With Love from Kolkata!!!!

Hello from Kolkata!!  We have been working at the shelters now for four days and it has been such an incredible experience.  Three of the days I have worked at Womens Interlink International, about an hour and a half outside of the city.  There are about 100 girls currently living at the shelter.  The girls are surviviors of trafficking, orphaned because of AIDS or taken in because they were at high risk of being trafficked.  There was one little girl who was rescued right before being auctioned off, her price.... $300.  She is four years old.  I just cant fathom someone selling such a beautiful and sweet child into a life of slavery.  And now here she is at the shelter dancing, coloring, playing duck duck goose or jump rope.  I watched her snuggling in Janell's arms today and I got very upset thinking about where she would be today if it wasn't for these organizations. They have given these children the opportunity to go to school or learn a trade and to simply enjoy their childhood.  Volunteering here has been so amazing, you instantly fall in love with these girls.  They are all so full of life and joy.  And in reality they are the ones that truely have a reason not to be.  Joy just radiates from them into you and it changes you and the way you see the world.  I am truely grateful to be here in India with such an amazing group of volunteers.  We are off to Darjeeling this weekend and back to the shelters next week.  Keep reading we can feel the love here in Kolkata!!!!!