"We need each other, deeper than anyone ever dares to admit even to themselves." -Patch Adams

The closer I get to coming home (22 days... not that I'm counting) the more I realize how much I've changed in just 4 months. My dad made me notice it first when he came to visit me in Delhi. The changes were slow but now I can really tell a difference in myself. I'm happier, more content, and I think India has reawakened this deep sense of purpose that I somehow forgot about between high school and college. In church songs and bible verses, it is said that God makes all things new. That is the best way to describe the state of my heart and soul while being here. Don't get me wrong, I have never been more frustrated or tired or lonely or utterly pissed off than I have been at times here. On the flip side though, I have never seen so many beautiful people or found reasons for hope than in my days here in India.

What I value has changed a ton as well. The importance of community has been a central theme that keeps coming up for me in a lot of different ways. For one, the children at New Light prove just how different a life can be when loved and supported by the right people. Think about it! The little babies that cover my Instagram page would have an entirely different future if New Light didn't take them under their care and teach them there's another way that's free of limits or caste. How incredible!  Furthermore, I have realized just how necessary community is for the soul.

I am becoming a good cook, if I do say so myself. This idea of community and cooking have gone hand in hand for me in the past couple months. At Mother Teresa's, volunteers from literally all over the world come to serve those in need. As would be expected, most are truly incredible people and I have loved getting to know them and call them friends. However, as I've said before the most common time span for volunteers to remain in
Kolkata ranges from a couple days to 2 or 3 weeks. Therefore, people come and go so much here it can get really sad at times... especially when I am always the one saying bye. (At Daya Dan it's a little different because only long time volunteers work on my floor. Since it is required they must be here at least 2 weeks, this has been where I formed the deeper friendships I now have.)

Since the majority of people I meet don't stay very long, I have decided to look at the time spent with them as that much more precious. I have started inviting volunteers over to my apartment for dinner every Sunday. I have found that I really enjoy cooking for others and bringing people together to just share something as simple a meal. I try to make something different every time (except for the fried chicken I was asked to make twice. Yes, the girl from Kentucky had to come to India to learn to make fried chicken. Sorry Mamaw.) This idea sounds simple, but it really has made an impact on me. Most of the time the group that shows up don't all know each other. However, even though some dinners may start off somewhat quietly, by the time everyone leaves I've had to shush the room several times so we don't upset my landlord above us. My friend Dan was helping me with the hot dogs in the kitchen yesterday ('Merica food night) and said "There's been so many different groups of people over here, ya know? Different, but still feels the same here, especially when everyone's laughing."

If anything, this year has been teaching me the value of people and relationships no-matter how small. I now have friends from Norway, France, Chile, China, Korea, Japan, Spain, Canada, Australia and all over the States... and most have been in my kitchen at one time or another. My mother used to crack me up the first month I was here when I talked to her on Skype. After questions about my health and safety it was always, "So have you made friends yet??" I had no way of knowing then, but yes Mom. I definitely have.

Because I have been so lucky to surround myself with such good people, I have also been made that much more aware of India's poverty. I don't mean physical poverty even though that also in my face every day. Mother Teresa said "loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty" and this was coming from a lady who experienced the deep physical poverty of Kolkata her whole life. It is so important then to stop and think that the poverty she felt was the most devastating was also the one we can't really see... we can only feel. Often I pass old women huddled on the streets in their widow white saris. Their backs are hunched over and they are either shaking a little tin can of coins or merely holding out their hands hoping for something to find its way in. Like I have said previously, this is normal to me. Old men and women like this are all over the streets. But ya know, these people were once young with families and jobs and friends and communities. They probably cooked for people too. How did they end up on the streets and how did they lose their communities so much that they literally have no one? If all you had was a tin can and a street corner, how deep must your poverty run? It's terrible to think about, and makes me realize over and over that people were made for other people.