenever I travel (it makes traveling less fun, obviously) but I really did start to think about in about a week or so ago.

Here is my list, in no real order, of things I have missed and/or am excited to return to after a summer away:

• Family + dog.
• Boyfriend.
• Our list of things to do.
• Friends.
• New York City — truly no city like it. And the best there is. I still stand by that.
• An appropriately temperatured shower.
• Not having to drink out of a bottle all the time.
• The plethora of food options in New York.
• A real bed. With a real mattress.
• Normal clothing, etc. — my clothing, etc.
• Less bugs. Less variety of bugs.
• Sun!
• And with that, the beach.
• Not having a layer of grime consistently as my second skin.
• Increased level of hygiene in general.
• X-Men: First Class.
• Captain America.
• Putting my experiences to use — hopefully!
• English-speaking, American-accented church.
• English-speaking, American-accented everything, actually.
• CUSTOMER SERVICE. God bless America’s tipping system & general politeness (believe it or not!).

I had about half of this on my way to the airport this afternoon and I realized maybe the thing I am looking forward to the most…no offense to friends and family…and the dog…and the boyfriend…but truly, CLEAN AIR.

I feel like I haven’t breathed in over two months. Not a single place I went to had anything remotely resembling clean air.

So there, clean air is the winner as of right now.

 
And so for the next 23 to 24 hours until I land and see Popsicle’s face at the arrival gate, I will focus my thoughts on the positive things that I am returning to in order to deal with leaving Kolkata, the wonderful people I’ve met here, and the super cute kids that I played with pretty much every day.

I’m entering my final week of my trip. I want to say right off that it doesn’t feel like I’ve been gone for 2 months but when I really think back to when I was in China or previous places, it seems like quite a bit of time ago.

This past weekend was my last weekend before heading back to New York, and I’m glad this was my “concluding” weekend. It was absolutely awesome.

I’ve been staying with Shaina, the India program coordinator for NEST (which I plan to write about soon!). She’s here in Kolkata for at least one year — possibly more — and lives in a quaint and relatively convenient part of town. It feels like “real India” in her neighborhood, and I’ve had the chance to meet her local egg man, sweets man, and tea man, among other friendly folks.

Shaina also knows a good number of ex-pats living and working here, as well as short-term volunteers, so I got to meet some people — Americans too, finally!

So a breakdown of my weekend?

Friday:
Went with Shaina to Destiny Reflection, one of the social enterprises that NEST partners with in India. I met the founder Smarita Sengupta, whose birthday it happened to be!

 
Trekked up to Sari Bari, taking the Kolkata Metro for the first time. Will make a post about Sari Bari later on.

 
Stopped off at South City Mall, a super modern mall that makes me feel like I’m in another world within Kolkata.

 
Met up with Shaina and we headed to dinner at Bar-B-Q on Park Street with a bunch of Americans living in Kolkata.

 
Went to the cutest coffee shop in Kolkata, Mocha, where I somehow managed to finish an entire Kit Kat milkshake. Great menu and great ambiance.

 
 
Saturday:
Met up with Kate, the other volunteer at FTBK, up at New Market. Got some henna so that some of the older girls at the center could do some mendhi. Ended up spending far too much on jewelry made of real silver and stones. Said bye to our friends at New Market (Babalu’s family) since we weren’t going back after Saturday.

Kate left to go to the movies and I met Clementine, a MakeSense member who is currently doing a traveling tour to meet social entrepreneurs involved in addressing hunger and malnutrition issues. Ate at Blue Sky Cafe, a popular ex-pat and tourist restaurant in New Market (clean food is key in India!).

Met an Indian man on the street who just returned from a trip to Hong Kong and whose brother attends Boston University (“Have you heard of it?” haha). He spoke French as well as some Chinese.

Walked to Maidan Park and walked through a religious festival for Krishna and Rama before discovering an open park with families sitting around. Reminded me of Central Park. But a small, Indian version.

Met a nice family with a young son (high school age) with whom we chatted for a while. He took a picture with us on his phone, haha.

On our way out, we met a man named Munoj. He works with the Children’s Welfare Committee in conjunction with the U.N. and is very proud of Kolkata. As he walked us to the Metro, he gave us some history and stories behind some of the buildings, including a government building he described as “where the corruption begins.” He also recommended a restaurant to us that has the best Bengali food in all of Kolkata.

Got back too early to Shaina’s so I wandered her neighborhood and stopped by a sweets shop. Chatted with the couple who owned the store, as well as several of their customers, for over an hour! They welcomed me to the neighborhood, invited me to go for morning walks with them, gave me free food, discussed culture and language, suffocated me during their incense burning, and shared parts of their lives with me. It was fun.

 
 
Sunday:
Went to Kolkata Christian Fellowship with Shaina, a church with mainly local Bengalis but also a good amount of ex-pats and visitors. Service is held in English translated to Bengali.

Went to lunch with some of the folks from KCF at South City Mall. Met some interesting and encouraging folks. Tried to get a pedicure and massage with Shaina but that failed. Instead, we caught some street cricket action.

At night, we went to Kewpie’s, the best Bengali restaurant as recommended by Munoj, with Clementine and Melissa, an IJM summer legal fellow. The food was super yum.

New original song by Cheryl Chin…so beautiful

Send her some love!

For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing some work at Free To Be Kids, an organization that works with kids who have been exploited or were at extremely high risks of trafficking. Many of them have been in abusive/violent domestic situations. FTBK has multiple sites but the main one is here in south Kolkata, with a 25 kids living in the center (5 of them are boys). After a rigorous screening and approval process, the kids are admitted into the Home (which the staff does a really good job at making into a family model) where they live, can attend school nearby, get 3 meals a day, and are involved in other activities.

The main focus of FTBK (next to providing a loving home) is education. They have the kids go to the English school nearby during the mornings* and then they run a tutoring program in the afternoons after lunch. Tuition time includes about half an hour to an hour of working on homework and then about 2 hours of additional lessons by FTBK on life skills, soft skills, and more academics.

*I had asked why they chose an English-speaking school rather than a Bengali- or even Hindi-speaking school. I found out that in India, in order to graduate high school, you need to be pretty fluent in English, as the last two grades are conducted solely in English and university is often in English.

 
Tuition Program:
Last week, our tuition program revolved around understanding careers and helping the kids develop their dreams for the future. This week, I’ve been working on increased self-confidence and building resilience, which will allow the kids to better develop those dreams. A lot of them are relatively happy children, being in this safe and loving environment, but at the same time I’ve noticed they don’t have a very good concept of their strengths and talents. They also have a lower level of self-awareness than most kids their age (of course, I’m not sure if this has anything to do with culture too, which it might). So the focus is on creating activities for this week to help them be more aware and to build up esteem and vision, and developing a program that the staff can continue to carry out later on.

And of course, I did some academics with them. For instance, teaching them what vowels are and why it’s important to know them; sounding out words; addition, subtraction, and multiplication; etc. But I’ll probably write another post on my views of education in places like Kolkata…

 
Counseling:
FTBK also doesn’t have any formal or informal counseling in place currently. They don’t have any social workers, which is new to me in a non-profit like this one. So Jeanette had actually contacted me to specifically develop a training for the staff on basic methods of counseling. But after having been here for a bit of time, I’m realizing that there is a need to lay the foundation of understanding what counseling is and why it is needed for populations that have experienced trauma, because it’s just not a concept many Indians, like the staff, comprehend.

So the rest of this week and next week, I’ll be focusing on training the staff on “counseling 101″ and basic counseling skills — being attentive to the kids, noticing signs in behavior and affect, listening to and validating the child, etc. as well as a specific overview of TF-CBT (trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy) and easy therapeutic methods that work well with kids, like art therapy and relaxation methods.

When i’m back in the States, I’ll do follow-up with Jeanette and continue to help her prepare the staff for the implementation of a structured counseling program within FTBK.

Exciting that they will be doing this! We both agreed it’s definitely needed. In my short time of observation, I’ve noticed a few of the kids exhibiting some troubling signs. I think FTBK’s program will be a lot stronger and more beneficial for the children after a few tweaks here and there.

 
 
Oh, and the kids are unbelievably adorable.

A few weeks ago in the Philippines, I had the opportunity to visit a number of organizations. One of them was Red Window, which focuses on developing economic opportunities for adolescent girls and young women who have been sexually exploited — many at a high risk of re-trafficking.

Red Window was actually founded by a former board member of Restore NYC who had also previously worked in a number of anti-trafficking initiatives such as Hagar. I was not able to meet Laura unfortunately as she’s actually in New York getting her PhD at Columbia School of Social Work (we’ve swapped locations).

I met with Amy Collins, who was the first social work intern at Restore back when it was just launching and is currently part of the staff at Red Window. After talking over dinner with me about her work at the organization, she invited me to observe a day of class with the students.

A few days later, I hopped on a jeepney and headed over to her building, just in time for a class. I actually recognized a few of the students from working with them at The Haven and at Welcome House and was glad to be able to take part in a bit more of their post-care experience.

I actually connected with Red Window because they had helped Restore quite a bit this past year in developing our own job readiness program for our clients. It was pretty exciting to see where our program first stemmed from and how it’s tailored for the two different populations in NYC and in Cebu.

The lesson I observed was conducted pretty much all in Cebuano by two locals but fortunately I understood enough to get by. The focus of the class was developing their vision statements.

I cannot express how much I LOVED this class and how it was run. The teachers were phenomenal and handled everything so wonderfully. I can’t go into the details of the lesson for the sake of respecting Red Window’s lesson plan and program that they worked so hard to create, but I’ll try to give a small glimpse into it.

After the first part of the class, which entailed an exercise that encouraged the girls to develop a sense of their strengths, interests, and aspirations, they were given a short explanation on how to create and write a vision statement. Each girl was given a card to write out her statement.

After each one presented her statement, they moved on to a self-awareness portion. When asked how they felt about their statements — what thoughts and feelings they were experiencing in relation to the statement — they began to shout out things such as “hopeful” and “inspired” and “excited.” I started to wonder how the teacher would handle the girls having completely negative reactions of discouragement towards this activity. And then the girls must have read my mind because some began to say things like “not real/possible” and “too ambitious” and “inadequate.”

I loved what the teacher did then. She wrote each one down on the board, just as they were calling them out. After the list was compiled, she acknowledged the positive feelings/thoughts and then circled the negative ones. She asked, “These statements are not as encouraging, right? These feelings can overwhelm us at times and hinder us greatly. But they’re not true statements. What true statements can we tell ourselves to counter these negative ones?” And as she went down the list, each of the girls began to shout out things targeted to each negative statement.

As she wrote them down, she had them all say it loudly.

“I will be strong!”
“You can do it!”
“I will be confident!”
“Keep going!”
etc. etc.

I then had to butt in. I turned to them and said, “You shouldn’t say ‘I will be strong.’ There is no need to tell yourself to be strong and confidence because you already are strong and confident. Do you know what I’m saying?”

And they all began to nod and rephrase the counter statements to be assertive.

“I AM strong!”
“I AM confident!”
“I can do it!”
“I will not quit!”
etc. etc.

The teacher asked for added phrases or quotes or verses as well. Since the girls expressed that they enjoyed Bible verses (it’s a heavily Catholic society) I shared with them Joshua 1:9 — “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid for I, the LORD, and with you wherever you go.”

Each girl chose one or two statements to write down for herself before sharing with the class. A number of them recited the verse from Joshua, which was encouraging to hear from them. The teacher made them re-say it if they didn’t say these positive statements with oomph too, haha. It was nice.

Before I left, I noticed their goals and dreams collages on the wall, which was the first lesson that Kelly had conducted with our clients at Restore and which I had conducted with the girls at The Haven also. Loved seeing it done in so many places!

 
Though I was at Red Window just for one day and only to observe, I absolutely loved my experience there. The program is great and the staff is great. The students there definitely display some difficulties in seeing their own potential and self-worth but at the same time, there is a lot of resilience shining through which is being encouraged even more by Red Window’s program.

The love for equals is a human thing — of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing — the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing — to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy — love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.

- Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat