Several students ventured off Dartmouth's campus last term to experience a new way of life in India, Texas, Israel, California and Michigan as Tucker fellows.
Andy Smith '98, who spent last term in Calcutta, India, working for organizations founded by Mother Theresa, said his Tucker Fellowship was a "humbling experience."
"I gave so little," Smith said. "It was only three months of my time, but I got so much."
Smith said he volunteered in the mornings at Premdan, a home for the mentally ill. There he bathed, clothed and fed the patients.
"The people there had nothing yet they were all so happy," Smith said.
During the afternoons Smith worked in Kalighat, a home for the dying. He said most of the people there had been picked up off the streets and brought there to die in peace.
Smith said Kalighat was more dismal than Premdan since everyone there was dying.
"There is something you feel when you walk in there," Smith said. "There is a presence about the place, peace amidst suffering."
Nina Dutta '97 also went to Calcutta to work for Mother Theresa's organization on a Tucker Fellowship last term.
Dutta, who speaks Bengali, the language spoken in Calcutta, said she worked in a home for sick children, some brought there by their families, others picked up off the streets.
Dutta said the home housed 40 or 50 children with ailments ranging from malnutrition to tuberculosis, Down's Syndrome and physical deformities.
Together with other volunteers and missionaries, Dutta said she "fed, showered and clothed the children and encouraged interaction between them."
"There was so much sickness concentrated in one place," Dutta said of the home.
Dutta said one of the most interesting things that happened during her time in India was when Mother Theresa came to visit the home.
"Everyone got all excited and the children just ran to her," Dutta said. "She personally thanked each volunteer. It was really neat meeting her."
Smith said Calcutta is "decrepit and falling down," very polluted and impoverished.
India "is a third-world country, it's a whole different world," Dutta said. "You can hear all you want about it, but you can't know what it is like until you see it."
She said in Calcutta there is "poverty everywhere. It is mind-boggling."
"You never see anything like that here," Dutta said.
"It looks like it was built 100 years ago then hit by a bomb shell," Smith said. "The great thing about it though is under the exterior you can find something beautiful."
Working in a shelter in Houston
Sarah Bailin '98 spent last term at Casa Juan Diego, a shelter for Spanish-speaking battered, pregnant immigrant women and their children in Houston, Texas.
Bailin said she went on a Tucker Fellowship to "take the focus off" herself.
"In doing something good, the challenge is to do your service as little for yourself as possible," she said.
Bailin said the purpose of the shelter was to give women a place to stay for a few nights, give them "clothes, food and a few hugs" and assist them in getting Medicaid and food stamps. She said pregnant women often stayed there to have their babies.
Bailin said it takes an average of seven times for a battered woman to leave her husband, and often after leaving the shelter, women return home.
"It is typical of their culture for the women to think that they need a man," she said.
Bailin said she had to fill out police reports for the beaten women and drive the battered women and the pregnant women to the hospital for checkups.
Police and local churches referred women to Casa Juan Diego, Bailin said, and "no one could know where they were." She said the women took on a different name when they got there.
Bailin said there were nearby apartments for women who had "demonstrated their intent on leaving" the men who beat them.
"One thing I realized was that we are not put on this earth to live our lives solely for ourselves," Bailin said.
Teaching English in Israel
Gideon Katz '97 went to Jerusalem last term. He was not only funded by a Tucker Fellowship, he also received a Dickey grant.
Katz, a presidential scholar, said he went to Israel for two purposes -- to study Russian immigration to Israel and to do something meaningful.
Katz said he taught English to Russian children at a community center in "the worst neighborhood of the Jewish part of Jerusalem."
He said he communicated with the children in Hebrew.
Katz had experience in teaching children from tutoring children in Hebrew here in Hanover, and matched a girl he met in Israel with a child he had tutored here.
"They were two little girls with a common theme," he said.
He said he interviewed many of the Russian immigrants for his presidential scholars research and "didn't meet anyone who wished they hadn't come."
"I gained a connection to the country and think I contributed to the life there," Katz said. "These kids don't have anyone now. I was someone who was a little older to be a friend, to teach them and to give them advice."
HIV programs in San Francisco
Mita Gupta '97 volunteered for Bridge for Kids in San Francisco Winter term. She said the program was designed to aid families and women with HIV.
Gupta said she did office work for Bridge for Kids as well as several other jobs which put her in direct contact with people.
She said she volunteered in food banks and soup kitchens, which gave her "a lot more faith in people. There were so many volunteers there was not a lot to do."
"It is good to know there are people out there who want to help," Gupta said.
She said she worked at a shelter for recovering women and their children, taking care of the children to give the women time to themselves.
Gupta said she was also matched with a family for child care. She said the mother was HIV positive, but still healthy.
"She had been through so much, but she was still a good mother," Gupta said. "She had three other children, two in different foster homes and one in an institution and she had used drugs. She showed me pictures and talked about everything."
'Linking Lifetimes' in Detroit
Mary Hill '97 spent Winter term volunteering for Linking Lifetimes, a mentoring program in Detroit that links urban Native American youth to Native elders.
"I felt the need to do something to help my people," Hill said. "Because I am a science major, I am not going to be a lawyer or a policy worker where I will be helping people.".
"I wanted the chance to help my people as an undergraduate," she added.
Hill said she assisted the director of the program with general office work and coordinating activities. She also participated in weekly arts and crafts activities and cultural presentations with the children and their mentors.
She said she "learned how intimidating Dartmouth and just college in general can be to people."
"I met a range of people," Hill said. "Some knew Dartmouth, and then there were people who knew nothing about education."
She added she wanted to see "more of an emphasis on higher education in the Linking Lifetimes program" because many of the children in the program "are lucky to graduate from high school."
