WE MADE IT

Well after the longest travel day and 20 plus hours of flying we finally made it into Kolkata at 2:45AM which is 1:15PM at home. We were well taken care of on the flight though.... always being served food, handed warm towelettes, and we each had our own TV screen with a ton of movies and TV shows to watch.

My first thoughts coming into the airport was that this is a lot like a Mexican airport in that the windows were all open, tropical decorations and it wasn't particularly clean but not bad.... exiting the airport was a whole new scene.... it was about 60 degrees and foggy, plus it smelled.  I was told it is the smell of burning garbage and that this is simply a characteristic of Kolkata.  There were people and garbage everywhere. It was a scene that I simply could not have imagined. 

It was about a 30 minute drive to the hospital and one of the bonuses of flying in and traveling at night is that there was no traffic... I am told that driving can be a tad treacherous.  What we were able to see at night was that there were small make-shift homes and campsites all along the road, but it was too dark to see details. 

The people at the hospital are so friendly and hospitable.  We have a community room/kitchen with a refrigerator stocked full of bottled water.  The rooms are comfortable, I will post pictures later.  The good news....I have yet to see any bugs. :)

We just finished breakfast...  not sure what it was.... vegetable pancakes maybe.... it was good. Today the plan is to tour the city and go through a cultural orientation with the volunteer coordinator at the hospital.